When she drove up, he was ready in the doorway, his thin brown face

with its keen, half-veiled eyes the picture of composure, but feeling

at heart like a schoolboy off for an exeat. How pretty she was

looking—though pale from London—her dark eyes, her smile! And stepping

quickly to the cab, he said:

“No; I’m getting in—dining at Blafard’s, Gyp—a night out!”

It gave him a thrill to walk into that little restaurant behind her; and

passing through its low red rooms to mark the diners turn and stare with

envy—taking him, perhaps, for a different sort of relation. He settled

her into a far corner by a window, where she could see the people and

be seen. He wanted her to be seen; while he himself turned to the world

only the short back wings of his glossy greyish hair. He had no

notion of being disturbed in his enjoyment by the sight of Hivites and

Amorites, or whatever they might be, lapping champagne and shining in

the heat. For, secretly, he was living not only in this evening but in

a certain evening of the past, when, in this very corner, he had dined

with her mother. HIS face then had borne the brunt; hers had been turned

away from inquisition. But he did not speak of this to Gyp.

She drank two full glasses of wine before she told him her news. He took

it with the expression she knew so well—tightening his lips and staring

a little upward. Then he said quietly:

“When?”

“November, Dad.”

A shudder, not to be repressed, went through Winton. The very month!

And stretching his hand across the table, he took hers and pressed it

tightly.

“It’ll be all right, child; I’m glad.”

Clinging to his hand, Gyp murmured:

“I’m not; but I won’t be frightened—I promise.”

Each was trying to deceive the other; and neither was deceived. But both

were good at putting a calm face on things. Besides, this was “a night

out”—for her, the first since her marriage—of freedom, of feeling

somewhat as she used to feel with all before her in a ballroom of a

world; for him, the unfettered resumption of a dear companionship and a

stealthy revel in the past. After his, “So he’s gone to Ostend?” and

his thought: ’He would!’ they never alluded to Fiorsen, but talked of

horses, of Mildenham—it seemed to Gyp years since she had been there—of

her childish escapades. And, looking at him quizzically, she asked:

“What were you like as a boy, Dad? Aunt Rosamund says that you used to

get into white rages when nobody could go near you. She says you were

always climbing trees, or shooting with a catapult, or stalking things,

and that you never told anybody what you didn’t want to tell them. And

weren’t you desperately in love with your nursery-governess?”

Winton smiled. How long since he had thought of that first affection.

Miss Huntley! Helena Huntley—with crinkly brown hair, and blue eyes, and

fascinating frocks! He remembered with what grief and sense of bitter

injury he heard in his first school-holidays that she was gone. And he

said:

“Yes, yes. By Jove, what a time ago! And my father’s going off to India.

He never came back; killed in that first Afghan business. When I

was fond, I WAS fond. But I didn’t feel things like you—not half so

sensitive. No; not a bit like you, Gyp.”

And watching her unconscious eyes following the movements of the

waiters, never staring, but taking in all that was going on, he thought:

’Prettiest creature in the world!’

“Well,” he said: “What would you like to do now—drop into a theatre or

music-hall, or what?”

Gyp shook her head. It was so hot. Could they just drive, and then

perhaps sit in the park? That would be lovely. It had gone dark, and

the air was not quite so exhausted—a little freshness of scent from

the trees in the squares and parks mingled with the fumes of dung and

petrol. Winton gave the same order he had given that long past evening:

“Knightsbridge Gate.” It had been a hansom then, and the night air had

blown in their faces, instead of as now in these infernal taxis, down

the back of one’s neck. They left the cab and crossed the Row; passed

the end of the Long Water, up among the trees. There, on two chairs

covered by Winton’s coat, they sat side by side. No dew was falling

yet; the heavy leaves hung unstirring; the air was warm, sweet-smelling.

Blotted against trees or on the grass were other couples darker than the

darkness, very silent. All was quiet save for the never-ceasing hum of

traffic. From Winton’s lips, the cigar smoke wreathed and curled. He

was dreaming. The cigar between his teeth trembled; a long ash fell.

Mechanically he raised his hand to brush it off—his right hand! A voice

said softly in his ear:

“Isn’t it delicious, and warm, and gloomy black?”

Winton shivered, as one shivers recalled from dreams; and, carefully

brushing off the ash with his left hand, he answered:

“Yes; very jolly. My cigar’s out, though, and I haven’t a match.”

Gyp’s hand slipped through his arm.

“All these people in love, and so dark and whispery—it makes a sort of

strangeness in the air. Don’t you feel it?”

Winton murmured:

“No moon to-night!”

Again they were silent. A puff of wind ruffled the leaves; the night,

for a moment, seemed full of whispering; then the sound of a giggle

jarred out and a girl’s voice:

“Oh! Chuck it, ’Arry.”

Gyp rose.

“I feel the dew now, Dad. Can we walk on?”

They went along paths, so as not to wet her feet in her thin shoes. And

they talked. The spell was over; the night again but a common London

night; the park a space of parching grass and gravel; the people just

clerks and shop-girls walking out.

VIII

Fiorsen’s letters were the source of one long smile to Gyp. He missed

her horribly; if only she were there!—and so forth—blended in

the queerest way with the impression that he was enjoying himself

uncommonly. There were requests for money, and careful omission of any

real account of what he was doing. Out of a balance running rather

low, she sent him remittances; this was her holiday, too, and she could

afford to pay for it. She even sought out a shop where she could sell

jewelry, and, with a certain malicious joy, forwarded him the proceeds.

It would give him and herself another week.

One night she went with Winton to the Octagon, where Daphne Wing was

still performing. Remembering the girl’s squeaks of rapture at her

garden, she wrote next day, asking her to lunch and spend a lazy

afternoon under the trees.

The little dancer came with avidity. She was pale, and droopy from the

heat, but happily dressed in Liberty silk, with a plain turn-down straw

hat. They lunched off sweetbreads, ices, and fruit, and then, with

coffee, cigarettes, and plenty of sugar-plums, settled down in the

deepest shade of the garden, Gyp in a low wicker chair, Daphne Wing on

cushions and the grass. Once past the exclamatory stage, she seemed a

great talker, laying bare her little soul with perfect liberality.

And Gyp—excellent listener—enjoyed it, as one enjoys all confidential

revelations of existences very different from one’s own, especially when

regarded as a superior being.

“Of course I don’t mean to stay at home any longer than I can help; only

it’s no good going out into life”—this phrase she often used—“till

you know where you are. In my profession, one has to be so careful. Of

course, people think it’s worse than it is; father gets fits sometimes.

But you know, Mrs. Fiorsen, home’s awful. We have mutton—you know what

mutton is—it’s really awful in your bedroom in hot weather. And there’s

nowhere to practise. What I should like would be a studio. It would be

lovely, somewhere down by the river, or up here near you. That WOULD

be lovely. You know, I’m putting by. As soon as ever I have two hundred

pounds, I shall skip. What I think would be perfectly lovely would be

to inspire painters and musicians. I don’t want to be just a common

’turn’—ballet business year after year, and that; I want to be something

rather special. But mother’s so silly about me; she thinks I oughtn’t to

take any risks at all. I shall never get on that way. It IS so nice to

talk to you, Mrs. Fiorsen, because you’re young enough to know what I

feel; and I’m sure you’d never be shocked at anything. You see, about

men: Ought one to marry, or ought one to take a lover? They say you

can’t be a perfect artist till you’ve felt passion. But, then, if you

marry, that means mutton over again, and perhaps babies, and perhaps the

wrong man after all. Ugh! But then, on the other hand, I don’t want to

be raffish. I hate raffish people—I simply hate them. What do you think?

It’s awfully difficult, isn’t it?”

Gyp, perfectly grave, answered:

“That sort of thing settles itself. I shouldn’t bother beforehand.”

Miss Daphne Wing buried her perfect chin deeper in her hands, and said

meditatively:

“Yes; I rather thought that, too; of course I could do either now. But,

you see, I really don’t care for men who are not distinguished. I’m sure

I shall only fall in love with a really distinguished man. That’s

what you did—isn’t it?—so you MUST understand. I think Mr. Fiorsen is

wonderfully distinguished.”

Sunlight, piercing the shade, suddenly fell warm on Gyp’s neck where

her blouse ceased, and fortunately stilled the medley of emotion and

laughter a little lower down. She continued to look gravely at Daphne

Wing, who resumed:

“Of course, Mother would have fits if I asked her such a question, and I

don’t know what Father would do. Only it is important, isn’t it? One may

go all wrong from the start; and I do really want to get on. I simply

adore my work. I don’t mean to let love stand in its way; I want to make

it help, you know. Count Rosek says my dancing lacks passion. I wish

you’d tell me if you think it does. I should believe YOU.”

Gyp shook her head.

“I’m not a judge.”

Daphne Wing looked up reproachfully.

“Oh, I’m sure you are! If I were a man, I should be passionately in love

with you. I’ve got a new dance where I’m supposed to be a nymph pursued

by a faun; it’s so difficult to feel like a nymph when you know it’s

only the ballet-master. Do you think I ought to put passion into that?

You see, I’m supposed to be flying all the time; but it would be much

more subtle, wouldn’t it, if I could give the impression that I wanted

to be caught. Don’t you think so?”

Gyp said suddenly:

“Yes, I think it WOULD do you good to be in love.”

Miss Daphne’s mouth fell a little open; her eyes grew round. She said:

“You frightened me when you said that. You looked so

different—so—intense.”

A flame indeed had leaped up in Gyp. This fluffy, flabby talk of love

set her instincts in revolt. She did not want to love; she had failed

to fall in love. But, whatever love was like, it did not bear talking

about. How was it that this little suburban girl, when she once got on

her toes, could twirl one’s emotions as she did?

“D’you know what I should simply revel in?” Daphne Wing went on: “To

dance to you here in the garden some night. It must be wonderful to

dance out of doors; and the grass is nice and hard now. Only, I suppose

it would shock the servants. Do they look out this way?” Gyp shook her

head. “I could dance over there in front of the drawing-room window.

Only it would have to be moonlight. I could come any Sunday. I’ve got a

dance where I’m supposed to be a lotus flower—that would do splendidly.

And there’s my real moonlight dance that goes to Chopin. I could bring

my dresses, and change in the music-room, couldn’t I?” She wriggled up,

and sat cross-legged, gazing at Gyp, and clasping her hands. “Oh, may

I?”

Her excitement infected Gyp. A desire to give pleasure, the queerness of

the notion, and her real love of seeing this girl dance, made her say:

“Yes; next Sunday.”

Daphne Wing got up, made a rush, and kissed her. Her mouth was soft,

and she smelled of orange blossom; but Gyp recoiled a little—she hated

promiscuous kisses. Somewhat abashed, Miss Daphne hung her head, and

said:

“You did look so lovely; I couldn’t help it, really.”

And Gyp gave her hand the squeeze of compunction.

They went indoors, to try over the music of the two dances; and soon

after Daphne Wing departed, full of sugar-plums and hope.

She arrived punctually at eight o’clock next Sunday, carrying an

exiguous green linen bag, which contained her dresses. She was subdued,

and, now that it had come to the point, evidently a little scared.

Lobster salad, hock, and peaches restored her courage. She ate heartily.

It did not apparently matter to her whether she danced full or empty;

but she would not smoke.

“It’s bad for the—” She checked herself.

When they had finished supper, Gyp shut the dogs into the back premises;

she had visions of their rending Miss Wing’s draperies, or calves. Then

they went into the drawing-room, not lighting up, that they might tell

when the moonlight was strong enough outside. Though it was the last

night of August, the heat was as great as ever—a deep, unstirring

warmth; the climbing moon shot as yet but a thin shaft here and there

through the heavy foliage. They talked in low voices, unconsciously

playing up to the nature of the escapade. As the moon drew up, they

stole out across the garden to the music-room. Gyp lighted the candles.

“Can you manage?”

Miss Daphne had already shed half her garments.

“Oh, I’m so excited, Mrs. Fiorsen! I do hope I shall dance well.”

Gyp stole back to the house; it being Sunday evening, the servants had

been easily disposed of. She sat down at the piano, turning her eyes

toward the garden. A blurred white shape flitted suddenly across

the darkness at the far end and became motionless, as it might be a

white-flowering bush under the trees. Miss Daphne had come out, and

was waiting for the moon. Gyp began to play. She pitched on a little

Sicilian pastorale that the herdsmen play on their pipes coming down

from the hills, softly, from very far, rising, rising, swelling to full

cadence, and failing, failing away again to nothing. The moon rose

over the trees; its light flooded the face of the house, down on to the

grass, and spread slowly back toward where the girl stood waiting. It

caught the border of sunflowers along the garden wall with a stroke of

magical, unearthly colour—gold that was not gold.

Gyp began to play the dance. The pale blurr in the darkness stirred. The

moonlight fell on the girl now, standing with arms spread, holding

out her drapery—a white, winged statue. Then, like a gigantic moth she

fluttered forth, blanched and noiseless flew over the grass, spun and

hovered. The moonlight etched out the shape of her head, painted her

hair with pallid gold. In the silence, with that unearthly gleam of

colour along the sunflowers and on the girl’s head, it was as if a

spirit had dropped into the garden and was fluttering to and fro, unable

to get out.

A voice behind Gyp said: “My God! What’s this? An angel?”

Fiorsen was standing hall-way in the darkened room staring out into the

garden, where the girl had halted, transfixed before the window, her

eyes as round as saucers, her mouth open, her limbs rigid with interest

and affright. Suddenly she turned and, gathering her garment, fled, her

limbs gleaming in the moonlight.

And Gyp sat looking up at the apparition of her husband. She could just

see his eyes straining after that flying nymph. Miss Daphne’s faun! Why,

even his ears were pointed! Had she never noticed before, how like a

faun he was? Yes—on her wedding-night! And she said quietly:

“Daphne Wing was rehearsing her new dance. So you’re back! Why didn’t

you let me know? Are you all right—you look splendid!”

Fiorsen bent down and clutched her by the shoulders.

“My Gyp! Kiss me!”

But even while his lips were pressed on hers, she felt rather than

saw his eyes straying to the garden, and thought, “He would like to be

kissing that girl!”

The moment he had gone to get his things from the cab, she slipped out

to the music-room.

Miss Daphne was dressed, and stuffing her garments into the green linen

bag. She looked up, and said piteously:

“Oh! Does he mind? It’s awful, isn’t it?”

Gyp strangled her desire to laugh.

“It’s for you to mind.”

“Oh, I don’t, if you don’t! How did you like the dance?”

“Lovely! When you’re ready—come along!”

“Oh, I think I’d rather go home, please! It must seem so funny!”

“Would you like to go by this back way into the lane? You turn to the

right, into the road.”

“Oh, yes; please. It would have been better if he could have seen the

dance properly, wouldn’t it? What will he think?”

Gyp smiled, and opened the door into the lane. When she returned,

Fiorsen was at the window, gazing out. Was it for her or for that flying

nymph?

IX

September and October passed. There were more concerts, not very well

attended. Fiorsen’s novelty had worn off, nor had his playing sweetness

and sentiment enough for the big Public. There was also a financial

crisis. It did not seem to Gyp to matter. Everything seemed remote and

unreal in the shadow of her coming time. Unlike most mothers to be, she

made no garments, no preparations of any kind. Why make what might never

be needed? She played for Fiorsen a great deal, for herself not at

all, read many books—poetry, novels, biographies—taking them in at the

moment, and forgetting them at once, as one does with books read just to

distract the mind. Winton and Aunt Rosamund, by tacit agreement, came

on alternate afternoons. And Winton, almost as much under that shadow as

Gyp herself, would take the evening train after leaving her, and spend

the next day racing or cub-hunting, returning the morning of the day

after to pay his next visit. He had no dread just then like that of an

unoccupied day face to face with anxiety.

Betty, who had been present at Gyp’s birth, was in a queer state. The

obvious desirability of such events to one of motherly type defrauded

by fate of children was terribly impinged on by that old memory, and a

solicitude for her “pretty” far exceeding what she would have had for

a daughter of her own. What a peony regards as a natural happening to

a peony, she watches with awe when it happens to the lily. That other

single lady of a certain age, Aunt Rosamund, the very antithesis to

Betty—a long, thin nose and a mere button, a sense of divine rights and

no sense of rights at all, a drawl and a comforting wheeze, length and

circumference, decision and the curtsey to providence, humour and none,

dyspepsia, and the digestion of an ostrich, with other oppositions—Aunt

Rosamund was also uneasy, as only one could be who disapproved heartily

of uneasiness, and habitually joked and drawled it into retirement.

But of all those round Gyp, Fiorsen gave the most interesting display.

He had not even an elementary notion of disguising his state of mind.

And his state of mind was weirdly, wistfully primitive. He wanted Gyp

as she had been. The thought that she might never become herself again

terrified him so at times that he was forced to drink brandy, and come

home only a little less far gone than that first time. Gyp had often to

help him go to bed. On two or three occasions, he suffered so that he

was out all night. To account for this, she devised the formula of a

room at Count Rosek’s, where he slept when music kept him late, so as

not to disturb her. Whether the servants believed her or not, she never

knew. Nor did she ever ask him where he went—too proud, and not feeling

that she had the right.

Deeply conscious of the unaesthetic nature of her condition, she was

convinced that she could no longer be attractive to one so easily upset

in his nerves, so intolerant of ugliness. As to deeper feelings about

her—had he any? He certainly never gave anything up, or sacrificed

himself in any way. If she had loved, she felt she would want to give up

everything to the loved one; but then—she would never love! And yet he

seemed frightened about her. It was puzzling! But perhaps she would not

be puzzled much longer about that or anything; for she often had the

feeling that she would die. How could she be going to live, grudging her

fate? What would give her strength to go through with it? And, at times,

she felt as if she would be glad to die. Life had defrauded her, or

she had defrauded herself of life. Was it really only a year since that

glorious day’s hunting when Dad and she, and the young man with the

clear eyes and the irrepressible smile, had slipped away with the hounds

ahead of all the field—the fatal day Fiorsen descended from the clouds

and asked for her? An overwhelming longing for Mildenham came on her, to

get away there with her father and Betty.

She went at the beginning of November.

Over her departure, Fiorsen behaved like a tired child that will not go

to bed. He could not bear to be away from her, and so forth; but when

she had gone, he spent a furious bohemian evening. At about five, he

woke with “an awful cold feeling in my heart,” as he wrote to Gyp next

day—“an awful feeling, my Gyp; I walked up and down for hours” (in

reality, half an hour at most). “How shall I bear to be away from you at

this time? I feel lost.” Next day, he found himself in Paris with Rosek.

“I could not stand,” he wrote, “the sight of the streets, of the garden,

of our room. When I come back I shall stay with Rosek. Nearer to the

day I will come; I must come to you.” But Gyp, when she read the letter,

said to Winton: “Dad, when it comes, don’t send for him. I don’t want

him here.”

With those letters of his, she buried the last remnants of her feeling

that somewhere in him there must be something as fine and beautiful

as the sounds he made with his violin. And yet she felt those letters

genuine in a way, pathetic, and with real feeling of a sort.

From the moment she reached Mildenham, she began to lose that

hopelessness about herself; and, for the first time, had the sensation

of wanting to live in the new life within her. She first felt it, going

into her old nursery, where everything was the same as it had been when

she first saw it, a child of eight; there was her old red doll’s house,

the whole side of which opened to display the various floors; the worn

Venetian blinds, the rattle of whose fall had sounded in her ears so

many hundred times; the high fender, near which she had lain so often

on the floor, her chin on her hands, reading Grimm, or “Alice in

Wonderland,” or histories of England. Here, too, perhaps this new child

would live amongst the old familiars. And the whim seized her to face

her hour in her old nursery, not in the room where she had slept as a

girl. She would not like the daintiness of that room deflowered. Let

it stay the room of her girlhood. But in the nursery—there was safety,

comfort! And when she had been at Mildenham a week, she made Betty

change her over.

No one in that house was half so calm to look at in those days as Gyp.

Betty was not guiltless of sitting on the stairs and crying at odd

moments. Mrs. Markey had never made such bad soups. Markey so far forgot

himself as frequently to talk. Winton lamed a horse trying an impossible

jump that he might get home the quicker, and, once back, was like an

unquiet spirit. If Gyp were in the room, he would make the pretence of

wanting to warm his feet or hand, just to stroke her shoulder as he went

back to his chair. His voice, so measured and dry, had a ring in

it, that too plainly disclosed the anxiety of his heart. Gyp, always

sensitive to atmosphere, felt cradled in all the love about her.

Wonderful that they should all care so much! What had she done for

anyone, that people should be so sweet—he especially, whom she had so

grievously distressed by her wretched marriage? She would sit staring

into the fire with her wide, dark eyes, unblinking as an owl’s at

night—wondering what she could do to make up to her father, whom

already once she had nearly killed by coming into life. And she began to

practise the bearing of the coming pain, trying to project herself into

this unknown suffering, so that it should not surprise from her cries

and contortions.

She had one dream, over and over again, of sinking and sinking into a

feather bed, growing hotter and more deeply walled in by that which

had no stay in it, yet through which her body could not fall and reach

anything more solid. Once, after this dream, she got up and spent the

rest of the night wrapped in a blanket and the eider-down, on the old

sofa, where, as a child, they had made her lie flat on her back from

twelve to one every day. Betty was aghast at finding her there asleep

in the morning. Gyp’s face was so like the child-face she had seen

lying there in the old days, that she bundled out of the room and cried

bitterly into the cup of tea. It did her good. Going back with the tea,

she scolded her “pretty” for sleeping out there, with the fire out, too!

But Gyp only said:

“Betty, darling, the tea’s awfully cold! Please get me some more!”

X

From the day of the nurse’s arrival, Winton gave up hunting. He could

not bring himself to be out of doors for more than half an hour at a

time. Distrust of doctors did not prevent him having ten minutes

every morning with the old practitioner who had treated Gyp for mumps,

measles, and the other blessings of childhood. The old fellow—his name

was Rivershaw—was a most peculiar survival. He smelled of mackintosh,

had round purplish cheeks, a rim of hair which people said he dyed, and

bulging grey eyes slightly bloodshot. He was short in body and wind,

drank port wine, was suspected of taking snuff, read The Times, spoke

always in a husky voice, and used a very small brougham with a very old

black horse. But he had a certain low cunning, which had defeated many

ailments, and his reputation for assisting people into the world stood

extremely high. Every morning punctually at twelve, the crunch of his

little brougham’s wheels would be heard. Winton would get up, and,

taking a deep breath, cross the hall to the dining-room, extract from

a sideboard a decanter of port, a biscuit-canister, and one glass. He

would then stand with his eyes fixed on the door, till, in due time, the

doctor would appear, and he could say:

“Well, doctor? How is she?”

“Nicely; quite nicely.”

“Nothing to make one anxious?”

The doctor, puffing out his cheeks, with eyes straying to the decanter,

would murmur:

“Cardiac condition, capital—a little—um—not to matter. Taking its

course. These things!”

And Winton, with another deep breath, would say:

“Glass of port, doctor?”

An expression of surprise would pass over the doctor’s face.

“Cold day—ah, perhaps—” And he would blow his nose on his purple-and-red

bandanna.

Watching him drink his port, Winton would mark:

“We can get you at any time, can’t we?”

And the doctor, sucking his lips, would answer:

“Never fear, my dear sir! Little Miss Gyp—old friend of mine. At her

service day and night. Never fear!”

A sensation of comfort would pass through Winton, which would last

quite twenty minutes after the crunching of the wheels and the mingled

perfumes of him had died away.

In these days, his greatest friend was an old watch that had been his

father’s before him; a gold repeater from Switzerland, with a chipped

dial-plate, and a case worn wondrous thin and smooth—a favourite of

Gyp’s childhood. He would take it out about every quarter of an hour,

look at its face without discovering the time, finger it, all smooth and

warm from contact with his body, and put it back. Then he would listen.

There was nothing whatever to listen to, but he could not help it. Apart

from this, his chief distraction was to take a foil and make passes at

a leather cushion, set up on the top of a low bookshelf. In these

occupations, varied by constant visits to the room next the nursery,

where—to save her the stairs—Gyp was now established, and by excursions

to the conservatory to see if he could not find some new flower to

take her, he passed all his time, save when he was eating, sleeping, or

smoking cigars, which he had constantly to be relighting.

By Gyp’s request, they kept from him knowledge of when her pains began.

After that first bout was over and she was lying half asleep in the old

nursery, he happened to go up. The nurse—a bonny creature—one of those

free, independent, economic agents that now abound—met him in the

sitting-room. Accustomed to the “fuss and botheration of men” at

such times, she was prepared to deliver him a little lecture. But, in

approaching, she became affected by the look on his face, and, realizing

somehow that she was in the presence of one whose self-control was

proof, she simply whispered:

“It’s beginning; but don’t be anxious—she’s not suffering just now.

We shall send for the doctor soon. She’s very plucky”; and with an

unaccustomed sensation of respect and pity she repeated: “Don’t be

anxious, sir.”

“If she wants to see me at any time, I shall be in my study. Save her

all you can, nurse.”

The nurse was left with a feeling of surprise at having used the word

“Sir”; she had not done such a thing since—since—! And, pensive, she

returned to the nursery, where Gyp said at once:

“Was that my father? I didn’t want him to know.”

The nurse answered mechanically:

“That’s all right, my dear.”

“How long do you think before—before it’ll begin again, nurse? I’d like

to see him.”

The nurse stroked her hair.

“Soon enough when it’s all over and comfy. Men are always fidgety.”

Gyp looked at her, and said quietly:

“Yes. You see, my mother died when I was born.”

The nurse, watching those lips, still pale with pain, felt a queer pang.

She smoothed the bed-clothes and said:

“That’s nothing—it often happens—that is, I mean,—you know it has no

connection whatever.”

And seeing Gyp smile, she thought: ’Well, I am a fool.’

“If by any chance I don’t get through, I want to be cremated; I want to

go back as quick as I can. I can’t bear the thought of the other thing.

Will you remember, nurse? I can’t tell my father that just now; it might

upset him. But promise me.”

And the nurse thought: ’That can’t be done without a will or something,

but I’d better promise. It’s a morbid fancy, and yet she’s not a morbid

subject, either.’ And she said:

“Very well, my dear; only, you’re not going to do anything of the sort.

That’s flat.”

Gyp smiled again, and there was silence, till she said:

“I’m awfully ashamed, wanting all this attention, and making people

miserable. I’ve read that Japanese women quietly go out somewhere by

themselves and sit on a gate.”

The nurse, still busy with the bedclothes, murmured abstractedly:

“Yes, that’s a very good way. But don’t you fancy you’re half the

trouble most of them are. You’re very good, and you’re going to get

on splendidly.” And she thought: ’Odd! She’s never once spoken of her

husband. I don’t like it for this sort—too perfect, too sensitive; her

face touches you so!’

Gyp murmured again:

“I’d like to see my father, please; and rather quick.”

The nurse, after one swift look, went out.

Gyp, who had clinched her hands under the bedclothes, fixed her eyes

on the window. November! Acorns and the leaves—the nice, damp, earthy

smell! Acorns all over the grass. She used to drive the old retriever

in harness on the lawn covered with acorns and the dead leaves, and the

wind still blowing them off the trees—in her brown velvet—that was a

ducky dress! Who was it had called her once “a wise little owl,” in

that dress? And, suddenly, her heart sank. The pain was coming again.

Winton’s voice from the door said:

“Well, my pet?”

“It was only to see how you are. I’m all right. What sort of a day is

it? You’ll go riding, won’t you? Give my love to the horses. Good-bye,

Dad; just for now.”

Her forehead was wet to his lips.

Outside, in the passage, her smile, like something actual on the air,

preceded him—the smile that had just lasted out. But when he was back in

the study, he suffered—suffered! Why could he not have that pain to bear

instead?

The crunch of the brougham brought his ceaseless march over the carpet

to an end. He went out into the hall and looked into the doctor’s

face—he had forgotten that this old fellow knew nothing of his special

reason for deadly fear. Then he turned back into his study. The wild

south wind brought wet drift-leaves whirling against the panes. It was

here that he had stood looking out into the dark, when Fiorsen came down

to ask for Gyp a year ago. Why had he not bundled the fellow out neck

and crop, and taken her away?—India, Japan—anywhere would have done! She

had not loved that fiddler, never really loved him. Monstrous—monstrous!

The full bitterness of having missed right action swept over Winton, and

he positively groaned aloud. He moved from the window and went over to

the bookcase; there in one row were the few books he ever read, and he

took one out. “Life of General Lee.” He put it back and took another, a

novel of Whyte Melville’s: “Good for Nothing.” Sad book—sad ending! The

book dropped from his hand and fell with a flump on the floor. In a sort

of icy discovery, he had seen his life as it would be if for a second

time he had to bear such loss. She must not—could not die! If she

did—then, for him—! In old times they buried a man with his horse and

his dog, as if at the end of a good run. There was always that! The

extremity of this thought brought relief. He sat down, and, for a long

time, stayed staring into the fire in a sort of coma. Then his

feverish fears began again. Why the devil didn’t they come and tell him

something, anything—rather than this silence, this deadly solitude

and waiting? What was that? The front door shutting. Wheels? Had that

hell-hound of an old doctor sneaked off? He started up. There at the

door was Markey, holding in his hand some cards. Winton scanned them.

“Lady Summerhay; Mr. Bryan Summerhay. I said, ’Not at home,’ sir.”

Winton nodded.

“Well?”

“Nothing at present. You have had no lunch, sir.”

“What time is it?”

“Four o’clock.”

“Bring in my fur coat and the port, and make the fire up. I want any

news there is.”

Markey nodded.

Odd to sit in a fur coat before a fire, and the day not cold! They said

you lived on after death. He had never been able to feel that SHE was

living on. SHE lived in Gyp. And now if Gyp—! Death—your own—no great

matter! But—for her! The wind was dropping with the darkness. He got up

and drew the curtains.

It was seven o’clock when the doctor came down into the hall, and stood

rubbing his freshly washed hands before opening the study door. Winton

was still sitting before the fire, motionless, shrunk into his fur coat.

He raised himself a little and looked round dully.

The doctor’s face puckered, his eyelids drooped half-way across his

bulging eyes; it was his way of smiling. “Nicely,” he said; “nicely—a

girl. No complications.”

Winton’s whole body seemed to swell, his lips opened, he raised his

hand. Then, the habit of a lifetime catching him by the throat, he

stayed motionless. At last he got up and said:

“Glass of port, doctor?”

The doctor spying at him above the glass thought: ’This is “the

fifty-two.” Give me “the sixty-eight”—more body.’

After a time, Winton went upstairs. Waiting in the outer room he had a

return of his cold dread. “Perfectly successful—the patient died from

exhaustion!” The tiny squawking noise that fell on his ears entirely

failed to reassure him. He cared nothing for that new being. Suddenly he

found Betty just behind him, her bosom heaving horribly.

“What is it, woman? Don’t!”

She had leaned against his shoulder, appearing to have lost all sense of

right and wrong, and, out of her sobbing, gurgled:

“She looks so lovely—oh dear, she looks so lovely!”

Pushing her abruptly from him, Winton peered in through the just-opened

door. Gyp was lying extremely still, and very white; her eyes, very

large, very dark, were fastened on her baby. Her face wore a kind of

wonder. She did not see Winton, who stood stone-quiet, watching, while

the nurse moved about her business behind a screen. This was the first

time in his life that he had seen a mother with her just-born baby. That

look on her face—gone right away somewhere, right away—amazed him. She

had never seemed to like children, had said she did not want a child.

She turned her head and saw him. He went in. She made a faint motion

toward the baby, and her eyes smiled. Winton looked at that swaddled

speckled mite; then, bending down, he kissed her hand and tiptoed away.

At dinner he drank champagne, and benevolence towards all the world

spread in his being. Watching the smoke of his cigar wreathe about him,

he thought: ’Must send that chap a wire.’ After all, he was a fellow

being—might be suffering, as he himself had suffered only two hours ago.

To keep him in ignorance—it wouldn’t do! And he wrote out the form—

“All well, a daughter.—WINTON,”

and sent it out with the order that a groom should take it in that

night.

Gyp was sleeping when he stole up at ten o’clock.

He, too, turned in, and slept like a child.

XI

Returning the next afternoon from the first ride for several days,

Winton passed the station fly rolling away from the drive-gate with the

light-hearted disillusionment peculiar to quite empty vehicles.

The sight of a fur coat and broad-brimmed hat in the hall warned him of

what had happened.

“Mr. Fiorsen, sir; gone up to Mrs. Fiorsen.”

Natural, but a d—d bore! And bad, perhaps, for Gyp. He asked:

“Did he bring things?”

“A bag, sir.”

“Get a room ready, then.”

To dine tete-a-tete with that fellow!

Gyp had passed the strangest morning in her life, so far. Her baby

fascinated her, also the tug of its lips, giving her the queerest

sensation, almost sensual; a sort of meltedness, an infinite warmth, a

desire to grip the little creature right into her—which, of course,

one must not do. And yet, neither her sense of humour nor her sense of

beauty were deceived. It was a queer little affair with a tuft of black

hair, in grace greatly inferior to a kitten. Its tiny, pink, crisped

fingers with their infinitesimal nails, its microscopic curly toes, and

solemn black eyes—when they showed, its inimitable stillness when

it slept, its incredible vigour when it fed, were all, as it were,

miraculous. Withal, she had a feeling of gratitude to one that had not

killed nor even hurt her so very desperately—gratitude because she had

succeeded, performed her part of mother perfectly—the nurse had said

so—she, so distrustful of herself! Instinctively she knew, too, that

this was HER baby, not his, going “to take after her,” as they called

it. How it succeeded in giving that impression she could not tell,

unless it were the passivity, and dark eyes of the little creature. Then

from one till three they had slept together with perfect soundness and

unanimity. She awoke to find the nurse standing by the bed, looking as

if she wanted to tell her something.

“Someone to see you, my dear.”

And Gyp thought: ’He! I can’t think quickly; I ought to think quickly—I

want to, but I can’t.’ Her face expressed this, for the nurse said at

once:

“I don’t think you’re quite up to it yet.”

Gyp answered:

“Yes. Only, not for five minutes, please.”

Her spirit had been very far away, she wanted time to get it back before

she saw him—time to know in some sort what she felt now; what this mite

lying beside her had done for her and him. The thought that it was his,

too—this tiny, helpless being—seemed unreal. No, it was not his! He

had not wanted it, and now that she had been through the torture it was

hers, not his—never his. The memory of the night when she first yielded

to the certainty that the child was coming, and he had come home drunk,

swooped on her, and made her shrink and shudder and put her arm round

her baby. It had not made any difference. Only—Back came the old

accusing thought, from which these last days she had been free: ’But I

married him—I chose to marry him. I can’t get out of that!’ And she felt

as if she must cry out to the nurse: “Keep him away; I don’t want to see

him. Oh, please, I’m tired.” She bit the words back. And presently, with

a very faint smile, said:

“Now, I’m ready.”

She noticed first what clothes he had on—his newest suit, dark grey,

with little lighter lines—she had chosen it herself; that his tie was in

a bow, not a sailor’s knot, and his hair brighter than usual—as always

just after being cut; and surely the hair was growing down again in

front of his ears. Then, gratefully, almost with emotion, she realized

that his lips were quivering, his whole face quivering. He came in on

tiptoe, stood looking at her a minute, then crossed very swiftly to the

bed, very swiftly knelt down, and, taking her hand, turned it over and

put his face to it. The bristles of his moustache tickled her palm; his

nose flattened itself against her fingers, and his lips kept murmuring

words into the hand, with the moist warm touch of his lips. Gyp knew he

was burying there all his remorse, perhaps the excesses he had committed

while she had been away from him, burying the fears he had felt, and the

emotion at seeing her so white and still. She felt that in a minute he

would raise a quite different face. And it flashed through her: “If

I loved him I wouldn’t mind what he did—ever! Why don’t I love him?

There’s something loveable. Why don’t I?”

He did raise his face; his eyes lighted on the baby, and he grinned.

“Look at this!” he said. “Is it possible? Oh, my Gyp, what a funny one!

Oh, oh, oh!” He went off into an ecstasy of smothered laughter; then his

face grew grave, and slowly puckered into a sort of comic disgust. Gyp

too had seen the humours of her baby, of its queer little reddish pudge

of a face, of its twenty-seven black hairs, and the dribble at its

almost invisible mouth; but she had also seen it as a miracle; she

had felt it, and there surged up from her all the old revolt and more

against his lack of consideration. It was not a funny one—her baby! It

was not ugly! Or, if it were, she was not fit to be told of it. Her

arm tightened round the warm bundled thing against her. Fiorsen put his

finger out and touched its cheek.

“It IS real—so it is. Mademoiselle Fiorsen. Tk, tk!”

The baby stirred. And Gyp thought: ’If I loved I wouldn’t even mind his

laughing at my baby. It would be different.’

“Don’t wake her!” she whispered. She felt his eyes on her, knew that

his interest in the baby had ceased as suddenly as it came, that he was

thinking, “How long before I have you in my arms again?” He touched her

hair. And, suddenly, she had a fainting, sinking sensation that she had

never yet known. When she opened her eyes again, the economic agent was

holding something beneath her nose and making sounds that seemed to be

the words: “Well, I am a d—d fool!” repeatedly expressed. Fiorsen was

gone.

Seeing Gyp’s eyes once more open, the nurse withdrew the ammonia,

replaced the baby, and saying: “Now go to sleep!” withdrew behind

the screen. Like all robust personalities, she visited on others her

vexations with herself. But Gyp did not go to sleep; she gazed now

at her sleeping baby, now at the pattern of the wall-paper, trying

mechanically to find the bird caught at intervals amongst its

brown-and-green foliage—one bird in each alternate square of the

pattern, so that there was always a bird in the centre of four other

birds. And the bird was of green and yellow with a red beak.

On being turned out of the nursery with the assurance that it was “all

right—only a little faint,” Fiorsen went down-stairs disconsolate. The

atmosphere of this dark house where he was a stranger, an unwelcome

stranger, was insupportable. He wanted nothing in it but Gyp, and Gyp

had fainted at his touch. No wonder he felt miserable. He opened a door.

What room was this? A piano! The drawing-room. Ugh! No fire—what misery!

He recoiled to the doorway and stood listening. Not a sound. Grey light

in the cheerless room; almost dark already in the hall behind him. What

a life these English lived—worse than the winter in his old country home

in Sweden, where, at all events, they kept good fires. And, suddenly,

all his being revolted. Stay here and face that father—and that image

of a servant! Stay here for a night of this! Gyp was not his Gyp, lying

there with that baby beside her, in this hostile house. Smothering his

footsteps, he made for the outer hall. There were his coat and hat. He

put them on. His bag? He could not see it. No matter! They could send

it after him. He would write to her—say that her fainting had upset

him—that he could not risk making her faint again—could not stay in the

house so near her, yet so far. She would understand. And there came over

him a sudden wave of longing. Gyp! He wanted her. To be with her! To

look at her and kiss her, and feel her his own again! And, opening the

door, he passed out on to the drive and strode away, miserable and sick

at heart. All the way to the station through the darkening lanes, and in

the railway carriage going up, he felt that aching wretchedness. Only

in the lighted street, driving back to Rosek’s, did he shake it off a

little. At dinner and after, drinking that special brandy he nearly lost

it; but it came back when he went to bed, till sleep relieved him with

its darkness and dreams.

XII

Gyp’s recovery proceeded at first with a sure rapidity which delighted

Winton. As the economic agent pointed out, she was beautifully made, and

that had a lot to do with it!

Before Christmas Day, she was already out, and on Christmas morning the

old doctor, by way of present, pronounced her fit and ready to go home

when she liked. That afternoon, she was not so well, and next day

back again upstairs. Nothing seemed definitely wrong, only a sort of

desperate lassitude; as if the knowledge that to go back was within her

power, only needing her decision, had been too much for her. And since

no one knew her inward feelings, all were puzzled except Winton. The

nursing of her child was promptly stopped.

It was not till the middle of January that she said to him.

“I must go home, Dad.”

The word “home” hurt him, and he only answered:

“Very well, Gyp; when?”

“The house is quite ready. I think I had better go to-morrow. He’s still

at Rosek’s. I won’t let him know. Two or three days there by myself

first would be better for settling baby in.”

“Very well; I’ll take you up.”

He made no effort to ascertain her feelings toward Fiorsen. He knew too

well.

They travelled next day, reaching London at half-past two. Betty had

gone up in the early morning to prepare the way. The dogs had been

with Aunt Rosamund all this time. Gyp missed their greeting; but the

installation of Betty and the baby in the spare room that was now to be

the nursery, absorbed all her first energies. Light was just beginning

to fail when, still in her fur, she took a key of the music-room and

crossed the garden, to see how all had fared during her ten weeks’

absence. What a wintry garden! How different from that languorous, warm,

moonlit night when Daphne Wing had come dancing out of the shadow of the

dark trees. How bare and sharp the boughs against the grey, darkening

sky—and not a song of any bird, not a flower! She glanced back at the

house. Cold and white it looked, but there were lights in her room and

in the nursery, and someone just drawing the curtains. Now that the

leaves were off, one could see the other houses of the road, each

different in shape and colour, as is the habit of London houses. It was

cold, frosty; Gyp hurried down the path. Four little icicles had formed

beneath the window of the music-room. They caught her eye, and, passing

round to the side, she broke one off. There must be a fire in there,

for she could see the flicker through the curtains not quite drawn.

Thoughtful Ellen had been airing it! But, suddenly, she stood still.

There was more than a fire in there! Through the chink in the drawn

curtains she had seen two figures seated on the divan. Something seemed

to spin round in her head. She turned to rush away. Then a kind of

superhuman coolness came to her, and she deliberately looked in. He and

Daphne Wing! His arm was round her neck. The girl’s face riveted her

eyes. It was turned a little back and up, gazing at him, the lips

parted, the eyes hypnotized, adoring; and her arm round him seemed to

shiver—with cold, with ecstasy?

Again that something went spinning through Gyp’s head. She raised her

hand. For a second it hovered close to the glass. Then, with a sick

feeling, she dropped it and turned away.

Never! Never would she show him or that girl that they could hurt her!

Never! They were safe from any scene she would make—safe in their

nest! And blindly, across the frosty grass, through the unlighted

drawing-room, she went upstairs to her room, locked the door, and

sat down before the fire. Pride raged within her. She stuffed her

handkerchief between her teeth and lips; she did it unconsciously. Her

eyes felt scorched from the fire-flames, but she did not trouble to hold

her hand before them.

Suddenly she thought: ’Suppose I HAD loved him?’ and laughed. The

handkerchief dropped to her lap, and she looked at it with wonder—it was

blood-stained. She drew back in the chair, away from the scorching of

the fire, and sat quite still, a smile on her lips. That girl’s eyes,

like a little adoring dog’s—that girl, who had fawned on her so! She had

got her “distinguished man”! She sprang up and looked at herself in the

glass; shuddered, turned her back on herself, and sat down again. In her

own house! Why not here—in this room? Why not before her eyes? Not yet

a year married! It was almost funny—almost funny! And she had her first

calm thought: ’I am free.’

But it did not seem to mean anything, had no value to a spirit so

bitterly stricken in its pride. She moved her chair closer to the fire

again. Why had she not tapped on the window? To have seen that girl’s

face ashy with fright! To have seen him—caught—caught in the room she

had made beautiful for him, the room where she had played for him so

many hours, the room that was part of the house that she paid for! How

long had they used it for their meetings—sneaking in by that door from

the back lane? Perhaps even before she went away—to bear his child! And

there began in her a struggle between mother instinct and her sense of

outrage—a spiritual tug-of-war so deep that it was dumb, unconscious—to

decide whether her baby would be all hers, or would have slipped away

from her heart, and be a thing almost abhorrent.

She huddled nearer the fire, feeling cold and physically sick. And

suddenly the thought came to her: ’If I don’t let the servants know

I’m here, they might go out and see what I saw!’ Had she shut the

drawing-room window when she returned so blindly? Perhaps already—! In a

fever, she rang the bell, and unlocked the door. The maid came up.

“Please shut the drawing-room, window, Ellen; and tell Betty I’m afraid

I got a little chill travelling. I’m going to bed. Ask her if she can

manage with baby.” And she looked straight into the girl’s face. It wore

an expression of concern, even of commiseration, but not that fluttered

look which must have been there if she had known.

“Yes, m’m; I’ll get you a hot-water bottle, m’m. Would you like a hot

bath and a cup of hot tea at once?”

Gyp nodded. Anything—anything! And when the maid was gone, she thought

mechanically: ’A cup of hot tea! How quaint! What should it be but hot?’

The maid came back with the tea; she was an affectionate girl, full of

that admiring love servants and dogs always felt for Gyp, imbued, too,

with the instinctive partisanship which stores itself one way or the

other in the hearts of those who live in houses where the atmosphere

lacks unity. To her mind, the mistress was much too good for him—a

foreigner—and such ’abits! Manners—he hadn’t any! And no good would come

of it. Not if you took her opinion!

“And I’ve turned the water in, m’m. Will you have a little mustard in

it?”

Again Gyp nodded. And the girl, going downstairs for the mustard, told

cook there was “that about the mistress that makes you quite pathetic.”

The cook, who was fingering her concertina, for which she had a passion,

answered:

“She ’ides up her feelin’s, same as they all does. Thank ’eaven she

haven’t got that drawl, though, that ’er old aunt ’as—always makes me

feel to want to say, ’Buck up, old dear, you ain’t ’alf so precious as

all that!’”

And when the maid Ellen had taken the mustard and gone, she drew out her

concertina to its full length and, with cautionary softness, began to

practise “Home, Sweet Home!”

To Gyp, lying in her hot bath, those muffled strains just mounted, not

quite as a tune, rather as some far-away humming of large flies. The

heat of the water, the pungent smell of the mustard, and that droning

hum slowly soothed and drowsed away the vehemence of feeling. She

looked at her body, silver-white in the yellowish water, with a dreamy

sensation. Some day she, too, would love! Strange feeling she had never

had before! Strange, indeed, that it should come at such a moment,

breaking through the old instinctive shrinking. Yes; some day love would

come to her. There floated before her brain the adoring look on Daphne

Wing’s face, the shiver that had passed along her arm, and pitifulness

crept into her heart—a half-bitter, half-admiring pitifulness. Why

should she grudge—she who did not love? The sounds, like the humming

of large flies, grew deeper, more vibrating. It was the cook, in her

passion swelling out her music on the phrase,

“Be it ne-e-ver so humble,

There’s no-o place like home!”

XIII

That night, Gyp slept peacefully, as though nothing had happened, as

though there were no future at all before her. She woke into misery. Her

pride would never let her show the world what she had discovered, would

force her to keep an unmoved face and live an unmoved life. But the

struggle between mother-instinct and revolt was still going on within

her. She was really afraid to see her baby, and she sent word to Betty

that she thought it would be safer if she kept quite quiet till the

afternoon.

She got up at noon and stole downstairs. She had not realized how

violent was her struggle over HIS child till she was passing the door

of the room where it was lying. If she had not been ordered to give up

nursing, that struggle would never have come. Her heart ached, but a

demon pressed her on and past the door. Downstairs she just pottered

round, dusting her china, putting in order the books which, after

house-cleaning, the maid had arranged almost too carefully, so that the

first volumes of Dickens and Thackeray followed each other on the top

shell, and the second volumes followed each other on the bottom shelf.

And all the time she thought dully: ’Why am I doing this? What do I care

how the place looks? It is not my home. It can never be my home!’

For lunch she drank some beef tea, keeping up the fiction of her

indisposition. After that, she sat down at her bureau to write.

Something must be decided! There she sat, her forehead on her hand,

and nothing came—not one word—not even the way to address him; just the

date, and that was all. At a ring of the bell she started up. She could

not see anybody! But the maid only brought a note from Aunt Rosamund,

and the dogs, who fell frantically on their mistress and instantly began

to fight for her possession. She went on her knees to separate them,

and enjoin peace and good-will, and their little avid tongues furiously

licked her cheeks. Under the eager touch of those wet tongues the band

round her brain and heart gave way; she was overwhelmed with longing for

her baby. Nearly a day since she had seen her—was it possible? Nearly

a day without sight of those solemn eyes and crinkled toes and fingers!

And followed by the dogs, she went upstairs.

The house was invisible from the music-room; and, spurred on by thought

that, until Fiorsen knew she was back, those two might be there in each

other’s arms any moment of the day or night, Gyp wrote that evening:

“DEAR GUSTAV,—We are back.—GYP.”

What else in the world could she say? He would not get it till he woke

about eleven. With the instinct to take all the respite she could, and

knowing no more than before how she would receive his return, she went

out in the forenoon and wandered about all day shopping and trying not

to think. Returning at tea-time, she went straight up to her baby, and

there heard from Betty that he had come, and gone out with his violin to

the music-room.

Bent over the child, Gyp needed all her self-control—but her

self-control was becoming great. Soon, the girl would come fluttering

down that dark, narrow lane; perhaps at this very minute her fingers

were tapping at the door, and he was opening it to murmur, “No; she’s

back!” Ah, then the girl would shrink! The rapid whispering—some other

meeting-place! Lips to lips, and that look on the girl’s face; till she

hurried away from the shut door, in the darkness, disappointed! And

he, on that silver-and-gold divan, gnawing his moustache, his

eyes—catlike—-staring at the fire! And then, perhaps, from his violin

would come one of those swaying bursts of sound, with tears in them, and

the wind in them, that had of old bewitched her! She said:

“Open the window just a little, Betty dear—it’s hot.”

There it was, rising, falling! Music! Why did it so move one even when,

as now, it was the voice of insult! And suddenly she thought: “He

will expect me to go out there again and play for him. But I will not,

never!”

She put her baby down, went into her bedroom, and changed hastily into a

teagown for the evening, ready to go downstairs. A little shepherdess

in china on the mantel-shelf attracted her attention, and she took it

in her hand. She had bought it three and more years ago, when she first

came to London, at the beginning of that time of girl-gaiety when all

life seemed a long cotillion, and she its leader. Its cool daintiness

made it seem the symbol of another world, a world without depths or

shadows, a world that did not feel—a happy world!

She had not long to wait before he tapped on the drawing-room window.

She got up from the tea-table to let him in. Why do faces gazing in

through glass from darkness always look hungry—searching, appealing for

what you have and they have not? And while she was undoing the latch

she thought: ’What am I going to say? I feel nothing!’ The ardour of his

gaze, voice, hands seemed to her so false as to be almost comic; even

more comically false his look of disappointment when she said:

“Please take care; I’m still brittle!” Then she sat down again and

asked:

“Will you have some tea?”

“Tea! I have you back, and you ask me if I will have tea Gyp! Do you

know what I have felt like all this time? No; you don’t know. You know

nothing of me—do you?”

A smile of sheer irony formed on her lips—without her knowing it was

there. She said:

“Have you had a good time at Count Rosek’s?” And, without her will,

against her will, the words slipped out: “I’m afraid you’ve missed the

music-room!”

His stare wavered; he began to walk up and down.

“Missed! Missed everything! I have been very miserable, Gyp. You’ve no

idea how miserable. Yes, miserable, miserable, miserable!” With each

repetition of that word, his voice grew gayer. And kneeling down in

front of her, he stretched his long arms round her till they met behind

her waist: “Ah, my Gyp! I shall be a different being, now.”

And Gyp went on smiling. Between that, and stabbing these false raptures

to the heart, there seemed to be nothing she could do. The moment his

hands relaxed, she got up and said:

“You know there’s a baby in the house?”

He laughed.

“Ah, the baby! I’d forgotten. Let’s go up and see it.”

Gyp answered:

“You go.”

She could feel him thinking: ’Perhaps it will make her nice to me!’ He

turned suddenly and went.

She stood with her eyes shut, seeing the divan in the music-room and the

girl’s arm shivering. Then, going to the piano, she began with all her

might to play a Chopin polonaise.

That evening they dined out, and went to “The Tales of Hoffmann.” By

such devices it was possible to put off a little longer what she was

going to do. During the drive home in the dark cab, she shrank away

into her corner, pretending that his arm would hurt her dress; her

exasperated nerves were already overstrung. Twice she was on the

very point of crying out: “I am not Daphne Wing!” But each time pride

strangled the words in her throat. And yet they would have to come. What

other reason could she find to keep him from her room?

But when in her mirror she saw him standing behind her—he had crept into

the bedroom like a cat—fierceness came into her. She could see the blood

rush up in her own white face, and, turning round she said:

“No, Gustav, go out to the music-room if you want a companion.”

He recoiled against the foot of the bed and stared at her haggardly, and

Gyp, turning back to her mirror, went on quietly taking the pins out of

her hair. For fully a minute she could see him leaning there, moving his

head and hands as though in pain. Then, to her surprise, he went. And a

vague feeling of compunction mingled with her sense of deliverance. She

lay awake a long time, watching the fire-glow brighten and darken on

the ceiling, tunes from “The Tales of Hoffmann” running in her head;

thoughts and fancies crisscrossing in her excited brain. Falling asleep

at last, she dreamed she was feeding doves out of her hand, and one of

them was Daphne Wing. She woke with a start. The fire still burned, and

by its light she saw him crouching at the foot of the bed, just as he

had on their wedding-night—the same hungry yearning in his face, and an

arm outstretched. Before she could speak, he began:

“Oh, Gyp, you don’t understand! All that is nothing—it is only you I

want—always. I am a fool who cannot control himself. Think! It’s a long

time since you went away from me.”

Gyp said, in a hard voice:

“I didn’t want to have a child.”

He said quickly:

“No; but now you have it you are glad. Don’t be unmerciful, my Gyp! It

is like you to be merciful. That girl—it is all over—I swear—I promise.”

His hand touched her foot through the soft eiderdown. Gyp thought: ’Why

does he come and whine to me like this? He has no dignity—none!’ And she

said:

“How can you promise? You have made the girl love you. I saw her face.”

He drew his hand back.

“You saw her?”

“Yes.”

He was silent, staring at her. Presently he began again:

“She is a little fool. I do not care for the whole of her as much as I

care for your one finger. What does it matter what one does in that

way if one does not care? The soul, not the body, is faithful. A man

satisfies appetite—it is nothing.”

Gyp said:

“Perhaps not; but it is something when it makes others miserable.”

“Has it made you miserable, my Gyp?”

His voice had a ring of hope. She answered, startled:

“I? No—her.”

“Her? Ho! It is an experience for her—it is life. It will do her no

harm.”

“No; nothing will do anybody harm if it gives you pleasure.”

At that bitter retort, he kept silence a long time, now and then heaving

a long sigh. His words kept sounding in her heart: “The soul, not the

body, is faithful.” Was he, after all, more faithful to her than she

had ever been, could ever be—who did not love, had never loved him? What

right had she to talk, who had married him out of vanity, out of—what?

And suddenly he said:

“Gyp! Forgive!”

She uttered a sigh, and turned away her face.

He bent down against the eider-down. She could hear him drawing long,

sobbing breaths, and, in the midst of her lassitude and hopelessness,

a sort of pity stirred her. What did it matter? She said, in a choked

voice:

“Very well, I forgive.”

XIV

The human creature has wonderful power of putting up with things. Gyp

never really believed that Daphne Wing was of the past. Her sceptical

instinct told her that what Fiorsen might honestly mean to do was very

different from what he would do under stress of opportunity carefully

put within his reach.

Since her return, Rosek had begun to come again, very careful not

to repeat his mistake, but not deceiving her at all. Though his

self-control was as great as Fiorsen’s was small, she felt he had not

given up his pursuit of her, and would take very good care that Daphne

Wing was afforded every chance of being with her husband. But pride

never let her allude to the girl. Besides, what good to speak of her?

They would both lie—Rosek, because he obviously saw the mistaken line of

his first attack; Fiorsen, because his temperament did not permit him to

suffer by speaking the truth.

Having set herself to endure, she found she must live in the moment,

never think of the future, never think much of anything. Fortunately,

nothing so conduces to vacuity as a baby. She gave herself up to it

with desperation. It was a good baby, silent, somewhat understanding. In

watching its face, and feeling it warm against her, Gyp succeeded daily

in getting away into the hypnotic state of mothers, and cows that chew

the cud. But the baby slept a great deal, and much of its time was

claimed by Betty. Those hours, and they were many, Gyp found difficult.

She had lost interest in dress and household elegance, keeping just

enough to satisfy her fastidiousness; money, too, was scarce, under the

drain of Fiorsen’s irregular requirements. If she read, she began almost

at once to brood. She was cut off from the music-room, had not crossed

its threshold since her discovery. Aunt Rosamund’s efforts to take her

into society were fruitless—all the effervescence was out of that,

and, though her father came, he never stayed long for fear of meeting

Fiorsen. In this condition of affairs, she turned more and more to her

own music, and one morning, after she had come across some compositions

of her girlhood, she made a resolution. That afternoon she dressed

herself with pleasure, for the first time for months, and sallied forth

into the February frost.

Monsieur Edouard Harmost inhabited the ground floor of a house in the

Marylebone Road. He received his pupils in a large back room overlooking

a little sooty garden. A Walloon by extraction, and of great vitality,

he grew old with difficulty, having a soft corner in his heart

for women, and a passion for novelty, even for new music, that was

unappeasable. Any fresh discovery would bring a tear rolling down

his mahogany cheeks into his clipped grey beard, the while he played,

singing wheezily to elucidate the wondrous novelty; or moved his head up

and down, as if pumping.

When Gyp was shown into this well-remembered room he was seated, his

yellow fingers buried in his stiff grey hair, grieving over a pupil who

had just gone out. He did not immediately rise, but stared hard at Gyp.

“Ah,” he said, at last, “my little old friend! She has come back! Now

that is good!” And, patting her hand he looked into her face, which had

a warmth and brilliance rare to her in these days. Then, making for

the mantelpiece, he took therefrom a bunch of Parma violets, evidently

brought by his last pupil, and thrust them under her nose. “Take them,

take them—they were meant for me. Now—how much have you forgotten?

Come!” And, seizing her by the elbow, he almost forced her to the piano.

“Take off your furs. Sit down!”

And while Gyp was taking off her coat, he fixed on her his prominent

brown eyes that rolled easily in their slightly blood-shot whites, under

squared eyelids and cliffs of brow. She had on what Fiorsen called her

“humming-bird” blouse—dark blue, shot with peacock and old rose, and

looked very warm and soft under her fur cap. Monsieur Harmost’s stare

seemed to drink her in; yet that stare was not unpleasant, having in it

only the rather sad yearning of old men who love beauty and know that

their time for seeing it is getting short.

“Play me the ’Carnival,’” he said. “We shall soon see!”

Gyp played. Twice he nodded; once he tapped his fingers on his teeth,

and showed her the whites of his eyes—which meant: “That will have to be

very different!” And once he grunted. When she had finished, he sat down

beside her, took her hand in his, and, examining the fingers, began:

“Yes, yes, soon again! Spoiling yourself, playing for that fiddler! Trop

sympathique! The back-bone, the back-bone—we shall improve that. Now,

four hours a day for six weeks—and we shall have something again.”

Gyp said softly:

“I have a baby, Monsieur Harmost.”

Monsieur Harmost bounded.

“What! That is a tragedy!” Gyp shook her head. “You like it? A baby!

Does it not squall?”

“Very little.”

“Mon Dieu! Well, well, you are still as beautiful as ever. That is

something. Now, what can you do with this baby? Could you get rid of it

a little? This is serious. This is a talent in danger. A fiddler, and a

baby! C’est beaucoup! C’est trop!”

Gyp smiled. And Monsieur Harmost, whose exterior covered much

sensibility, stroked her hand.

“You have grown up, my little friend,” he said gravely. “Never mind;

nothing is wasted. But a baby!” And he chirruped his lips. “Well;

courage! We shall do things yet!”

Gyp turned her head away to hide the quiver of her lips. The scent of

latakia tobacco that had soaked into things, and of old books and

music, a dark smell, like Monsieur Harmost’s complexion; the old brown

curtains, the sooty little back garden beyond, with its cat-runs, and

its one stunted sumach tree; the dark-brown stare of Monsieur Harmost’s

rolling eyes brought back that time of happiness, when she used to

come week after week, full of gaiety and importance, and chatter away,

basking in his brusque admiration and in music, all with the glamourous

feeling that she was making him happy, and herself happy, and going to

play very finely some day.

The voice of Monsieur Harmost, softly gruff, as if he knew what she was

feeling, increased her emotion; her breast heaved under the humming-bird

blouse, water came into her eyes, and more than ever her lips quivered.

He was saying:

“Come, come! The only thing we cannot cure is age. You were right to

come, my child. Music is your proper air. If things are not all what

they ought to be, you shall soon forget. In music—in music, we can get

away. After all, my little friend, they cannot take our dreams from

us—not even a wife, not even a husband can do that. Come, we shall have

good times yet!”

And Gyp, with a violent effort, threw off that sudden weakness. From

those who serve art devotedly there radiates a kind of glamour. She

left Monsieur Harmost that afternoon, infected by his passion for music.

Poetic justice—on which all homeopathy is founded—was at work to try and

cure her life by a dose of what had spoiled it. To music, she now gave

all the hours she could spare. She went to him twice a week, determining

to get on, but uneasy at the expense, for monetary conditions were ever

more embarrassed. At home, she practised steadily and worked hard at

composition. She finished several songs and studies during the spring

and summer, and left still more unfinished. Monsieur Harmost was

tolerant of these efforts, seeming to know that harsh criticism or

disapproval would cut her impulse down, as frost cuts the life of

flowers. Besides, there was always something fresh and individual in her

things. He asked her one day:

“What does your husband think of these?”

Gyp was silent a moment.

“I don’t show them to him.”

She never had; she instinctively kept back the knowledge that she

composed, dreading his ruthlessness when anything grated on his nerves,

and knowing that a breath of mockery would wither her belief in herself,

frail enough plant already. The only person, besides her master, to

whom she confided her efforts was—strangely enough—Rosek. But he had

surprised her one day copying out some music, and said at once: “I knew.

I was certain you composed. Ah, do play it to me! I am sure you have

talent.” The warmth with which he praised that little “caprice” was

surely genuine; and she felt so grateful that she even played him

others, and then a song for him to sing. From that day, he no longer

seemed to her odious; she even began to have for him a certain

friendliness, to be a little sorry, watching him, pale, trim, and

sphinx-like, in her drawing-room or garden, getting no nearer to the

fulfilment of his desire. He had never again made love to her, but

she knew that at the least sign he would. His face and his invincible

patience made him pathetic to her. Women such as Gyp cannot actively

dislike those who admire them greatly. She consulted him about Fiorsen’s

debts. There were hundreds of pounds owing, it seemed, and, in addition,

much to Rosek himself. The thought of these debts weighed unbearably on

her. Why did he, HOW did he get into debt like this? What became of the

money he earned? His fees, this summer, were good enough. There was such

a feeling of degradation about debt. It was, somehow, so underbred to

owe money to all sorts of people. Was it on that girl, on other women,

that he spent it all? Or was it simply that his nature had holes in

every pocket?

Watching Fiorsen closely, that spring and early summer, she was

conscious of a change, a sort of loosening, something in him had given

way—as when, in winding a watch, the key turns on and on, the ratchet

being broken. Yet he was certainly working hard—perhaps harder than

ever. She would hear him, across the garden, going over and over a

passage, as if he never would be satisfied. But his playing seemed

to her to have lost its fire and sweep; to be stale, and as if

disillusioned. It was all as though he had said to himself: “What’s the

use?” In his face, too, there was a change. She knew—she was certain

that he was drinking secretly. Was it his failure with her? Was it the

girl? Was it simply heredity from a hard-drinking ancestry?

Gyp never faced these questions. To face them would mean useless

discussion, useless admission that she could not love him, useless

asseveration from him about the girl, which she would not believe,

useless denials of all sorts. Hopeless!

He was very irritable, and seemed especially to resent her music

lessons, alluding to them with a sort of sneering impatience. She felt

that he despised them as amateurish, and secretly resented it. He was

often impatient, too, of the time she gave to the baby. His own conduct

with the little creature was like all the rest of him. He would go to

the nursery, much to Betty’s alarm, and take up the baby; be charming

with it for about ten minutes, then suddenly dump it back into its

cradle, stare at it gloomily or utter a laugh, and go out. Sometimes,

he would come up when Gyp was there, and after watching her a little in

silence, almost drag her away.

Suffering always from the guilty consciousness of having no love for

him, and ever more and more from her sense that, instead of saving

him she was, as it were, pushing him down-hill—ironical nemesis for

vanity!—Gyp was ever more and more compliant to his whims, trying to

make up. But this compliance, when all the time she felt further and

further away, was straining her to breaking-point. Hers was a nature

that goes on passively enduring till something snaps; after that—no

more.

Those months of spring and summer were like a long spell of drought,

when moisture gathers far away, coming nearer, nearer, till, at last,

the deluge bursts and sweeps the garden.

XV

The tenth of July that year was as the first day of summer. There had

been much fine weather, but always easterly or northerly; now, after a

broken, rainy fortnight, the sun had come in full summer warmth with

a gentle breeze, drifting here and there scent of the opening lime

blossom. In the garden, under the trees at the far end, Betty sewed at a

garment, and the baby in her perambulator had her seventh morning sleep.

Gyp stood before a bed of pansies and sweet peas. How monkeyish the

pansies’ faces! The sweet peas, too, were like tiny bright birds

fastened to green perches swaying with the wind. And their little green

tridents, growing out from the queer, flat stems, resembled the antennae

of insects. Each of these bright frail, growing things had life and

individuality like herself!

The sound of footsteps on the gravel made her turn. Rosek was coming

from the drawing-room window. Rather startled, Gyp looked at him over

her shoulder. What had brought him at eleven o’clock in the morning? He

came up to her, bowed, and said:

“I came to see Gustav. He’s not up yet, it seems. I thought I would

speak to you first. Can we talk?”

Hesitating just a second, Gyp drew off her gardening-gloves:

“Of course! Here? Or in the drawing-room?”

Rosek answered:

“In the drawing-room, please.”

A faint tremor passed through her, but she led the way, and seated

herself where she could see Betty and the baby. Rosek stood looking down

at her; his stillness, the sweetish gravity of his well-cut lips, his

spotless dandyism stirred in Gyp a kind of unwilling admiration.

“What is it?” she said.

“Bad business, I’m afraid. Something must be done at once. I have

been trying to arrange things, but they will not wait. They are even

threatening to sell up this house.”

With a sense of outrage, Gyp cried:

“Nearly everything here is mine.”

Rosek shook his head.

“The lease is in his name—you are his wife. They can do it, I assure

you.” A sort of shadow passed over his face, and he added: “I cannot

help him any more—just now.”

Gyp shook her head quickly.

“No—of course! You ought not to have helped him at all. I can’t bear—”

He bowed, and she stopped, ashamed. “How much does he owe altogether?”

“About thirteen hundred pounds. It isn’t much, of course. But there is

something else—”

“Worse?”

Rosek nodded.

“I am afraid to tell you; you will think again perhaps that I am trying

to make capital out of it. I can read your thoughts, you see. I cannot

afford that you should think that, this time.”

Gyp made a little movement as though putting away his words.

“No; tell me, please.”

Rosek shrugged his shoulders.

“There is a man called Wagge, an undertaker—the father of someone you

know—”

“Daphne Wing?”

“Yes. A child is coming. They have made her tell. It means the

cancelling of her engagements, of course—and other things.”

Gyp uttered a little laugh; then she said slowly:

“Can you tell me, please, what this Mr.—Wagge can do?”

Again Rosek shrugged his shoulders.

“He is rabid—a rabid man of his class is dangerous. A lot of money will

be wanted, I should think—some blood, perhaps.”

He moved swiftly to her, and said very low:

“Gyp, it is a year since I told you of this. You did not believe me

then. I told you, too, that I loved you. I love you more, now, a hundred

times! Don’t move! I am going up to Gustav.”

He turned, and Gyp thought he was really going; but he stopped and came

back past the line of the window. The expression of his face was quite

changed, so hungry that, for a moment, she felt sorry for him. And that

must have shown in her face, for he suddenly caught at her, and tried

to kiss her lips; she wrenched back, and he could only reach her throat,

but that he kissed furiously. Letting her go as suddenly, he bent his

head and went out without a look.

Gyp stood wiping his kisses off her throat with the back of her hand,

dumbly, mechanically thinking: “What have I done to be treated like

this? What HAVE I done?” No answer came. And such rage against men

flared up that she just stood there, twisting her garden-gloves in her

hands, and biting the lips he would have kissed. Then, going to her

bureau, she took up her address book and looked for the name: Wing, 88,

Frankland Street, Fulham. Unhooking her little bag from off the back of

the chair, she put her cheque-book into it. Then, taking care to make no

sound, she passed into the hall, caught up her sunshade, and went out,

closing the door without noise.

She walked quickly toward Baker Street. Her gardening-hat was right

enough, but she had come out without gloves, and must go into the first

shop and buy a pair. In the choosing of them, she forgot her emotions

for a minute. Out in the street again, they came back as bitterly as

ever. And the day was so beautiful—the sun bright, the sky blue, the

clouds dazzling white; from the top of her ’bus she could see all its

brilliance. There rose up before her the memory of the man who had

kissed her arm at the first ball. And now—this! But, mixed with her

rage, a sort of unwilling compassion and fellow feeling kept rising for

that girl, that silly, sugar-plum girl, brought to such a pass by—her

husband. These feelings sustained her through that voyage to Fulham. She

got down at the nearest corner, walked up a widish street of narrow

grey houses till she came to number eighty-eight. On that newly scrubbed

step, waiting for the door to open, she very nearly turned and fled.

What exactly had she come to do?

The door was opened by a servant in an untidy frock. Mutton! The smell

of mutton—there it was, just as the girl had said!

“Is Miss—Miss Daphne Wing at home?”

In that peculiar “I’ve given it up” voice of domestics in small

households, the servant answered:

“Yes; Miss Disey’s in. D’you want to see ’er? What nyme?”

Gyp produced her card. The maid looked at it, at Gyp, and at two

brown-painted doors, as much as to say, “Where will you have it?” Then,

opening the first of them, she said:

“Tyke a seat, please; I’ll fetch her.”

Gyp went in. In the middle of what was clearly the dining-room, she

tried to subdue the tremor of her limbs and a sense of nausea. The table

against which her hand rested was covered with red baize, no doubt to

keep the stains of mutton from penetrating to the wood. On the mahogany

sideboard reposed a cruet-stand and a green dish of very red apples.

A bamboo-framed talc screen painted with white and yellow marguerites

stood before a fireplace filled with pampas-grass dyed red. The chairs

were of red morocco, the curtains a brownish-red, the walls green, and

on them hung a set of Landseer prints. The peculiar sensation which red

and green in juxtaposition produce on the sensitive was added to Gyp’s

distress. And, suddenly, her eyes lighted on a little deep-blue china

bowl. It stood on a black stand on the mantel-piece, with nothing in it.

To Gyp, in this room of red and green, with the smell of mutton creeping

in, that bowl was like the crystallized whiff of another world. Daphne

Wing—not Daisy Wagge—had surely put it there! And, somehow, it touched

her—emblem of stifled beauty, emblem of all that the girl had tried to

pour out to her that August afternoon in her garden nearly a year ago.

Thin Eastern china, good and really beautiful! A wonder they allowed it

to pollute this room!

A sigh made her turn round. With her back against the door and a white,

scared face, the girl was standing. Gyp thought: ’She has suffered

horribly.’ And, going impulsively up to her, she held out her hand.

Daphne Wing sighed out: “Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen!” and, bending over that hand,

kissed it. Gyp saw that her new glove was wet. Then the girl relapsed,

her feet a little forward, her head a little forward, her back against

the door. Gyp, who knew why she stood thus, was swept again by those

two emotions—rage against men, and fellow feeling for one about to go

through what she herself had just endured.

“It’s all right,” she said, gently; “only, what’s to be done?”

Daphne Wing put her hands up over her white face and sobbed. She sobbed

so quietly but so terribly deeply that Gyp herself had the utmost

difficulty not to cry. It was the sobbing of real despair by a creature

bereft of hope and strength, above all, of love—the sort of weeping

which is drawn from desolate, suffering souls only by the touch of

fellow feeling. And, instead of making Gyp glad or satisfying her sense

of justice, it filled her with more rage against her husband—that he had

taken this girl’s infatuation for his pleasure and then thrown her away.

She seemed to see him discarding that clinging, dove-fair girl, for

cloying his senses and getting on his nerves, discarding her with

caustic words, to abide alone the consequences of her infatuation. She

put her hand timidly on that shaking shoulder, and stroked it. For a

moment the sobbing stopped, and the girl said brokenly:

“Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen, I do love him so!” At those naive words, a painful

wish to laugh seized on Gyp, making her shiver from head to foot. Daphne

Wing saw it, and went on: “I know—I know—it’s awful; but I do—and now

he—he—” Her quiet but really dreadful sobbing broke out again. And again

Gyp began stroking and stroking her shoulder. “And I have been so awful

to you! Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen, do forgive me, please!”

All Gyp could find to answer, was:

“Yes, yes; that’s nothing! Don’t cry—don’t cry!”

Very slowly the sobbing died away, till it was just a long shivering,

but still the girl held her hands over her face and her face down. Gyp

felt paralyzed. The unhappy girl, the red and green room, the smell of

mutton—creeping!

At last, a little of that white face showed; the lips, no longer craving

for sugar-plums, murmured:

“It’s you he—he—really loves all the time. And you don’t love him—that’s

what’s so funny—and—and—I can’t understand it. Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen, if

I could see him—just see him! He told me never to come again; and I

haven’t dared. I haven’t seen him for three weeks—not since I told him

about IT. What shall I do? What shall I do?”

His being her own husband seemed as nothing to Gyp at that moment. She

felt such pity and yet such violent revolt that any girl should want to

crawl back to a man who had spurned her. Unconsciously, she had drawn

herself up and pressed her lips together. The girl, who followed every

movement, said piteously:

“I don’t seem to have any pride. I don’t mind what he does to me, or

what he says, if only I can see him.”

Gyp’s revolt yielded to her pity. She said:

“How long before?”

“Three months.”

Three months—and in this state of misery!

“I think I shall do something desperate. Now that I can’t dance, and

THEY know, it’s too awful! If I could see him, I wouldn’t mind anything.

But I know—I know he’ll never want me again. Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen, I wish I

was dead! I do!”

A heavy sigh escaped Gyp, and, bending suddenly, she kissed the girl’s

forehead. Still that scent of orange blossom about her skin or hair,

as when she asked whether she ought to love or not; as when she came,

moth-like, from the tree-shade into the moonlight, spun, and fluttered,

with her shadow spinning and fluttering before her. Gyp turned away,

feeling that she must relieve the strain, and pointing to the bowl,

said:

“YOU put that there, I’m sure. It’s beautiful.”

The girl answered, with piteous eagerness:

“Oh, would you like it? Do take it. Count Rosek gave it me.” She started

away from the door. “Oh, that’s papa. He’ll be coming in!”