“It certainly required some explanation when you chose to leave me and go off and live by yourself,” pursued Lady Arabella, resuming her knitting. “A girl of twenty! Of course people have talked. Especially as half the men in town imagine themselves in love with you.”
“Well, I’m perfectly respectable now. I’ve engaged a nice, tame pussy-cat person to take charge of my morals and chaperon me generally. Not—like you, Marraine—an Early Victorian autocrat with a twentieth-century tongue.”
“If you mean Mrs. Grey, she doesn’t give me the least impression of being a ‘nice, tame pussy-cat,’” retorted Lady Arabella. “You’ll find that out, my dear.”
Magda regarded her thoughtfully.
“Do you think so?”
“I do.”
“Oh, Gillian is all right,” affirmed Magda, dismissing the matter airily. “She’s a gorgeous accompanist, anyway—almost as good as Davilof himself. Which reminds me—I must go home and rehearse my solo dance in the Swan-Maiden. I told Davilof I’d be ready for him at four o’clock; and it’s half-past three now. I shall never get back to Hampstead through this ghastly fog in half an hour.” She glanced towards the window through which was visible a discouraging fog of the “pea-soup” variety.
Lady Arabella sniffed.
“You’d better be careful for once in your life, Magda. Davilof is in love with you.”
“Pouf! What if he is?”