With a stifled cry he sprang forward and gripped them in his strong, supple hands, drawing them down inexorably.

“Kiss me!” he demanded fiercely.  “Magda, kiss me!”

She shook her head, struggling for speech.

“No!” she gasped.  “No!”

She glanced desperately round, but he had her hemmed in, prisoned against the wall.

“Kiss me!” he repeated unsteadily.  “You—­you’d better, Magda.”

“And if I don’t?” she forced the words through her stiff lips.

“But you will!” he said hoarsely.  “You will!”

There was a dangerous note in his voice.  The man had got beyond the stage to be played with.  In the silence of the room Magda could hear his laboured breathing, feel his heart leaping against her own soft breast crushed against his.  It frightened her.

“You’ll let me go if I do?” The words seemed to run into each other in her helpless haste.

“I’ll let you go.”

“Very well.”

Slowly, reluctantly she lifted her face to his and kissed him.  But the touch of her lips on his scattered the last vestige of his self-control.

“My beloved . . .  Beloved!”

He seized her roughly in his arms.  She felt his kisses overwhelming her, burning against her closed eyelids, bruising her soft mouth and throat.

“I love you . . . worship you——­”

“Let me go!” she cried shrilly, struggling against him.  “Let me go—­you promised it!”

He released her, drawing slowly back, his arms falling unwillingly away from her.

“Oh, yes,” he muttered confusedly.  “I did promise.”

The instant she felt his grip relax, Magda sprang forward and switched on the centre burners, flooding the room with a blaze of light, and in the sudden glare she and Davilof stood staring silently at each other.

With the springing up of the lights it was as though a spell had broken.  The strained, hunted expression left Magda’s face.  She wasn’t frightened any longer.  Davilof was no more the man whose sudden passion had surged about her, threatening to break down all defences and overwhelm her.  He was just Davilof, her accompanist, who, like half the men of her acquaintance, was more or less in love with her and who had overstepped the boundary which she had very definitely marked out between herself and him.

She regarded him stormily.

“Have you gone mad?” she asked contemptuously.

He returned her look, his eyes curiously brilliant.  Then he laughed suddenly.

“Mad?” he said.  “Yes, I think I am mad.  Mad with love for you!  Magda”—­he came and stood close beside her—­“don’t send me away!  Don’t say you can’t care for me!  You don’t love me now—­but I could teach you.”  His voice deepened.  “I love you so much.  Oh, sweetest!—­Soul of me!  Love is so beautiful.  Let me teach you how beautiful it is!”

Magda drew back.