Gyp heard a man clear his throat, and the rattle of an umbrella falling

into a stand; the sight of the girl wilting and shrinking against the

sideboard steadied her. Then the door opened, and Mr. Wagge entered.

Short and thick, in black frock coat and trousers, and a greyish beard,

he stared from one to the other. He looked what he was, an Englishman

and a chapelgoer, nourished on sherry and mutton, who could and did

make his own way in the world. His features, coloured, as from a deep

liverishness, were thick, like his body, and not ill-natured, except for

a sort of anger in his small, rather piggy grey eyes. He said in a

voice permanently gruff, but impregnated with a species of professional

ingratiation:

“Ye-es? Whom ’ave I—?”

“Mrs. Fiorsen.”

“Ow!” The sound of his breathing could be heard distinctly; he twisted a

chair round and said:

“Take a seat, won’t you?”

Gyp shook her head.

In Mr. Wagge’s face a kind of deference seemed to struggle with some

more primitive emotion. Taking out a large, black-edged handkerchief,

he blew his nose, passed it freely over his visage, and turning to his

daughter, muttered:

“Go upstairs.”

The girl turned quickly, and the last glimpse of her white face whipped

up Gyp’s rage against men. When the door was shut, Mr. Wagge cleared his

throat; the grating sound carried with it the suggestion of enormously

thick linings.

He said more gruffly than ever:

“May I ask what ’as given us the honour?”

“I came to see your daughter.”

His little piggy eyes travelled from her face to her feet, to the walls

of the room, to his own watch-chain, to his hands that had begun to rub

themselves together, back to her breast, higher than which they dared

not mount. Their infinite embarrassment struck Gyp. She could almost

hear him thinking: ’Now, how can I discuss it with this attractive young

female, wife of the scoundrel who’s ruined my daughter? Delicate-that’s

what it is!’ Then the words burst hoarsely from him.

“This is an unpleasant business, ma’am. I don’t know what to say. Reelly

I don’t. It’s awkward; it’s very awkward.”

Gyp said quietly:

“Your daughter is desperately unhappy; and that can’t be good for her

just now.”

Mr. Wagge’s thick figure seemed to writhe. “Pardon me, ma’am,” he

spluttered, “but I must call your husband a scoundrel. I’m sorry to

be impolite, but I must do it. If I had ’im ’ere, I don’t know that I

should be able to control myself—I don’t indeed.” Gyp made a movement of

her gloved hands, which he seemed to interpret as sympathy, for he went

on in a stream of husky utterance: “It’s a delicate thing before a lady,

and she the injured party; but one has feelings. From the first I said

this dancin’ was in the face of Providence; but women have no more sense

than an egg. Her mother she would have it; and now she’s got it! Career,

indeed! Pretty career! Daughter of mine! I tell you, ma’am, I’m angry;

there’s no other word for it—I’m angry. If that scoundrel comes within

reach of me, I shall mark ’im—I’m not a young man, but I shall mark ’im.

An’ what to say to you, I’m sure I don’t know. That my daughter should

be’ave like that! Well, it’s made a difference to me. An’ now I suppose

her name’ll be dragged in the mud. I tell you frankly I ’oped you

wouldn’t hear of it, because after all the girl’s got her punishment.

And this divorce-court—it’s not nice—it’s a horrible thing for

respectable people. And, mind you, I won’t see my girl married to that

scoundrel, not if you do divorce ’im. No; she’ll have her disgrace for

nothing.”

Gyp, who had listened with her head a little bent, raised it suddenly,

and said:

“There’ll be no public disgrace, Mr. Wagge, unless you make it yourself.

If you send Daphne—Daisy—quietly away somewhere till her trouble’s over,

no one need know anything.”

Mr. Wagge, whose mouth had opened slightly, and whose breathing could

certainly have been heard in the street, took a step forward and said:

“Do I understand you to say that you’re not goin’ to take proceedings,

ma’am?”

Gyp shuddered, and shook her head.

Mr. Wagge stood silent, slightly moving his face up and down.

“Well,” he said, at length, “it’s more than she deserves; but I don’t

disguise it’s a relief to me. And I must say, in a young lady like you,

and—and handsome, it shows a Christian spirit.” Again Gyp shivered, and

shook her head. “It does. You’ll allow me to say so, as a man old enough

to be your father—and a regular attendant.”

He held out his hand. Gyp put her gloved hand into it.

“I’m very, very sorry. Please be nice to her.”

Mr. Wagge recoiled a little, and for some seconds stood ruefully rubbing

his hands together and looking from side to side.

“I’m a domestic man,” he said suddenly. “A domestic man in a serious

line of life; and I never thought to have anything like this in my

family—never! It’s been—well, I can’t tell you what it’s been!”

Gyp took up her sunshade. She felt that she must get away; at any moment

he might say something she could not bear—and the smell of mutton rising

fast!

“I am sorry,” she said again; “good-bye”; and moved past him to the

door. She heard him breathing hard as he followed her to open it, and

thought: ’If only—oh! please let him be silent till I get outside!’ Mr.

Wagge passed her and put his hand on the latch of the front door. His

little piggy eyes scanned her almost timidly.

“Well,” he said, “I’m very glad to have the privilege of your

acquaintance; and, if I may say so, you ’ave—you ’ave my ’earty

sympathy. Good-day.”

The door once shut behind her, Gyp took a long breath and walked swiftly

away. Her cheeks were burning; and, with a craving for protection, she

put up her sunshade. But the girl’s white face came up again before her,

and the sound of her words:

“Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen, I wish I was dead! I DO!”

XVI

Gyp walked on beneath her sunshade, making unconsciously for the peace

of trees. Her mind was a whirl of impressions—Daphne Wing’s figure

against the door, Mr. Wagge’s puggy grey-bearded countenance, the red

pampas-grass, the blue bowl, Rosek’s face swooping at her, her last

glimpse of her baby asleep under the trees!

She reached Kensington Gardens, turned into that walk renowned for the

beauty of its flowers and the plainness of the people who frequent it,

and sat down on a bench. It was near the luncheon-hour; nursemaids,

dogs, perambulators, old gentlemen—all were hurrying a little toward

their food. They glanced with critical surprise at this pretty young

woman, leisured and lonely at such an hour, trying to find out what was

wrong with her, as one naturally does with beauty—bow legs or something,

for sure, to balance a face like that! But Gyp noticed none of them,

except now and again a dog which sniffed her knees in passing. For

months she had resolutely cultivated insensibility, resolutely refused

to face reality; the barrier was forced now, and the flood had swept

her away. “Proceedings!” Mr. Wagge had said. To those who shrink from

letting their secret affairs be known even by their nearest friends, the

notion of a public exhibition of troubles simply never comes, and it

had certainly never come to Gyp. With a bitter smile she thought: ’I’m

better off than she is, after all! Suppose I loved him, too? No, I

never—never—want to love. Women who love suffer too much.’

She sat on that bench a long time before it came into her mind that she

was due at Monsieur Harmost’s for a music lesson at three o’clock. It

was well past two already; and she set out across the grass. The summer

day was full of murmurings of bees and flies, cooings of blissful

pigeons, the soft swish and stir of leaves, and the scent of lime

blossom under a sky so blue, with few white clouds slow, and calm, and

full. Why be unhappy? And one of those spotty spaniel dogs, that have

broad heads, with frizzy topknots, and are always rascals, smelt at her

frock and moved round and round her, hoping that she would throw her

sunshade on the water for him to fetch, this being in his view the only

reason why anything was carried in the hand.

She found Monsieur Harmost fidgeting up and down the room, whose opened

windows could not rid it of the smell of latakia.

“Ah,” he said, “I thought you were not coming! You look pale; are you

not well? Is it the heat? Or”—he looked hard into her face—“has someone

hurt you, my little friend?” Gyp shook her head. “Ah, yes,” he went on

irritably; “you tell me nothing; you tell nobody nothing! You close

up your pretty face like a flower at night. At your age, my child, one

should make confidences; a secret grief is to music as the east wind to

the stomach. Put off your mask for once.” He came close to her. “Tell me

your troubles. It is a long time since I have been meaning to ask. Come!

We are only once young; I want to see you happy.”

But Gyp stood looking down. Would it be relief to pour her soul out?

Would it? His brown eyes questioned her like an old dog’s. She did not

want to hurt one so kind. And yet—impossible!

Monsieur Harmost suddenly sat down at the piano. Resting his hands on

the keys, he looked round at her, and said:

“I am in love with you, you know. Old men can be very much in love, but

they know it is no good—that makes them endurable. Still, we like to

feel of use to youth and beauty; it gives us a little warmth. Come; tell

me your grief!” He waited a moment, then said irritably: “Well, well, we

go to music then!”

It was his habit to sit by her at the piano corner, but to-day he stood

as if prepared to be exceptionally severe. And Gyp played, whether from

overexcited nerves or from not having had any lunch, better than she had

ever played. The Chopin polonaise in A flat, that song of revolution,

which had always seemed so unattainable, went as if her fingers were

being worked for her. When she had finished, Monsieur Harmost, bending

forward, lifted one of her hands and put his lips to it. She felt the

scrub of his little bristly beard, and raised her face with a deep sigh

of satisfaction. A voice behind them said mockingly:

“Bravo!”

There, by the door, stood Fiorsen.

“Congratulations, madame! I have long wanted to see you under the

inspiration of your—master!”

Gyp’s heart began to beat desperately. Monsieur Harmost had not moved. A

faint grin slowly settled in his beard, but his eyes were startled.

Fiorsen kissed the back of his own hand.

“To this old Pantaloon you come to give your heart. Ho—what a lover!”

Gyp saw the old man quiver; she sprang up and cried:

“You brute!”

Fiorsen ran forward, stretching out his arms toward Monsieur Harmost, as

if to take him by the throat.

The old man drew himself up. “Monsieur,” he said, “you are certainly

drunk.”

Gyp slipped between, right up to those outstretched hands till she could

feel their knuckles against her. Had he gone mad? Would he strangle her?

But her eyes never moved from his, and his began to waver; his hands

dropped, and, with a kind of moan, he made for the door.

Monsieur Harmost’s voice behind her said:

“Before you go, monsieur, give me some explanation of this imbecility!”

Fiorsen spun round, shook his fist, and went out muttering. They heard

the front door slam. Gyp turned abruptly to the window, and there, in

her agitation, she noticed little outside things as one does in moments

of bewildered anger. Even into that back yard, summer had crept. The

leaves of the sumach-tree were glistening; in a three-cornered little

patch of sunlight, a black cat with a blue ribbon round its neck was

basking. The voice of one hawking strawberries drifted melancholy from

a side street. She was conscious that Monsieur Harmost was standing very

still, with a hand pressed to his mouth, and she felt a perfect passion

of compunction and anger. That kind and harmless old man—to be so

insulted! This was indeed the culmination of all Gustav’s outrages! She

would never forgive him this! For he had insulted her as well, beyond

what pride or meekness could put up with. She turned, and, running up to

the old man, put both her hands into his.

“I’m so awfully sorry. Good-bye, dear, dear Monsieur Harmost; I shall

come on Friday!” And, before he could stop her, she was gone.

She dived into the traffic; but, just as she reached the pavement on the

other side, felt her dress plucked and saw Fiorsen just behind her. She

shook herself free and walked swiftly on. Was he going to make a scene

in the street? Again he caught her arm. She stopped dead, faced round on

him, and said, in an icy voice:

“Please don’t make scenes in the street, and don’t follow me like this.

If you want to talk to me, you can—at home.”

Then, very calmly, she turned and walked on. But he was still following

her, some paces off. She did not quicken her steps, and to the first

taxicab driver that passed she made a sign, and saying:

“Bury Street—quick!” got in. She saw Fiorsen rush forward, too late to

stop her. He threw up his hand and stood still, his face deadly white

under his broad-brimmed hat. She was far too angry and upset to care.

From the moment she turned to the window at Monsieur Harmost’s, she had

determined to go to her father’s. She would not go back to Fiorsen; and

the one thought that filled her mind was how to get Betty and her baby.

Nearly four! Dad was almost sure to be at his club. And leaning out, she

said: “No; Hyde Park Corner, please.”

The hall porter, who knew her, after calling to a page-boy: “Major

Winton—sharp, now!” came specially out of his box to offer her a seat

and The Times.

Gyp sat with it on her knee, vaguely taking in her surroundings—a thin

old gentleman anxiously weighing himself in a corner, a white-calved

footman crossing with a tea-tray; a number of hats on pegs; the

green-baize board with its white rows of tapelike paper, and

three members standing before it. One of them, a tall, stout,

good-humoured-looking man in pince-nez and a white waistcoat, becoming

conscious, removed his straw hat and took up a position whence, without

staring, he could gaze at her; and Gyp knew, without ever seeming to

glance at him, that he found her to his liking. She saw her father’s

unhurried figure passing that little group, all of whom were conscious

now, and eager to get away out of this sanctum of masculinity, she met

him at the top of the low steps, and said:

“I want to talk to you, Dad.”

He gave her a quick look, selected his hat, and followed to the door. In

the cab, he put his hand on hers and said:

“Now, my dear?”

But all she could get out was:

“I want to come back to you. I can’t go on there. It’s—it’s—I’ve come to

an end.”

His hand pressed hers tightly, as if he were trying to save her the need

for saying more. Gyp went on:

“I must get baby; I’m terrified that he’ll try to keep her, to get me

back.”

“Is he at home?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t told him that I’m going to leave him.”

Winton looked at his watch and asked:

“Does the baby ever go out as late as this?”

“Yes; after tea. It’s cooler.”

“I’ll take this cab on, then. You stay and get the room ready for her.

Don’t worry, and don’t go out till I return.”

And Gyp thought: ’How wonderful of him not to have asked a single

question.’

The cab stopped at the Bury Street door. She took his hand, put it to

her cheek, and got out. He said quietly:

“Do you want the dogs?”

“Yes—oh, yes! He doesn’t care for them.”

“All right. There’ll be time to get you in some things for the night

after I come back. I shan’t run any risks to-day. Make Mrs. Markey give

you tea.”

Gyp watched the cab gather way again, saw him wave his hand; then, with

a deep sigh, half anxiety, half relief, she rang the bell.

XVII

When the cab debouched again into St. James’ Street, Winton gave the

order: “Quick as you can!” One could think better going fast! A little

red had come into his brown cheeks; his eyes under their half-drawn lids

had a keener light; his lips were tightly closed; he looked as he did

when a fox was breaking cover. Gyp could do no wrong, or, if she could,

he would stand by her in it as a matter of course. But he was going to

take no risks—make no frontal attack. Time for that later, if necessary.

He had better nerves than most people, and that kind of steely

determination and resource which makes many Englishmen of his class

formidable in small operations. He kept his cab at the door, rang, and

asked for Gyp, with a kind of pleasure in his ruse.

“She’s not in yet, sir. Mr. Fiorsen’s in.”

“Ah! And baby?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll come in and see her. In the garden?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Dogs there, too?”

“Yes, sir. And will you have tea, please, sir?”

“No, thanks.” How to effect this withdrawal without causing gossip, and

yet avoid suspicion of collusion with Gyp? And he added: “Unless Mrs.

Fiorsen comes in.”

Passing out into the garden, he became aware that Fiorsen was at the

dining-room window watching him, and decided to make no sign that he

knew this. The baby was under the trees at the far end, and the dogs

came rushing thence with a fury which lasted till they came within scent

of him. Winton went leisurely up to the perambulator, and, saluting

Betty, looked down at his grandchild. She lay under an awning of muslin,

for fear of flies, and was awake. Her solemn, large brown eyes, already

like Gyp’s, regarded him with gravity. Clucking to her once or twice,

as is the custom, he moved so as to face the house. In this position, he

had Betty with her back to it. And he said quietly:

“I’m here with a message from your mistress, Betty. Keep your head;

don’t look round, but listen to me. She’s at Bury Street and going to

stay there; she wants you and baby and the dogs.” The stout woman’s

eyes grew round and her mouth opened. Winton put his hand on the

perambulator. “Steady, now! Go out as usual with this thing. It’s about

your time; and wait for me at the turning to Regent’s Park. I’ll come on

in my cab and pick you all up. Don’t get flurried; don’t take anything;

do exactly as you usually would. Understand?”

It is not in the nature of stout women with babies in their charge to

receive such an order without question. Her colour, and the heaving of

that billowy bosom made Winton add quickly:

“Now, Betty, pull yourself together; Gyp wants you. I’ll tell you all

about it in the cab.”

The poor woman, still heaving vaguely, could only stammer:

“Yes, sir. Poor little thing! What about its night-things? And Miss

Gyp’s?”

Conscious of that figure still at the window, Winton made some passes

with his fingers at the baby, and said:

“Never mind them. As soon as you see me at the drawing-room window,

get ready and go. Eyes front, Betty; don’t look round; I’ll cover your

retreat! Don’t fail Gyp now. Pull yourself together.”

With a sigh that could have been heard in Kensington, Betty murmured:

“Very well, sir; oh dear!” and began to adjust the strings of her

bonnet. With nods, as if he had been the recipient of some sage remarks

about the baby, Winton saluted, and began his march again towards

the house. He carefully kept his eyes to this side and to that, as if

examining the flowers, but noted all the same that Fiorsen had receded

from the window. Rapid thought told him that the fellow would come back

there to see if he were gone, and he placed himself before a rose-bush,

where, at that reappearance, he could make a sign of recognition. Sure

enough, he came; and Winton quietly raising his hand to the salute

passed on through the drawing-room window. He went quickly into the

hall, listened a second, and opened the dining-room door. Fiorsen was

pacing up and down, pale and restless. He came to a standstill and

stared haggardly at Winton, who said:

“How are you? Gyp not in?”

“No.”

Something in the sound of that “No” touched Winton with a vague—a very

vague—compunction. To be left by Gyp! Then his heart hardened again. The

fellow was a rotter—he was sure of it, had always been sure.

“Baby looks well,” he said.

Fiorsen turned and began to pace up and down again.

“Where is Gyp? I want her to come in. I want her.”

Winton took out his watch.

“It’s not late.” And suddenly he felt a great aversion for the part he

was playing. To get the baby; to make Gyp safe—yes! But, somehow, not

this pretence that he knew nothing about it. He turned on his heel and

walked out. It imperilled everything; but he couldn’t help it. He could

not stay and go on prevaricating like this. Had that woman got clear? He

went back into the drawing-room. There they were—just passing the side

of the house. Five minutes, and they would be down at the turning.

He stood at the window, waiting. If only that fellow did not come in!

Through the partition wall he could hear him still tramping up and down

the dining-room. What a long time a minute was! Three had gone when he

heard the dining-room door opened, and Fiorsen crossing the hall to

the front door. What was he after, standing there as if listening? And

suddenly he heard him sigh. It was just such a sound as many times,

in the long-past days, had escaped himself, waiting, listening for

footsteps, in parched and sickening anxiety. Did this fellow then really

love—almost as he had loved? And in revolt at spying on him like this,

he advanced and said:

“Well, I won’t wait any longer.”

Fiorsen started; he had evidently supposed himself alone. And Winton

thought: ’By Jove! he does look bad!’

“Good-bye!” he said; but the words: “Give my love to Gyp,” perished on

their way up to his lips.

“Good-bye!” Fiorsen echoed. And Winton went out under the trellis,

conscious of that forlorn figure still standing at the half-opened

door. Betty was nowhere in sight; she must have reached the turning.

His mission had succeeded, but he felt no elation. Round the corner, he

picked up his convoy, and, with the perambulator hoisted on to the taxi,

journeyed on at speed. He had said he would explain in the cab, but the

only remark he made was:

“You’ll all go down to Mildenham to-morrow.”

And Betty, who had feared him ever since their encounter so many years

ago, eyed his profile, without daring to ask questions. Before he

reached home, Winton stopped at a post-office, and sent this telegram:

“Gyp and the baby are with me letter follows.—WINTON.”

It salved a conscience on which that fellow’s figure in the doorway

weighed; besides, it was necessary, lest Fiorsen should go to the

police. The rest must wait till he had talked with Gyp.

There was much to do, and it was late before they dined, and not till

Markey had withdrawn could they begin their talk.

Close to the open windows where Markey had placed two hydrangea

plants—just bought on his own responsibility, in token of silent

satisfaction—Gyp began. She kept nothing back, recounting the whole

miserable fiasco of her marriage. When she came to Daphne Wing and

her discovery in the music-room, she could see the glowing end of her

father’s cigar move convulsively. That insult to his adored one seemed

to Winton so inconceivable that, for a moment, he stopped her recital by

getting up to pace the room. In her own house—her own house! And—after

that, she had gone on with him! He came back to his chair and did not

interrupt again, but his stillness almost frightened her.

Coming to the incidents of the day itself, she hesitated. Must she tell

him, too, of Rosek—was it wise, or necessary? The all-or-nothing candour

that was part of her nature prevailed, and she went straight on, and,

save for the feverish jerking of his evening shoe, Winton made no sign.

When she had finished, he got up and slowly extinguished the end of his

cigar against the window-sill; then looking at her lying back in her

chair as if exhausted, he said: “By God!” and turned his face away to

the window.

At that hour before the theatres rose, a lull brooded in the London

streets; in this quiet narrow one, the town’s hum was only broken by the

clack of a half-drunken woman bickering at her man as they lurched along

for home, and the strains of a street musician’s fiddle, trying to make

up for a blank day. The sound vaguely irritated Winton, reminding him of

those two damnable foreigners by whom she had been so treated. To have

them at the point of a sword or pistol—to teach them a lesson! He heard

her say:

“Dad, I should like to pay his debts. Then things would be as they were

when I married him.”

He emitted an exasperated sound. He did not believe in heaping coals of

fire.

“I want to make sure, too, that the girl is all right till she’s over

her trouble. Perhaps I could use some of that—that other money, if mine

is all tied up?”

It was sheer anger, not disapproval of her impulse, that made him

hesitate; money and revenge would never be associated in his mind. Gyp

went on:

“I want to feel as if I’d never let him marry me. Perhaps his debts are

all part of that—who knows? Please!”

Winton looked at her. How like—when she said that “Please!” How like—her

figure sunk back in the old chair, and the face lifted in shadow! A sort

of exultation came to him. He had got her back—had got her back!

XVIII

Fiorsen’s bedroom was—as the maid would remark—“a proper pigsty”—until

he was out of it and it could be renovated each day. He had a talent

for disorder, so that the room looked as if three men instead of one

had gone to bed in it. Clothes and shoes, brushes, water, tumblers,

breakfast-tray, newspapers, French novels, and cigarette-ends—none were

ever where they should have been; and the stale fumes from the many

cigarettes he smoked before getting up incommoded anyone whose duty it

was to take him tea and shaving-water. When, on that first real summer

day, the maid had brought Rosek up to him, he had been lying a long time

on his back, dreamily watching the smoke from his cigarette and

four flies waltzing in the sunlight that filtered through the green

sun-blinds. This hour, before he rose, was his creative moment, when he

could best see the form of music and feel inspiration for its rendering.

Of late, he had been stale and wretched, all that side of him dull; but

this morning he felt again the delicious stir of fancy, that vibrating,

half-dreamy state when emotion seems so easily to find shape and the

mind pierces through to new expression. Hearing the maid’s knock, and

her murmured: “Count Rosek to see you, sir,” he thought: ’What the devil

does he want?’ A larger nature, drifting without control, in contact

with a smaller one, who knows his own mind exactly, will instinctively

be irritable, though he may fail to grasp what his friend is after.

And pushing the cigarette-box toward Rosek, he turned away his head. It

would be money he had come about, or—that girl! That girl—he wished

she was dead! Soft, clinging creature! A baby! God! What a fool he had

been—ah, what a fool! Such absurdity! Unheard of! First Gyp—then her!

He had tried to shake the girl off. As well try to shake off a burr! How

she clung! He had been patient—oh, yes—patient and kind, but how go on

when one was tired—tired of her—and wanting only Gyp, only his own wife?

That was a funny thing! And now, when, for an hour or two, he had shaken

free of worry, had been feeling happy—yes, happy—this fellow must come,

and stand there with his face of a sphinx! And he said pettishly:

“Well, Paul! sit down. What troubles have you brought?”

Rosek lit a cigarette but did not sit down. He struck even Fiorsen by

his unsmiling pallor.

“You had better look out for Mr. Wagge, Gustav; he came to me yesterday.

He has no music in his soul.”

Fiorsen sat up.

“Satan take Mr. Wagge! What can he do?”

“I am not a lawyer, but I imagine he can be unpleasant—the girl is

young.”

Fiorsen glared at him, and said:

“Why did you throw me that cursed girl?”

Rosek answered, a little too steadily:

“I did not, my friend.”

“What! You did. What was your game? You never do anything without a

game. You know you did. Come; what was your game?”

“You like pleasure, I believe.”

Fiorsen said violently:

“Look here: I have done with your friendship—you are no friend to me. I

have never really known you, and I should not wish to. It is finished.

Leave me in peace.”

Rosek smiled.

“My dear, that is all very well, but friendships are not finished like

that. Moreover, you owe me a thousand pounds.”

“Well, I will pay it.” Rosek’s eyebrows mounted. “I will. Gyp will lend

it to me.”

“Oh! Is Gyp so fond of you as that? I thought she only loved her

music-lessons.”

Crouching forward with his knees drawn up, Fiorsen hissed out:

“Don’t talk of Gyp! Get out of this! I will pay you your thousand

pounds.”

Rosek, still smiling, answered:

“Gustav, don’t be a fool! With a violin to your shoulder, you are a man.

Without—you are a child. Lie quiet, my friend, and think of Mr. Wagge.

But you had better come and talk it over with me. Good-bye for the

moment. Calm yourself.” And, flipping the ash off his cigarette on to

the tray by Fiorsen’s elbow, he nodded and went.

Fiorsen, who had leaped out of bed, put his hand to his head. The cursed

fellow! Cursed be every one of them—the father and the girl, Rosek and

all the other sharks! He went out on to the landing. The house was quite

still below. Rosek had gone—good riddance! He called, “Gyp!” No answer.

He went into her room. Its superlative daintiness struck his fancy. A

scent of cyclamen! He looked out into the garden. There was the baby

at the end, and that fat woman. No Gyp! Never in when she was

wanted. Wagge! He shivered; and, going back into his bedroom, took a

brandy-bottle from a locked cupboard and drank some. It steadied him; he

locked up the cupboard again, and dressed.

Going out to the music-room, he stopped under the trees to make passes

with his fingers at the baby. Sometimes he felt that it was an adorable

little creature, with its big, dark eyes so like Gyp’s. Sometimes it

excited his disgust—a discoloured brat. This morning, while looking

at it, he thought suddenly of the other that was coming—and grimaced.

Catching Betty’s stare of horrified amazement at the face he was

making at her darling, he burst into a laugh and turned away into the

music-room.

While he was keying up his violin, Gyp’s conduct in never having come

there for so long struck him as bitterly unjust. The girl—who cared

about the wretched girl? As if she made any real difference! It was all

so much deeper than that. Gyp had never loved him, never given him what

he wanted, never quenched his thirst of her! That was the heart of it.

No other woman he had ever had to do with had been like that—kept his

thirst unquenched. No; he had always tired of them before they tired of

him. She gave him nothing really—nothing! Had she no heart or did she

give it elsewhere? What was that Paul had said about her music-lessons?

And suddenly it struck him that he knew nothing, absolutely nothing,

of where she went or what she did. She never told him anything.

Music-lessons? Every day, nearly, she went out, was away for hours. The

thought that she might go to the arms of another man made him put down

his violin with a feeling of actual sickness. Why not? That deep and

fearful whipping of the sexual instinct which makes the ache of jealousy

so truly terrible was at its full in such a nature as Fiorsen’s. He drew

a long breath and shuddered. The remembrance of her fastidious pride,

her candour, above all her passivity cut in across his fear. No, not

Gyp!

He went to a little table whereon stood a tantalus, tumblers, and a

syphon, and pouring out some brandy, drank. It steadied him. And he

began to practise. He took a passage from Brahms’ violin concerto and

began to play it over and over. Suddenly, he found he was repeating the

same flaws each time; he was not attending. The fingering of that thing

was ghastly! Music-lessons! Why did she take them? Waste of time and

money—she would never be anything but an amateur! Ugh! Unconsciously, he

had stopped playing. Had she gone there to-day? It was past lunch-time.

Perhaps she had come in.

He put down his violin and went back to the house. No sign of her! The

maid came to ask if he would lunch. No! Was the mistress to be in? She

had not said. He went into the dining-room, ate a biscuit, and drank a

brandy and soda. It steadied him. Lighting a cigarette, he came back to

the drawing-room and sat down at Gyp’s bureau. How tidy! On the little

calendar, a pencil-cross was set against to-day—Wednesday, another

against Friday. What for? Music-lessons! He reached to a pigeon-hole,

and took out her address-book. “H—Harmost, 305A, Marylebone Road,” and

against it the words in pencil, “3 P.M.”

Three o’clock. So that was her hour! His eyes rested idly on a little

old coloured print of a Bacchante, with flowing green scarf, shaking a

tambourine at a naked Cupid, who with a baby bow and arrow in his hands,

was gazing up at her. He turned it over; on the back was written in a

pointed, scriggly hand, “To my little friend.—E. H.” Fiorsen drew smoke

deep down into his lungs, expelled it slowly, and went to the piano. He

opened it and began to play, staring vacantly before him, the cigarette

burned nearly to his lips. He went on, scarcely knowing what he played.

At last he stopped, and sat dejected. A great artist? Often, nowadays,

he did not care if he never touched a violin again. Tired of standing

up before a sea of dull faces, seeing the blockheads knock their

silly hands one against the other! Sick of the sameness of it all!

Besides—besides, were his powers beginning to fail? What was happening

to him of late?

He got up, went into the dining-room, and drank some brandy. Gyp

could not bear his drinking. Well, she shouldn’t be out so much—taking

music-lessons. Music-lessons! Nearly three o’clock. If he went for once

and saw what she really did—Went, and offered her his escort home! An

attention. It might please her. Better, anyway, than waiting here until

she chose to come in with her face all closed up. He drank a little more

brandy—ever so little—took his hat and went. Not far to walk, but

the sun was hot, and he reached the house feeling rather dizzy. A

maid-servant opened the door to him.

“I am Mr. Fiorsen. Mrs. Fiorsen here?”

“Yes, sir; will you wait?”

Why did she look at him like that? Ugly girl! How hateful ugly people

were! When she was gone, he reopened the door of the waiting-room, and

listened.

Chopin! The polonaise in A flat. Good! Could that be Gyp? Very good! He

moved out, down the passage, drawn on by her playing, and softly turned

the handle. The music stopped. He went in.

When Winton had left him, an hour and a half later that afternoon,

Fiorsen continued to stand at the front door, swaying his body to and

fro. The brandy-nurtured burst of jealousy which had made him insult his

wife and old Monsieur Harmost had died suddenly when Gyp turned on him

in the street and spoke in that icy voice; since then he had felt fear,

increasing every minute. Would she forgive? To one who always acted on

the impulse of the moment, so that he rarely knew afterward exactly what

he had done, or whom hurt, Gyp’s self-control had ever been mysterious

and a little frightening. Where had she gone? Why did she not come in?

Anxiety is like a ball that rolls down-hill, gathering momentum. Suppose

she did not come back! But she must—there was the baby—their baby!

For the first time, the thought of it gave him unalloyed satisfaction.

He left the door, and, after drinking a glass to steady him, flung

himself down on the sofa in the drawing-room. And while he lay there,

the brandy warm within him, he thought: ’I will turn over a new leaf;

give up drink, give up everything, send the baby into the country,

take Gyp to Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Rome—anywhere out of this England,

anywhere, away from that father of hers and all these stiff, dull folk!

She will like that—she loves travelling!’ Yes, they would be happy!

Delicious nights—delicious days—air that did not weigh you down and

make you feel that you must drink—real inspiration—real music! The

acrid wood-smoke scent of Paris streets, the glistening cleanness of the

Thiergarten, a serenading song in a Florence back street, fireflies in

the summer dusk at Sorrento—he had intoxicating memories of them all!

Slowly the warmth of the brandy died away, and, despite the heat, he

felt chill and shuddery. He shut his eyes, thinking to sleep till she

came in. But very soon he opened them, because—a thing usual with him

of late—he saw such ugly things—faces, vivid, changing as he

looked, growing ugly and uglier, becoming all holes—holes—horrible

holes—Corruption—matted, twisted, dark human-tree-roots of faces!

Horrible! He opened his eyes, for when he did that, they always went. It

was very silent. No sound from above. No sound of the dogs. He would go

up and see the baby.

While he was crossing the hall, there came a ring. He opened the door

himself. A telegram! He tore the envelope.

“Gyp and the baby are with me letter follows.—WINTON.”

He gave a short laugh, shut the door in the boy’s face, and ran

up-stairs; why—heaven knew! There was nobody there now! Nobody! Did it

mean that she had really left him—was not coming back? He stopped by the

side of Gyp’s bed, and flinging himself forward, lay across it, burying

his face. And he sobbed, as men will, unmanned by drink. Had he lost

her? Never to see her eyes closing and press his lips against them!

Never to soak his senses in her loveliness! He leaped up, with the

tears still wet on his face. Lost her? Absurd! That calm, prim, devilish

Englishman, her father—he was to blame—he had worked it all—stealing the

baby!

He went down-stairs and drank some brandy. It steadied him a little.

What should he do? “Letter follows.” Drink, and wait? Go to Bury Street?

No. Drink! Enjoy himself!

He laughed, and, catching up his hat, went out, walking furiously at

first, then slower and slower, for his head began to whirl, and, taking

a cab, was driven to a restaurant in Soho. He had eaten nothing but a

biscuit since his breakfast, always a small matter, and ordered soup and

a flask of their best Chianti—solids he could not face. More than two

hours he sat, white and silent, perspiration on his forehead, now

and then grinning and flourishing his fingers, to the amusement and

sometimes the alarm of those sitting near. But for being known there,

he would have been regarded with suspicion. About half-past nine, there

being no more wine, he got up, put a piece of gold on the table, and

went out without waiting for his change.

In the streets, the lamps were lighted, but daylight was not quite gone.

He walked unsteadily, toward Piccadilly. A girl of the town passed and

looked up at him. Staring hard, he hooked his arm in hers without a

word; it steadied him, and they walked on thus together. Suddenly he

said:

“Well, girl, are you happy?” The girl stopped and tried to disengage her

arm; a rather frightened look had come into her dark-eyed powdered face.

Fiorsen laughed, and held it firm. “When the unhappy meet, they walk

together. Come on! You are just a little like my wife. Will you have a

drink?”

The girl shook her head, and, with a sudden movement, slipped her arm

out of this madman’s and dived away like a swallow through the pavement

traffic. Fiorsen stood still and laughed with his head thrown back. The

second time to-day. SHE had slipped from his grasp. Passers looked

at him, amazed. The ugly devils! And with a grimace, he turned out

of Piccadilly, past St. James’s Church, making for Bury Street. They

wouldn’t let him in, of course—not they! But he would look at the

windows; they had flower-boxes—flower-boxes! And, suddenly, he groaned

aloud—he had thought of Gyp’s figure busy among the flowers at home.

Missing the right turning, he came in at the bottom of the street.

A fiddler in the gutter was scraping away on an old violin. Fiorsen

stopped to listen. Poor devil! “Pagliacci!” Going up to the man—dark,

lame, very shabby, he took out some silver, and put his other hand on

the man’s shoulder.

“Brother,” he said, “lend me your fiddle. Here’s money for you. Come;

lend it to me. I am a great violinist.”

“Vraiment, monsieur!”

“Ah! Vraiment! Voyons! Donnez—un instant—vous verrez.”

The fiddler, doubting but hypnotized, handed him the fiddle; his dark

face changed when he saw this stranger fling it up to his shoulder and

the ways of his fingers with bow and strings. Fiorsen had begun to walk

up the street, his eyes searching for the flower-boxes. He saw them,

stopped, and began playing “Che faro?” He played it wonderfully on

that poor fiddle; and the fiddler, who had followed at his elbow, stood

watching him, uneasy, envious, but a little entranced. Sapristi! This

tall, pale monsieur with the strange face and the eyes that looked drunk

and the hollow chest, played like an angel! Ah, but it was not so easy

as all that to make money in the streets of this sacred town! You might

play like forty angels and not a copper! He had begun another tune—like

little pluckings at your heart—tres joli—tout a fait ecoeurant! Ah,

there it was—a monsieur as usual closing the window, drawing the

curtains! Always same thing! The violin and the bow were thrust back

into his hands; and the tall strange monsieur was off as if devils were

after him—not badly drunk, that one! And not a sou thrown down! With an

uneasy feeling that he had been involved in something that he did not

understand, the lame, dark fiddler limped his way round the nearest

corner, and for two streets at least did not stop. Then, counting the

silver Fiorsen had put into his hand and carefully examining his fiddle,

he used the word, “Bigre!” and started for home.

XIX

Gyp hardly slept at all. Three times she got up, and, stealing to the

door, looked in at her sleeping baby, whose face in its new bed she

could just see by the night-light’s glow. The afternoon had shaken her

nerves. Nor was Betty’s method of breathing while asleep conducive to

the slumber of anything but babies. It was so hot, too, and the sound of

the violin still in her ears. By that little air of Poise, she had

known for certain it was Fiorsen; and her father’s abrupt drawing of the

curtains had clinched that certainty. If she had gone to the window and

seen him, she would not have been half so deeply disturbed as she was by

that echo of an old emotion. The link which yesterday she thought broken

for good was reforged in some mysterious way. The sobbing of that old

fiddle had been his way of saying, “Forgive me; forgive!” To leave him

would have been so much easier if she had really hated him; but she did

not. However difficult it may be to live with an artist, to hate him

is quite as difficult. An artist is so flexible—only the rigid can be

hated. She hated the things he did, and him when he was doing them; but

afterward again could hate him no more than she could love him, and that

was—not at all. Resolution and a sense of the practical began to come

back with daylight. When things were hopeless, it was far better to

recognize it and harden one’s heart.

Winton, whose night had been almost as sleepless—to play like a beggar

in the street, under his windows, had seemed to him the limit!—announced

at breakfast that he must see his lawyer, make arrangements for the

payment of Fiorsen’s debts, and find out what could be done to secure

Gyp against persecution. Some deed was probably necessary; he was vague

on all such matters. In the meantime, neither Gyp nor the baby must go

out. Gyp spent the morning writing and rewriting to Monsieur Harmost,

trying to express her chagrin, but not saying that she had left Fiorsen.

Her father came back from Westminster quiet and angry. He had with

difficulty been made to understand that the baby was Fiorsen’s property,

so that, if the fellow claimed it, legally they would be unable to

resist. The point opened the old wound, forced him to remember that his

own daughter had once belonged to another—father. He had told the lawyer

in a measured voice that he would see the fellow damned first, and had

directed a deed of separation to be prepared, which should provide for

the complete payment of Fiorsen’s existing debts on condition that

he left Gyp and the baby in peace. After telling Gyp this, he took an

opportunity of going to the extempore nursery and standing by the baby’s

cradle. Until then, the little creature had only been of interest as

part of Gyp; now it had for him an existence of its own—this tiny,

dark-eyed creature, lying there, watching him so gravely, clutching his

finger. Suddenly the baby smiled—not a beautiful smile, but it made on

Winton an indelible impression.

Wishing first to settle this matter of the deed, he put off going down

to Mildenham; but “not trusting those two scoundrels a yard”—for he

never failed to bracket Rosek and Fiorsen—he insisted that the baby

should not go out without two attendants, and that Gyp should not go

out alone. He carried precaution to the point of accompanying her to

Monsieur Harmost’s on the Friday afternoon, and expressed a wish to go

in and shake hands with the old fellow. It was a queer meeting. Those

two had as great difficulty in finding anything to say as though they

were denizens of different planets. And indeed, there ARE two planets on

this earth! When, after a minute or so of the friendliest embarrassment,

he had retired to wait for her, Gyp sat down to her lesson.

Monsieur Harmost said quietly:

“Your letter was very kind, my little friend—and your father is very

kind. But, after all, it was a compliment your husband paid me.” His

smile smote Gyp; it seemed to sum up so many resignations. “So you

stay again with your father!” And, looking at her very hard with his

melancholy brown eyes, “When will you find your fate, I wonder?”

“Never!”

Monsieur Harmost’s eyebrows rose.

“Ah,” he said, “you think! No, that is impossible!” He walked twice

very quickly up and down the room; then spinning round on his heel, said

sharply: “Well, we must not waste your father’s time. To work.”

Winton’s simple comment in the cab on the way home was:

“Nice old chap!”

At Bury Street, they found Gyp’s agitated parlour-maid. Going to do the

music-room that morning, she had “found the master sitting on the sofa,

holding his head, and groaning awful. He’s not been at home, ma’am,

since you—you went on your visit, so I didn’t know what to do. I ran for

cook and we got him up to bed, and not knowing where you’d be, ma’am, I

telephoned to Count Rosek, and he came—I hope I didn’t do wrong—and he

sent me down to see you. The doctor says his brain’s on the touch and

go, and he keeps askin’ for you, ma’am. So I didn’t know what to do.”

Gyp, pale to the lips, said:

“Wait here a minute, Ellen,” and went into the dining-room. Winton

followed. She turned to him at once, and said:

“Oh, Dad, what am I to do? His brain! It would be too awful to feel I’d

brought that about.”

Winton grunted. Gyp went on:

“I must go and see. If it’s really that, I couldn’t bear it. I’m afraid

I must go, Dad.”

Winton nodded.

“Well, I’ll come too,” he said. “The girl can go back in the cab and say

we’re on the way.”

Taking a parting look at her baby, Gyp thought bitterly: ’My fate? THIS

is my fate, and no getting out of it!’ On the journey, she and Winton

were quite silent—but she held his hand tight. While the cook was taking

up to Rosek the news of their arrival, Gyp stood looking out at her

garden. Two days and six hours only since she had stood there above her

pansies; since, at this very spot, Rosek had kissed her throat! Slipping

her hand through Winton’s arm, she said:

“Dad, please don’t make anything of that kiss. He couldn’t help himself,

I suppose. What does it matter, too?”

A moment later Rosek entered. Before she could speak, Winton was saying:

“Thank you for letting us know, sir. But now that my daughter is here,

there will be no further need for your kind services. Good-day!”

At the cruel curtness of those words, Gyp gave the tiniest start

forward. She had seen them go through Rosek’s armour as a sword through

brown paper. He recovered himself with a sickly smile, bowed, and went

out. Winton followed—precisely as if he did not trust him with the hats

in the hall. When the outer door was shut, he said:

“I don’t think he’ll trouble you again.”

Gyp’s gratitude was qualified by a queer compassion. After all, his

offence had only been that of loving her.

Fiorsen had been taken to her room, which was larger and cooler than

his own; and the maid was standing by the side of the bed with a scared

face. Gyp signed to her to go. He opened his eyes presently:

“Gyp! Oh! Gyp! Is it you? The devilish, awful things I see—don’t go away

again! Oh, Gyp!” With a sob he raised himself and rested his forehead

against her. And Gyp felt—as on the first night he came home drunk—a

merging of all other emotions in the desire to protect and heal.

“It’s all right, all right,” she murmured. “I’m going to stay. Don’t

worry about anything. Keep quite quiet, and you’ll soon be well.”

In a quarter of an hour, he was asleep. His wasted look went to her

heart, and that expression of terror which had been coming and going

until he fell asleep! Anything to do with the brain was so horrible!

Only too clear that she must stay—that his recovery depended on her. She

was still sitting there, motionless, when the doctor came, and,

seeing him asleep, beckoned her out. He looked a kindly man, with two

waistcoats, the top one unbuttoned; and while he talked, he winked at

Gyp involuntarily, and, with each wink, Gyp felt that he ripped the veil

off one more domestic secret. Sleep was the ticket—the very ticket for

him! Had something on his mind—yes! And—er—a little given to—brandy?

Ah! all that must stop! Stomach as well as nerves affected. Seeing

things—nasty things—sure sign. Perhaps not a very careful life before

marriage. And married—how long? His kindly appreciative eyes swept Gyp

from top to toe. Year and a half! Quite so! Hard worker at his violin,

too? No doubt! Musicians always a little inclined to be immoderate—too

much sense of beauty—burn the candle at both ends! She must see to that.

She had been away, had she not—staying with her father? Yes. But—no one

like a wife for nursing. As to treatment? Well! One would shove in a

dash of what he would prescribe, night and morning. Perfect quiet. No

stimulant. A little cup of strong coffee without milk, if he seemed low.

Keep him in bed at present. No worry; no excitement. Young man still.

Plenty of vitality. As to herself, no undue anxiety. To-morrow they

would see whether a night nurse would be necessary. Above all, no violin

for a month, no alcohol—in every way the strictest moderation! And with

a last and friendliest wink, leaning heavily on that word “moderation,”

he took out a stylographic pen, scratched on a leaf of his note-book,

shook Gyp’s hand, smiled whimsically, buttoned his upper waistcoat, and

departed.

Gyp went back to her seat by the bed. Irony! She whose only desire was

to be let go free, was mainly responsible for his breakdown! But for

her, there would be nothing on his mind, for he would not be married!

Brooding morbidly, she asked herself—his drinking, debts, even the

girl—had she caused them, too? And when she tried to free him and

herself—this was the result! Was there something fatal about her

that must destroy the men she had to do with? She had made her father

unhappy, Monsieur Harmost—Rosek, and her husband! Even before she

married, how many had tried for her love, and gone away unhappy! And,

getting up, she went to a mirror and looked at herself long and sadly.

XX

Three days after her abortive attempt to break away, Gyp, with much

heart-searching, wrote to Daphne Wing, telling her of Fiorsen’s illness,

and mentioning a cottage near Mildenham, where—if she liked to go—she

would be quite comfortable and safe from all curiosity, and finally

begging to be allowed to make good the losses from any broken

dance-contracts.

Next morning, she found Mr. Wagge with a tall, crape-banded hat in his

black-gloved hands, standing in the very centre of her drawing-room. He

was staring into the garden, as if he had been vouchsafed a vision

of that warm night when the moonlight shed its ghostly glamour on the

sunflowers, and his daughter had danced out there. She had a perfect

view of his thick red neck in its turndown collar, crossed by a black

bow over a shiny white shirt. And, holding out her hand, she said:

“How do you do, Mr. Wagge? It was kind of you to come.”

Mr. Wagge turned. His pug face wore a downcast expression.

“I hope I see you well, ma’am. Pretty place you ’ave ’ere. I’m fond of

flowers myself. They’ve always been my ’obby.”

“They’re a great comfort in London, aren’t they?”

“Ye-es; I should think you might grow the dahlia here.” And having thus

obeyed the obscure instincts of savoir faire, satisfied some obscurer

desire to flatter, he went on: “My girl showed me your letter. I didn’t

like to write; in such a delicate matter I’d rather be vivey vocey. Very

kind, in your position; I’m sure I appreciate it. I always try to do the

Christian thing myself. Flesh passes; you never know when you may have

to take your turn. I said to my girl I’d come and see you.”

“I’m very glad. I hoped perhaps you would.”

Mr. Wagge cleared his throat, and went on, in a hoarser voice:

“I don’t want to say anything harsh about a certain party in your

presence, especially as I read he’s indisposed, but really I hardly know

how to bear the situation. I can’t bring myself to think of money

in relation to that matter; all the same, it’s a serious loss to my

daughter, very serious loss. I’ve got my family pride to think of. My

daughter’s name, well—it’s my own; and, though I say it, I’m respected—a

regular attendant—I think I told you. Sometimes, I assure you, I feel I

can’t control myself, and it’s only that—and you, if I may say so, that

keeps me in check.”

During this speech, his black-gloved hands were clenching and

unclenching, and he shifted his broad, shining boots. Gyp gazed at

them, not daring to look up at his eyes thus turning and turning from

Christianity to shekels, from his honour to the world, from his anger to

herself. And she said:

“Please let me do what I ask, Mr. Wagge. I should be so unhappy if I

mightn’t do that little something.”

Mr. Wagge blew his nose.

“It’s a delicate matter,” he said. “I don’t know where my duty lays. I

don’t, reelly.”

Gyp looked up then.

“The great thing is to save Daisy suffering, isn’t it?”

Mr. Wagge’s face wore for a moment an expression of affront, as if from

the thought: ’Sufferin’! You must leave that to her father!’ Then it

wavered; the curious, furtive warmth of the attracted male came for

a moment into his little eyes; he averted them, and coughed. Gyp said

softly:

“To please me.”

Mr. Wagge’s readjusted glance stopped in confusion at her waist. He

answered, in a voice that he strove to make bland:

“If you put it in that way, I don’t reelly know ’ow to refuse; but it

must be quite between you and me—I can’t withdraw my attitude.”

Gyp murmured:

“No, of course. Thank you so much; and you’ll let me know about

everything later. I mustn’t take up your time now.” And she held out her

hand.

Mr. Wagge took it in a lingering manner.

“Well, I HAVE an appointment,” he said; “a gentleman at Campden Hill. He

starts at twelve. I’m never late. GOOD-morning.”

When she had watched his square, black figure pass through the outer

gate, busily rebuttoning those shining black gloves, she went upstairs

and washed her face and hands.

For several days, Fiorsen wavered; but his collapse had come just in

time, and with every hour the danger lessened. At the end of a fortnight

of a perfectly white life, there remained nothing to do in the words of

the doctor but “to avoid all recurrence of the predisposing causes, and

shove in sea air!” Gyp had locked up all brandy—and violins; she could

control him so long as he was tamed by his own weakness. But she passed

some very bitter hours before she sent for her baby, Betty, and the

dogs, and definitely took up life in her little house again. His debts

had been paid, including the thousand pounds to Rosek, and the losses

of Daphne Wing. The girl had gone down to that cottage where no one had

ever heard of her, to pass her time in lonely grief and terror, with the

aid of a black dress and a gold band on her third finger.

August and the first half of September were spent near Bude. Fiorsen’s

passion for the sea, a passion Gyp could share, kept him singularly

moderate and free from restiveness. He had been thoroughly frightened,

and such terror is not easily forgotten. They stayed in a farmhouse,

where he was at his best with the simple folk, and his best could be

charming. He was always trying to get his “mermaid,” as he took to

calling Gyp, away from the baby, getting her away to himself, along the

grassy cliffs and among the rocks and yellow sands of that free coast.

His delight was to find every day some new nook where they could bathe,

and dry themselves by sitting in the sun. And very like a mermaid she

was, on a seaweedy rock, with her feet close together in a little pool,

her fingers combing her drowned hair, and the sun silvering her wet

body. If she had loved him, it would have been perfect. But though,

close to nature like this—there are men to whom towns are poison—he was

so much more easy to bear, even to like, her heart never opened to him,

never fluttered at his voice, or beat more quickly under his kisses. One

cannot regulate these things. The warmth in her eyes when they looked

at her baby, and the coolness when they looked at him, was such that not

even a man, and he an egoist, could help seeing; and secretly he began

to hate that tiny rival, and she began to notice that he did.

As soon as the weather broke, he grew restless, craving his violin, and

they went back to town, in robust health—all three. During those weeks,

Gyp had never been free of the feeling that it was just a lull, of

forces held up in suspense, and the moment they were back in their

house, this feeling gathered density and darkness, as rain gathers in

the sky after a fine spell. She had often thought of Daphne Wing, and

had written twice, getting in return one naive and pathetic answer:

’DEAR MRS. FIORSEN,

’Oh, it is kind of you to write, because I know what you must be feeling

about me; and it was so kind of you to let me come here. I try not to

think about things, but of course I can’t help it; and I don’t seem to

care what happens now. Mother is coming down here later on. Sometimes I

lie awake all night, listening to the wind. Don’t you think the wind is

the most melancholy thing in the world? I wonder if I shall die? I hope

I shall. Oh, I do, really! Good-bye, dear Mrs. Fiorsen. I shall never

forgive myself about you.

’Your grateful,

’DAPHNE WING.’

The girl had never once been mentioned between her and Fiorsen since

the night when he sat by her bed, begging forgiveness; she did not know

whether he ever gave the little dancer and her trouble a thought, or

even knew what had become of her. But now that the time was getting

near, Gyp felt more and more every day as if she must go down and see

her. She wrote to her father, who, after a dose of Harrogate with Aunt

Rosamund, was back at Mildenham. Winton answered that the nurse was

there, and that there seemed to be a woman, presumably the mother,

staying with her, but that he had not of course made direct inquiry.

Could not Gyp come down? He was alone, and cubbing had begun. It was

like him to veil his longings under such dry statements. But the thought

of giving him pleasure, and of a gallop with hounds fortified intensely

her feeling that she ought to go. Now that baby was so well, and Fiorsen

still not drinking, she might surely snatch this little holiday and

satisfy her conscience about the girl. Since the return from Cornwall,

she had played for him in the music-room just as of old, and she chose

the finish of a morning practice to say:

“Gustav, I want to go to Mildenham this afternoon for a week. Father’s

lonely.”

He was putting away his violin, but she saw his neck grow red.

“To him? No. He will steal you as he stole the baby. Let him have the

baby if he likes. Not you. No.”

Gyp, who was standing by the piano, kept silence at this unexpected

outburst, but revolt blazed up in her. She never asked him anything; he

should not refuse this. He came up behind and put his arms round her.

“My Gyp, I want you here—I am lonely, too. Don’t go away.”

She tried to force his arms apart, but could not, and her anger grew.

She said coldly:

“There’s another reason why I must go.”

“No, no! No good reason—to take you from me.”

“There is! The girl who is just going to have your child is staying near

Mildenham, and I want to see how she is.”

He let go of her then, and recoiling against the divan, sat down. And

Gyp thought: ’I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—but it serves him right.’

He muttered, in a dull voice:

“Oh, I hoped she was dead.”

“Yes! For all you care, she might be. I’m going, but you needn’t be

afraid that I shan’t come back. I shall be back to-day week; I promise.”

He looked at her fixedly.

“Yes. You don’t break your promises; you will not break it.” But,

suddenly, he said again: “Gyp, don’t go!”

“I must.”

He got up and caught her in his arms.

“Say you love me, then!”

But she could not. It was one thing to put up with embraces, quite

another to pretend that. When at last he was gone, she sat smoothing her

hair, staring before her with hard eyes, thinking: “Here—where I saw him

with that girl! What animals men are!”

Late that afternoon, she reached Mildenham. Winton met her at the

station. And on the drive up, they passed the cottage where Daphne

Wing was staying. It stood in front of a small coppice, a creepered,

plain-fronted, little brick house, with a garden still full of

sunflowers, tenanted by the old jockey, Pettance, his widowed daughter,

and her three small children. “That talkative old scoundrel,” as Winton

always called him, was still employed in the Mildenham stables, and his

daughter was laundress to the establishment. Gyp had secured for Daphne

Wing the same free, independent, economic agent who had watched over

her own event; the same old doctor, too, was to be the presiding deity.

There were no signs of life about the cottage, and she would not stop,

too eager to be at home again, to see the old rooms, and smell the old

savour of the house, to get to her old mare, and feel its nose nuzzling

her for sugar. It was so good to be back once more, feeling strong and

well and able to ride. The smile of the inscrutable Markey at the front

door was a joy to her, even the darkness of the hall, where a gleam of

last sunlight fell across the skin of Winton’s first tiger, on which she

had so often sunk down dead tired after hunting. Ah, it was nice to be

at home!

In her mare’s box, old Pettance was putting a last touch to cleanliness.

His shaven, skin-tight, wicked old face, smiled deeply. He said in

honeyed tones:

“Good evenin’, miss; beautiful evenin’, ma’am!” And his little burning

brown eyes, just touched by age, regarded her lovingly.

“Well, Pettance, how are you? And how’s Annie, and how are the children?

And how’s this old darling?”

“Wonderful, miss; artful as a kitten. Carry you like a bird to-morrow,

if you’re goin’ out.”

“How are her legs?”

And while Gyp passed her hand down those iron legs, the old mare

examined her down the back of her neck.

“They ’aven’t filled not once since she come in—she was out all July

and August; but I’ve kept ’er well at it since, in ’opes you might be

comin’.”

“They feel splendid.” And, still bending down, Gyp asked: “And how is

your lodger—the young lady I sent you?”

“Well, ma’am, she’s very young, and these very young ladies they get a

bit excited, you know, at such times; I should say she’ve never been—”

With obvious difficulty he checked the words, “to an ’orse before!”

“Well, you must expect it. And her mother, she’s a dreadful funny one,

miss. She does needle me! Oh, she puts my back up properly! No class, of

course—that’s where it is. But this ’ere nurse—well, you know, miss, she

won’t ’ave no nonsense; so there we are. And, of course, you’re bound to

’ave ’ighsteria, a bit—losin’ her ’usband as young as that.”

Gyp could feel his wicked old smile even before she raised herself.

But what did it matter if he did guess? She knew he would keep a stable

secret.

“Oh, we’ve ’ad some pretty flirts—up and cryin’, dear me! I sleeps in

the next room—oh, yes, at night-time—when you’re a widder at that age,

you can’t expect nothin’ else. I remember when I was ridin’ in Ireland

for Captain O’Neill, there was a young woman—”

Gyp thought: ’I mustn’t let him get off—or I shall be late for dinner,’

and she said:

“Oh, Pettance, who bought the young brown horse?”

“Mr. Bryn Summer’ay, ma’am, over at Widrington, for an ’unter, and ’ack

in town, miss.”

“Summerhay? Ah!” With a touch of the whip to her memory, Gyp recalled

the young man with the clear eyes and teasing smile, on the chestnut

mare, the bold young man who reminded her of somebody, and she added:

“That’ll be a good home for him, I should think.”

“Oh, yes, miss; good ’ome—nice gentleman, too. He come over here to see

it, and asked after you. I told ’im you was a married lady now, miss.

’Ah,’ he said; ’she rode beautiful!’ And he remembered the ’orse well.

The major, he wasn’t ’ere just then, so I let him try the young un; he

popped ’im over a fence or two, and when he come back he says, ’Well,

I’m goin’ to have ’im.’ Speaks very pleasant, an’ don’t waste no

time—‘orse was away before the end of the week. Carry ’im well; ’e’s a

strong rider, too, and a good plucked one, but bad ’ands, I should say.”

“Yes, Pettance; I must go in now. Will you tell Annie I shall be round

to-morrow, to see her?”

“Very good, miss. ’Ounds meets at Filly Cross, seven-thirty. You’ll be

goin’ out?”

“Rather. Good-night.”

Flying back across the yard, Gyp thought: “‘She rode beautiful!’ How

jolly! I’m glad he’s got my horse.”

XXI

Still glowing from her morning in the saddle, Gyp started out next day

at noon on her visit to the “old scoundrel’s” cottage. It was one of

those lingering mellow mornings of late September, when the air, just

warmed through, lifts off the stubbles, and the hedgerows are not yet

dried of dew. The short cut led across two fields, a narrow strip of

village common, where linen was drying on gorse bushes coming into

bloom, and one field beyond; she met no one. Crossing the road, she

passed into the cottage-garden, where sunflowers and Michaelmas daisies

in great profusion were tangled along the low red-brick garden-walls,

under some poplar trees yellow-flecked already. A single empty chair,

with a book turned face downward, stood outside an open window. Smoke

wreathing from one chimney was the only sign of life. But, standing

undecided before the half-open door, Gyp was conscious, as it were, of

too much stillness, of something unnatural about the silence. She was

just raising her hand to knock when she heard the sound of smothered

sobbing. Peeping through the window, she could just see a woman dressed

in green, evidently Mrs. Wagge, seated at a table, crying into her

handkerchief. At that very moment, too, a low moaning came from the room

above. Gyp recoiled; then, making up her mind, she went in and knocked

at the room where the woman in green was sitting. After fully half a

minute, it was opened, and Mrs. Wagge stood there. The nose and eyes and

cheeks of that thinnish, acid face were red, and in her green dress, and

with her greenish hair (for it was going grey and she put on it a yellow

lotion smelling of cantharides), she seemed to Gyp just like one of

those green apples that turn reddish so unnaturally in the sun. She had

rubbed over her face, which shone in streaks, and her handkerchief

was still crumpled in her hand. It was horrible to come, so fresh and

glowing, into the presence of this poor woman, evidently in bitter

sorrow. And a desperate desire came over Gyp to fly. It seemed dreadful

for anyone connected with him who had caused this trouble to be coming

here at all. But she said as softly as she could:

“Mrs. Wagge? Please forgive me—but is there any news? I am—It was I who

got Daphne down here.”

The woman before her was evidently being torn this way and that, but at

last she answered, with a sniff:

“It—it—was born this morning—dead.” Gyp gasped. To have gone through it

all for that! Every bit of mother-feeling in her rebelled and sorrowed;

but her reason said: Better so! Much better! And she murmured:

“How is she?”

Mrs. Wagge answered, with profound dejection:

“Bad—very bad. I don’t know I’m sure what to say—my feelings are all

anyhow, and that’s the truth. It’s so dreadfully upsetting altogether.”

“Is my nurse with her?”

“Yes; she’s there. She’s a very headstrong woman, but capable, I don’t

deny. Daisy’s very weak. Oh, it IS upsetting! And now I suppose there’ll

have to be a burial. There really seems no end to it. And all because

of—of that man.” And Mrs. Wagge turned away again to cry into her

handkerchief.

Feeling she could never say or do the right thing to the poor lady, Gyp

stole out. At the bottom of the stairs, she hesitated whether to go up

or no. At last, she mounted softly. It must be in the front room that

the bereaved girl was lying—the girl who, but a year ago, had debated

with such naive self-importance whether or not it was her duty to take a

lover. Gyp summoned courage to tap gently. The economic agent opened the

door an inch, but, seeing who it was, slipped her robust and handsome

person through into the corridor.

“You, my dear!” she said in a whisper. “That’s nice!”

“How is she?”

“Fairly well—considering. You know about it?”

“Yes; can I see her?”

“I hardly think so. I can’t make her out. She’s got no spirit, not an

ounce. She doesn’t want to get well, I believe. It’s the man, I expect.”

And, looking at Gyp with her fine blue eyes, she asked: “Is that it? Is

he tired of her?”

Gyp met her gaze better than she had believed possible.

“Yes, nurse.”

The economic agent swept her up and down. “It’s a pleasure to look at

you. You’ve got quite a colour, for you. After all, I believe it MIGHT

do her good to see you. Come in!”

Gyp passed in behind her, and stood gazing, not daring to step forward.

What a white face, with eyes closed, with fair hair still damp on the

forehead, with one white hand lying on the sheet above her heart! What

a frail madonna of the sugar-plums! On the whole of that bed the only

colour seemed the gold hoop round the wedding-finger.

The economic agent said very quietly:

“Look, my dear; I’ve brought you a nice visitor.”

Daphne Wing’s eyes and lips opened and closed again. And the awful

thought went through Gyp: ’Poor thing! She thought it was going to be

him, and it’s only me!’ Then the white lips said:

“Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen, it’s you—it is kind of you!” And the eyes opened

again, but very little, and differently.

The economic agent slipped away. Gyp sat down by the bed and timidly

touched the hand.

Daphne Wing looked at her, and two tears slowly ran down her cheeks.

“It’s over,” she said just audibly, “and there’s nothing now—it was

dead, you know. I don’t want to live. Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen, why can’t they

let me die, too?”

Gyp bent over and kissed the hand, unable to bear the sight of those two

slowly rolling tears. Daphne Wing went on:

“You ARE good to me. I wish my poor little baby hadn’t—”

Gyp, knowing her own tears were wetting that hand, raised herself and

managed to get out the words:

“Bear up! Think of your work!”

“Dancing! Ho!” She gave the least laugh ever heard. “It seems so long

ago.”

“Yes; but now it’ll all come back to you again, better than ever.”

Daphne Wing answered by a feeble sigh.

There was silence. Gyp thought: ’She’s falling asleep.’

With eyes and mouth closed like that, and all alabaster white, the face

was perfect, purged of its little commonnesses. Strange freak that this

white flower of a face could ever have been produced by Mr. and Mrs.

Wagge!

Daphne Wing opened her eyes and said:

“Oh! Mrs. Fiorsen, I feel so weak. And I feel much more lonely now.

There’s nothing anywhere.”

Gyp got up; she felt herself being carried into the mood of the girl’s

heart, and was afraid it would be seen. Daphne Wing went on:

“Do you know, when nurse said she’d brought a visitor, I thought it was

him; but I’m glad now. If he had looked at me like he did—I couldn’t

have borne it.”

Gyp bent down and put her lips to the damp forehead. Faint, very faint,

there was still the scent of orange-blossom.

When she was once more in the garden, she hurried away; but instead of

crossing the fields again, turned past the side of the cottage into the

coppice behind. And, sitting down on a log, her hands pressed to her

cheeks and her elbows to her breast, she stared at the sunlit bracken

and the flies chasing each other over it. Love! Was it always something

hateful and tragic that spoiled lives? Criss-cross! One darting on

another, taking her almost before she knew she was seized, then darting

away and leaving her wanting to be seized again. Or darting on her, who,

when seized, was fatal to the darter, yet had never wanted to be seized.

Or darting one on the other for a moment, then both breaking away too

soon. Did never two dart at each other, seize, and cling, and ever after

be one? Love! It had spoiled her father’s life, and Daphne Wing’s;

never came when it was wanted; always came when it was not. Malevolent

wanderer, alighting here, there; tiring of the spirit before it tired of

the body; or of the body before it tired of the spirit. Better to have

nothing to do with it—far better! If one never loved, one would never

feel lonely—like that poor girl. And yet! No—there was no “and yet.” Who

that was free would wish to become a slave? A slave—like Daphne Wing! A

slave—like her own husband to his want of a wife who did not love him. A

slave like her father had been—still was, to a memory. And watching the

sunlight on the bracken, Gyp thought: ’Love! Keep far from me. I don’t

want you. I shall never want you!’

Every morning that week she made her way to the cottage, and every

morning had to pass through the hands of Mrs. Wagge. The good lady had

got over the upsetting fact that Gyp was the wife of that villain, and

had taken a fancy to her, confiding to the economic agent, who confided

it to Gyp, that she was “very distangey—and such pretty eyes, quite

Italian.” She was one of those numberless persons whose passion for

distinction was just a little too much for their passionate propriety.

It was that worship of distinction which had caused her to have her

young daughter’s talent for dancing fostered. Who knew to what it might

lead in these days? At great length she explained to Gyp the infinite

care with which she had always “brought Daisy up like a lady—and now

this is the result.” And she would look piercingly at Gyp’s hair or

ears, at her hands or her instep, to see how it was done. The burial

worried her dreadfully. “I’m using the name of Daisy Wing; she was

christened ’Daisy’ and the Wing’s professional, so that takes them both

in, and it’s quite the truth. But I don’t think anyone would connect it,

would they? About the father’s name, do you think I might say the late

Mr. Joseph Wing, this once? You see, it never was alive, and I must put

something if they’re not to guess the truth, and that I couldn’t bear;

Mr. Wagge would be so distressed. It’s in his own line, you see. Oh, it

is upsetting!”

Gyp murmured desperately:

“Oh! yes, anything.”

Though the girl was so deathly white and spiritless, it soon became

clear that she was going to pull through. With each day, a little more

colour and a little more commonness came back to her. And Gyp felt

instinctively that she would, in the end, return to Fulham purged of her

infatuation, a little harder, perhaps a little deeper.

Late one afternoon toward the end of her week at Mildenham, Gyp wandered

again into the coppice, and sat down on that same log. An hour before

sunset, the light shone level on the yellowing leaves all round her; a

startled rabbit pelted out of the bracken and pelted back again, and,

from the far edge of the little wood, a jay cackled harshly, shifting

its perch from tree to tree. Gyp thought of her baby, and of that which

would have been its half-brother; and now that she was so near having to

go back to Fiorsen, she knew that she had not been wise to come here.

To have been in contact with the girl, to have touched, as it were, that

trouble, had made the thought of life with him less tolerable even

than it was before. Only the longing to see her baby made return

seem possible. Ah, well—she would get used to it all again! But the

anticipation of his eyes fixed on her, then sliding away from the

meeting with her eyes, of all—of all that would begin again, suddenly

made her shiver. She was very near to loathing at that moment. He, the

father of her baby! The thought seemed ridiculous and strange. That

little creature seemed to bind him to her no more than if it were the

offspring of some chance encounter, some pursuit of nymph by faun.

No! It was hers alone. And a sudden feverish longing to get back to it

overpowered all other thought. This longing grew in her so all night

that at breakfast she told her father. Swallowing down whatever his

feeling may have been, he said:

“Very well, my child; I’ll come up with you.”

Putting her into the cab in London, he asked:

“Have you still got your key of Bury Street? Good! Remember, Gyp—any

time day or night—there it is for you.”

She had wired to Fiorsen from Mildenham that she was coming, and she

reached home soon after three. He was not in, and what was evidently her

telegram lay unopened in the hall. Tremulous with expectation, she ran

up to the nursery. The pathetic sound of some small creature that cannot

tell what is hurting it, or why, met her ears. She went in, disturbed,

yet with the half-triumphant thought: ’Perhaps that’s for me!’

Betty, very flushed, was rocking the cradle, and examining the baby’s

face with a perplexed frown. Seeing Gyp, she put her hand to her side,

and gasped:

“Oh, be joyful! Oh, my dear! I AM glad. I can’t do anything with baby

since the morning. Whenever she wakes up, she cries like that. And till

to-day she’s been a little model. Hasn’t she! There, there!”

Gyp took up the baby, whose black eyes fixed themselves on her mother in

a momentary contentment; but, at the first movement, she began again her

fretful plaint. Betty went on:

“She’s been like that ever since this morning. Mr. Fiorsen’s been in

more than once, ma’am, and the fact is, baby don’t like it. He stares at

her so. But this morning I thought—well—I thought: ’You’re her father.

It’s time she was getting used to you.’ So I let them be a minute; and

when I came back—I was only just across to the bathroom—he was comin’

out lookin’ quite fierce and white, and baby—oh, screamin’! And except

for sleepin’, she’s hardly stopped cryin’ since.”

Pressing the baby to her breast, Gyp sat very still, and queer thoughts

went through her mind.

“How has he been, Betty?” she said.

Betty plaited her apron; her moon-face was troubled.

“Well,” she said, “I think he’s been drinkin’. Oh, I’m sure he has—I’ve

smelt it about him. The third day it began. And night before last he

came in dreadfully late—I could hear him staggerin’ about, abusing the

stairs as he was comin’ up. Oh dear—it IS a pity!”

The baby, who had been still enough since she lay in her mother’s lap,

suddenly raised her little voice again. Gyp said:

“Betty, I believe something hurts her arm. She cries the moment she’s

touched there. Is there a pin or anything? Just see. Take her things

off. Oh—look!”

Both the tiny arms above the elbow were circled with dark marks, as if

they had been squeezed by ruthless fingers. The two women looked at each

other in horror; and under her breath Gyp said: “He!”

She had flushed crimson; her eyes filled but dried again almost at once.

And, looking at her face, now gone very pale, and those lips tightened

to a line, Betty stopped in her outburst of ejaculation. When they had

wrapped the baby’s arm in remedies and cotton-wool, Gyp went into her

bedroom, and, throwing herself down on her bed, burst into a passion of

weeping, smothering it deep in her pillow.

It was the crying of sheer rage. The brute! Not to have control enough

to stop short of digging his claws into that precious mite! Just because

the poor little thing cried at that cat’s stare of his! The brute! The

devil! And he would come to her and whine about it, and say: “My Gyp,

I never meant—how should I know I was hurting? Her crying was so—Why

should she cry at me? I was upset! I wasn’t thinking!” She could hear

him pleading and sighing to her to forgive him. But she would not—not

this time! He had hurt a helpless thing once too often. Her fit of

crying ceased, and she lay listening to the tick of the clock, and

marshalling in her mind a hundred little evidences of his malevolence

toward her baby—his own baby. How was it possible? Was he really going

mad? And a fit of such chilly shuddering seized her that she crept under

the eider down to regain warmth. In her rage, she retained enough

sense of proportion to understand that he had done this, just as he had

insulted Monsieur Harmost and her father—and others—in an ungovernable

access of nerve-irritation; just as, perhaps, one day he would kill

someone. But to understand this did not lessen her feeling. Her baby!

Such a tiny thing! She hated him at last; and she lay thinking out the

coldest, the cruellest, the most cutting things to say. She had been too

long-suffering.

But he did not come in that evening; and, too upset to eat or do

anything, she went up to bed at ten o’clock. When she had undressed,

she stole across to the nursery; she had a longing to have the baby with

her—a feeling that to leave her was not safe. She carried her off, still

sleeping, and, locking her doors, got into bed. Having warmed a nest

with her body for the little creature, she laid it there; and then for a

long time lay awake, expecting every minute to hear him return. She

fell asleep at last, and woke with a start. There were vague noises down

below or on the stairs. It must be he! She had left the light on in

her room, and she leaned over to look at the baby’s face. It was still

sleeping, drawing its tiny breaths peacefully, little dog-shivers

passing every now and then over its face. Gyp, shaking back her dark

plaits of hair, sat up by its side, straining her ears.

Yes; he WAS coming up, and, by the sounds, he was not sober. She heard a

loud creak, and then a thud, as if he had clutched at the banisters

and fallen; she heard muttering, too, and the noise of boots dropped.

Swiftly the thought went through her: ’If he were quite drunk, he would

not have taken them off at all;—nor if he were quite sober. Does he know

I’m back?’ Then came another creak, as if he were raising himself by

support of the banisters, and then—or was it fancy?—she could hear

him creeping and breathing behind the door. Then—no fancy this time—he

fumbled at the door and turned the handle. In spite of his state, he

must know that she was back, had noticed her travelling-coat or seen the

telegram. The handle was tried again, then, after a pause, the handle of

the door between his room and hers was fiercely shaken. She could hear

his voice, too, as she knew it when he was flown with drink, thick, a

little drawling.

“Gyp—let me in—Gyp!”

The blood burned up in her cheeks, and she thought: ’No, my friend;

you’re not coming in!’

After that, sounds were more confused, as if he were now at one door,

now at the other; then creakings, as if on the stairs again, and after

that, no sound at all.

For fully half an hour, Gyp continued to sit up, straining her ears.

Where was he? What doing? On her over-excited nerves, all sorts of

possibilities came crowding. He must have gone downstairs again. In

that half-drunken state, where would his baffled frenzies lead him? And,

suddenly, she thought that she smelled burning. It went, and came again;

she got up, crept to the door, noiselessly turned the key, and, pulling

it open a few inches, sniffed.

All was dark on the landing. There was no smell of burning out there.

Suddenly, a hand clutched her ankle. All the blood rushed from her

heart; she stifled a scream, and tried to pull the door to. But his

arm and her leg were caught between, and she saw the black mass of his

figure lying full-length on its face. Like a vice, his hand held her;

he drew himself up on to his knees, on to his feet, and forced his way

through. Panting, but in utter silence, Gyp struggled to drive him

out. His drunken strength seemed to come and go in gusts, but hers was

continuous, greater than she had ever thought she had, and she panted:

“Go! go out of my room—you—you—wretch!”

Then her heart stood still with horror, for he had slued round to the

bed and was stretching his hands out above the baby. She heard him

mutter:

“Ah-h-h!—YOU—in my place—YOU!”

Gyp flung herself on him from behind, dragging his arms down, and,

clasping her hands together, held him fast. He twisted round in her arms

and sat down on the bed. In that moment of his collapse, Gyp snatched

up her baby and fled out, down the dark stairs, hearing him stumbling,

groping in pursuit. She fled into the dining-room and locked the door.

She heard him run against it and fall down. Snuggling her baby, who was

crying now, inside her nightgown, next to her skin for warmth, she stood

rocking and hushing it, trying to listen. There was no more sound. By

the hearth, whence a little heat still came forth from the ashes,

she cowered down. With cushions and the thick white felt from the

dining-table, she made the baby snug, and wrapping her shivering self in

the table-cloth, sat staring wide-eyed before her—and always listening.

There were sounds at first, then none. A long, long time she stayed like

that, before she stole to the door. She did not mean to make a second

mistake. She could hear the sound of heavy breathing. And she listened

to it, till she was quite certain that it was really the breathing of

sleep. Then stealthily she opened, and looked. He was over there, lying

against the bottom chair, in a heavy, drunken slumber. She knew that

sleep so well; he would not wake from it.

It gave her a sort of evil pleasure that they would find him like that

in the morning when she was gone. She went back to her baby and, with

infinite precaution, lifted it, still sleeping, cushion and all, and

stole past him up the stairs that, under her bare feet, made no sound.

Once more in her locked room, she went to the window and looked out. It

was just before dawn; her garden was grey and ghostly, and she thought:

’The last time I shall see you. Good-bye!’

Then, with the utmost speed, she did her hair and dressed. She was very

cold and shivery, and put on her fur coat and cap. She hunted out two

jerseys for the baby, and a certain old camel’s-hair shawl. She took a

few little things she was fondest of and slipped them into her wrist-bag

with her purse, put on her hat and a pair of gloves. She did everything

very swiftly, wondering, all the time, at her own power of knowing what

to take. When she was quite ready, she scribbled a note to Betty to

follow with the dogs to Bury Street, and pushed it under the nursery

door. Then, wrapping the baby in the jerseys and shawl, she went

downstairs. The dawn had broken, and, from the long narrow window above

the door with spikes of iron across it, grey light was striking into the

hall. Gyp passed Fiorsen’s sleeping figure safely, and, for one moment,

stopped for breath. He was lying with his back against the wall, his

head in the hollow of an arm raised against a stair, and his face turned

a little upward. That face which, hundreds of times, had been so close

to her own, and something about this crumpled body, about his tumbled

hair, those cheek-bones, and the hollows beneath the pale lips just

parted under the dirt-gold of his moustache—something of lost divinity

in all that inert figure—clutched for a second at Gyp’s heart. Only for

a second. It was over, this time! No more—never again! And, turning very

stealthily, she slipped her shoes on, undid the chain, opened the front

door, took up her burden, closed the door softly behind her, and walked

away.