CHAPTER XIX
AT THE END OF THE STORM
“This is very nice—but it won’t exactly contribute towards finishing the picture!”
As she spoke Magda leaned back luxuriously against her cushions and glanced smilingly across at Michael where he sat with his hand on the tiller of the Bella Donna, the little sailing-yacht which Lady Arabella kept for the amusement of her guests rather than for her own enjoyment, since she herself could rarely be induced to go on board.
It had been what Magda called a “blue day”—the sky overhead a deep unbroken azure, the dimpling, dancing waters of the Solent flinging back a blue almost as vivid—and she and Quarrington had put out from Netherway harbour in the morning and crossed to Cowes.
Here they had lunched and Magda had purchased one or two of the necessities of life (from a feminine point of view) not procurable in the village emporia at Netherway. Afterwards, as there was still ample time before they need think of returning home, Michael had suggested an hour’s run down towards the Needles.
The Bella Donna sped gaily before the wind, and neither of its occupants, engrossed in conversation, noticed that away to windward a bank of sullen cloud was creeping forward, slowly but surely eating up the blue of the sky.
“Of course it will contribute towards finishing the picture.” Quarrington answered Magda’s laughing comment composedly. “A blow like this will have done you all the good in the world, and I shan’t have you collapsing on my hands again as you did a week ago.”
“Oh, then, you brought me out on hygienic grounds alone?” derided Magda.
She was feeling unaccountably happy and light-hearted. Since the day when she had fainted during the sitting Michael seemed to have changed. He no longer gave utterance to those sudden, gibing speeches which had so often hurt her intolerably. That sense of his aloofness, as though a great wall rose between them, was gone. Somehow she felt that he had drawn nearer to her, and once or twice those grey, compelling eyes had glowed with a smothered fire that had set her heart racing unsteadily within her.