“You like my dancing?” she said at last.
“You know I do.”
“Well”—she looked at him with a mixture of defiance and appeal. “My dancing is me—the real me.”
He shook his head.
“You’re not the ‘Swan-Maiden,’ whose love was so great that she forgot everything except the man she loved—and paid for it with her life.”
“The process doesn’t sound exactly encouraging,” she retorted with a flash of dry humour. “But how do you know I’m not—like that?”
“How do I know? Because, if you knew anything at all about love, you couldn’t play with it as you do. Even the love you’ve no use for is the biggest thing the poor devil who loves you has to offer you; you’ve no right to play battledore and shuttlecock with it.”
He spoke lightly, but Magda could hear the stern accusation that underlay the words. She rose from the table abruptly.
“I think,” she said, “I think I’m afraid of love.”
As she spoke, she made a movement as though to quit the supper-room, but, either by accident or design, Michael barred her way.