“Got the push the day before yesterday,” he answered tersely.
“Poor devil! He’ll take it hard. He’s a hotheaded youngster. Just the sort to go off and blow his brains out.”
Meanwhile Quarrington had established Magda at a corner table in the empty supper-room and was seeing to it that Lady Arabella’s commands were obeyed, in spite of Magda’s assurances that she was not in the least hungry.
“Then you ought to be,” he replied. “After dancing. Besides, unlike the rest of us, you had no dinner.”
“Oh, I had a light meal at six o’clock. But naturally, you can’t consume a solid dinner just before giving a performance.”
“I’m not going to pay you compliments about your dancing,” he observed quietly, after a pause. “You must receive a surfeit of them. But”—looking at her with those direct grey eyes of his—“I’m glad I didn’t leave England when I intended to.”
“Why didn’t you?” she asked impulsively.
He laughed.
“Because it’s so much easier to yield to temptation than to resist,” he answered, not taking his eyes from her face.
She flushed a little.