“By God, Magda!  You’re magnificent!” he exclaimed with the spontaneous appreciation of one genuine artist for another.

Magda raised her head and looked up at him with vague, startled eyes.  She still preserved the pose on which the dance had ceased, and had hardly yet returned to the world of reality from that magic world into which her art had transported her.

The burning enthusiasm in Davilof’s excited tones recalled her abruptly.

“Was it good—­was it really good?” she asked a little shakily.

“Good?” he said.  “It was superb!”

He held out his hands and she laid hers in them without thinking, allowing him to draw her to her feet beside him.

She stood quite still, breathing rather quickly from her recent exertions and supported by the close clasp of his hands on hers.  Her lips were a little parted, her slight breast rose and fell unevenly, and a faint rose-colour glowed beneath the ivory pallor of her skin.

Suddenly Davilof’s grip tightened.

“You beautiful thing!” he exclaimed huskily.  “Magda——­”

The next moment, with a swift, ungoverned movement, he caught her to him and was crushing her in his arms.

“Antoine! . . .  Let me go!”

But the pressure of her soft, pulsing body against his own sent the blood racing through his veins.  He smothered the words with his mouth on hers, kissing her breathless with a headlong passion that defied restraint—­slaking his longing for her as a man denied water may at last slake his thirst at some suddenly discovered pool.

Magda felt herself powerless as a leaf caught up in a whirlwind—­swept suddenly into the hot vehemence of a man’s desire while she was yet unstrung and quivering from the emotional strain of the Swan-Maiden’s dance, every nerve of her quickened to a tingling sentience by the underlying passion of the music.

With an effort she wrenched herself out of his arms and ran from him blindly into the furthest corner of the room.  She had no clear idea of making for the door, but only of getting away—­anywhere—­heedless of direction.  An instant later she was standing with her back to the wall, leaning helplessly against the ancient tapestry that clothed it.  In that dim corner of the vast room her slim figure showed faintly limned against its blurred greens and greys like that of some pallid statue.

“Go . . . go away!” she gasped.

Davilof laughed triumphantly.  Nothing could hold him now.  The barriers of use and habit were down irrevocably.

“Go away?” he said.  “No, I’m not going away.”

He strode straight across the space that intervened between them.  She watched his coming with dilated eyes.  Her hands, palms downwards, were pressed hard against the woven surface of the tapestry on either side of her.

As he approached she shrank back, her whole body taut and straining against the wall.  Then she bent her head and flung up her arms, curving them to shield her face.  Davilof could just see the rounded whiteness of them, glimmering like pale pearl next the satin sheen of night-black hair.