“Think you’ll like it?” Lady Arabella shot at her keenly.
“Yes,” Magda replied unhesitatingly. “But why am I going to live with you? Sieur Hugh isn’t dead, too, is he?”—with impersonal interest.
“And who in the name of fortune is Sieur Hugh?”
Lady Arabella looked around helplessly, and Virginia, who was hovering in the background, hastened to explain the relationship.
“Then, no,” replied Lady Arabella. “Sieur Hugh is not dead—though to be sure he’s the next thing to it!”
Magda eyed her solemnly.
“Is he very ill?” she asked.
“No, merely cranky like all the Vallincourts. He’s in a community, joined a brotherhood, you know, and proposes to spend the rest of his days repenting his sins and making his peace with heaven. I’ve no patience with the fool!” continued the old lady irascibly. “He marries to please himself and then hasn’t the pluck of a rabbit to see the thing through decently. So you’re to be my responsibility in future—and a pretty big one, too, to judge by the look of you.”
Magda hardly comprehended the full meaning of this speech. Still she gathered that her father had left her—though not quite in the same way as petite maman had done—and that henceforth this autocratic old lady with the hawk’s eyes and quick, darting movements was to be the arbiter of her fate. She also divined, beneath Lady Arabella’s prickly exterior, a humanness and ability to understand which had been totally lacking in Sieur Hugh. She proceeded to put it to the test.
“Will you let me dance?” she asked.