appeared on the scene, pausing
abruptly in the doorway as he caught sight of Magda's laughing face
bent above the fiery red head. There was something very charming in her
expression of eager, light-hearted abandonment to the fun of the moment.

At the sound of the opening door Coppertop wriggled out of her grasp
like an eel, twisting his lithe young body round to see who the new
arrival might be. His face fell woefully as he caught sight of Davilof.

"Oh, you can't _never_ have come already to play for the Fairy Lady!" he
exclaimed in accents of dire disappointment.

"Fairy Lady" was the name he had bestowed upon Magda when, very early
in their acquaintance, she had performed for his sole and particular
benefit a maturer edition of the dance she had evolved as a child--the
dance with which she had so much astonished Lady Arabella. Nowadays
it figured prominently on her programmes as "The Hamadryad," and was
enormously popular.

"It's not never three o'clock!" wailed Coppertop disconsolately, as
Davilof dangled his watch in front of him.

"I think it is, small son," interpolated Gillian, gathering together her
sewing materials. "Come along. We must leave the Fairy Lady to practise
now, because she's got to dance to half the people in London to-morrow."

"Must I really go?" appealed Coppertop, beseeching Magda with a pair of
melting green eyes.

She dropped a light kiss on the top of his red curls.

"'Fraid so, Coppertop," she said. "You wouldn't want Fairy Lady to dance
badly and tumble down, would you?"

But Coppertop was not to be taken in so easily.

"Huh!" he scoffed. "You _couldn't_ tumble down--not never!"

"Still, you mustn't be greedy, Topkins," urged Magda persuasively.
"Remember all the grown-up people who want me to dance to them! I
can't keep it all for one little boy." He stared at her for a moment in
silence. Suddenly he flung his arms round her slender hips, clutching
her tightly, and hid his face against her skirt.

"Oh, Fairy Lady, you are so booful--_so booful_!" he whispered in a
smothered voice. Then, with a big sigh: "But one little boy won't be
greedy." He turned to his mother. "Come along, mummie!" he commanded
superbly. And trotted out of the room beside her with his small head
well up.

Left alone, Davilof and Magda smiled across at one another.

"Funny little person, isn't he?" she said.

The musician nodded.

"Grown-ups might possibly envy the freedom of speech permitted to