Magda perched on the foot of Gillian’s bed, her hands clasped round her knees, nodded.
“Yes, I suppose I ought. I don’t know what made me do it—except that he’d suggested I should leave Stockleigh! I’m not used to being—shunted!”
“Heaven knows you’re not!” agreed Gillian ruefully. “It would be a wholesome tonic for you if you were. I told you only yesterday that it would be better if we left here. And on top of that you must needs go and dance in the moonlight, of all things, while Dan Storran looks on! What ordinary man is going to keep his head in such circumstances, do you suppose? Especially when he was more than half in love with you to start with. . . . Oh, I should like to shake you!”
“Well, I’ll leave now—as soon as ever you like,” replied Magda, slipping down from the bed. She was unwontedly meek, from which Gillian judged that for once she felt herself unable to cope with the situation she had created. “Will you arrange it?”
Gillian shrugged her shoulders.
“I suppose so,” she returned resignedly. “As usual, you break the crockery and someone else has to sweep up the pieces.”
Magda bent down and kissed her.
“You’re such a dear, Gillyflower,” she said with that impulsive, lovable charm of manner which it was so difficult to resist. “Still”—her voice hardening a little—“perhaps there are a few odd bits that I’ll have to sweep up myself.”
And she departed to her own room to complete her morning toilette, leaving Gillian wondering rather anxiously what she could have meant.
When, half an hour later, the two girls descended for breakfast, Dan Storran was not visible. He had gone off early to work, June explained, and Magda experienced a sensation of distinct relief. She had dreaded meeting Dan this morning. The mad, bizarre scene of the night before, with sudden unleashing of savage and ungoverned passions, had shaken even her insouciant poise, though she was very far from seeing it in its true proportions.