through decently. So you're to be my responsibility in future--and a
pretty big one, too, to judge by the look of you."

Magda hardly comprehended the full meaning of this speech. Still she
gathered that her father had left her--though not quite in the same way
as _petite maman_ had done--and that henceforth this autocratic old lady
with the hawk's eyes and quick, darting movements was to be the arbiter
of her fate. She also divined, beneath Lady Arabella's prickly exterior,
a humanness and ability to understand which had been totally lacking in
Sieur Hugh. She proceeded to put it to the test.

"Will you let me dance?" she asked.

"Tchah!" snorted the old woman. "So the Wielitzska blood is coming
out after all!" She turned to Virginia. "Can she dance?" she demanded
abruptly.

"Mais oui, madame!" cried Virginie, clasping her hands ecstatically.
"Like a veritable angel!"

"I shouldn't have thought it," commented her ladyship drily.

Her shrewd eyes swept the child's tense little face with its long,
Eastern eyes and the mouth that showed so vividly scarlet against its
unchildish pallor.

"Less like an angel than anything, I should imagine," muttered the old
woman to herself with a wicked little grin. Then aloud: "Show me what
you can do, then, child."