“They’ve left me very little reputation at any time. A little less can’t hurt me.”
His eyes grew stormy.
“Don’t!” he said sharply. “I hate to hear you talk like that.”
“But it’s true! No public woman gets a fair chance.”
“You will—when you’re my wife,” he said between his teeth. “I’ll see to that.”
Magda glanced at him swiftly.
“Then you don’t want me to—to give up dancing after we’re married?”
“Certainly I don’t. I shall want you to do just as you like. I’ve no place for the man who asks his wife to ‘give up’ things in order to marry him. I’ve no more right to ask you to give up dancing than you have to ask me to stop painting.”
Magda smiled at him radiantly.
“Saint Michel, you’re really rather nice,” she observed impertinently. “So few men are as sensible as that. I shall call you the ‘Wise Man,’ I think.”