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." "Very well." Magda paused, reflecting.