little
figure sank to the ground, drooping slowly like a storm-bent snowdrop,
and lay still.

Lady Arabella sat up with a jerk.

"Good gracious! The child's a born dancer! Lydia Tchinova must see her.
She'll have to train. Poor Hugh!" She chuckled enjoyably. "This will be
the last straw! He'll be compelled to invent a new penance."

PART TWO

CHAPTER I

THE FLOWERING

"You're very trying, Magda. Everyone is talking about you, and I'm tired
of trying to explain you to people."

Lady Arabella paused in her knitting and spoke petulantly, but a secret
gleam of admiration in her sharp old eyes as they rested upon her
god-daughter belied the irritation of her tones.

Magda leaned back negligently against the big black velvet cushions in
her chair and lit a cigarette.

"I _want_ everyone to talk about me," she returned composedly. Her voice
was oddly attractive--low-pitched and with a faint blur of huskiness
about it that caught the ear with a distinctive charm. "It increases
the box-office receipts. And there's no reason in the world for you to
'explain' me to people."

Her godmother regarded her with increasing irritation, yet at the same
time acutely conscious of the arresting quality of the young, vividly
alive face that gleamed at her from its black-velvet background.

Ten years had only served to emphasise the unusual characteristics
of the child Magda. Her skin was wonderful, of a smooth, creamy-white
texture which gave to the sharply angled face something of the pale,
exotic perfection of a stephanotis bloom. Her eyes were long, the colour
of black pansies--black with a suggestion of purple in their depths.
They slanted upwards a little at the outer corners, and this together
with the high cheek-bones, alone would have betrayed her Russian
ancestry. When Lady Arabella wanted to be particularly obnoxious
she told her that she had Mongolian eyes, and Magda would shrug her
shoulders and, thrusting out a foot which was so perfect in shape that
a painting of it by a certain famous artist had been the most talked-of
picture of the year, would reply placidly: "Well, thank heaven, _that's_
not English, anyway!"

"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 perfec