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Beyond

by John Galsworthy

January, 2001  [Etext #2453]


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BEYOND

by JOHN GALSWORTHY




"Che faro senza--!"



To THOMAS HARDY



BEYOND


Part I


I


At the door of St. George's registry office, Charles Clare Winton
strolled forward in the wake of the taxi-cab that was bearing his
daughter away with "the fiddler fellow" she had married.  His sense
of decorum forbade his walking with Nurse Betty--the only other
witness of the wedding.  A stout woman in a highly emotional
condition would have been an incongruous companion to his slim,
upright figure, moving with just that unexaggerated swing and
balance becoming to a lancer of the old school, even if he has been
on the retired list for sixteen years.

Poor Betty!  He thought of her with irritated sympathy--she need
not have given way to tears on the door-step.  She might well feel
lost now Gyp was gone, but not so lost as himself!  His pale-gloved
hand--the one real hand he had, for his right hand had been
amputated at the wrist--twisted vexedly at the small, grizzling
moustache lifting itself from the corners of his firm lips.  On
this grey February day he wore no overcoat; faithful to the
absolute, almost shamefaced quietness of that wedding, he had not
even donned black coat and silk hat, but wore a blue suit and a
hard black felt.  The instinct of a soldier and hunting man to
exhibit no sign whatever of emotion did not desert him this dark
day of his life; but his grey-hazel eyes kept contracting, staring
fiercely, contracting again; and, at moments, as if overpowered by
some deep feeling, they darkened and seemed to draw back in his
head.  His face was narrow and weathered and thin-cheeked, with a
clean-cut jaw, small ears, hair darker than the moustache, but
touched at the side wings with grey--the face of a man of action,
self-reliant, resourceful.  And his bearing was that of one who has
always been a bit of a dandy, and paid attention to "form," yet
been conscious sometimes that there were things beyond.  A man,
who, preserving all the precision of a type, yet had in him a
streak of something that was not typical.  Such often have tragedy
in their pasts.

Making his way towards the park, he turned into Mount Street.
There was the house still, though the street had been very
different then--the house he had passed, up and down, up and down
in the fog, like a ghost, that November afternoon, like a cast-out
dog, in such awful, unutterable agony of mind, twenty-three years
ago, when Gyp was born.  And then to be told at the door--he, with
no right to enter, he, loving as he believed man never loved woman--
to be told at the door that SHE was dead--dead in bearing what he
and she alone knew was their child!  Up and down in the fog, hour
after hour, knowing her time was upon her; and at last to be told
that!  Of all fates that befall man, surely the most awful is to
love too much.

Queer that his route should take him past the very house to-day,
after this new bereavement!  Accursed luck--that gout which had
sent him to Wiesbaden, last September!  Accursed luck that Gyp had
ever set eyes on this fellow Fiorsen, with his fatal fiddle!
Certainly not since Gyp had come to live with him, fifteen years
ago, had he felt so forlorn and fit for nothing.  To-morrow he
would get back to Mildenham and see what hard riding would do.
Without Gyp--to be without Gyp!  A fiddler!  A chap who had never
been on a horse in his life!  And with his crutch-handled cane he
switched viciously at the air, as though carving a man in two.

His club, near Hyde Park Corner, had never seemed to him so
desolate.  From sheer force of habit he went into the card-room.
The afternoon had so darkened that electric light already burned,
and there were the usual dozen of players seated among the shaded
gleams falling decorously on dark-wood tables, on the backs of
chairs, on cards and tumblers, the little gilded coffee-cups, the
polished nails of fingers holding cigars.  A crony challenged him
to piquet.  He sat down listless.  That three-legged whist--bridge--
had always offended his fastidiousness--a mangled short cut of a
game!  Poker had something blatant in it.  Piquet, though out of
fashion, remained for him the only game worth playing--the only
game which still had style.  He held good cards and rose the winner
of five pounds that he would willingly have paid to escape the
boredom of the bout.  Where would they be by now?  Past Newbury;
Gyp sitting opposite that Swedish fellow with his greenish
wildcat's eyes.  Something furtive, and so foreign, about him!  A
mess--if he were any judge of horse or man!  Thank God he had tied
Gyp's money up--every farthing!  And an emotion that was almost
jealousy swept him at the thought of the fellow's arms round his
soft-haired, dark-eyed daughter--that pretty, willowy creature, so
like in face and limb to her whom he had loved so desperately.

Eyes followed him when he left the card-room, for he was one who
inspired in other men a kind of admiration--none could say exactly
why.  Many quite as noted for general good sportsmanship attracted
no such attention.  Was it "style," or was it the streak of
something not quite typical--the brand left on him by the past?

Abandoning the club, he walked slowly along the railings of
Piccadilly towards home, that house in Bury Street, St. James's,
which had been his London abode since he was quite young--one of
the few in the street that had been left untouched by the general
passion for puffing down and building up, which had spoiled half
London in his opinion.

A man, more silent than anything on earth, with the soft, quick,
dark eyes of a woodcock and a long, greenish, knitted waistcoat,
black cutaway, and tight trousers strapped over his boots, opened
the door.

"I shan't go out again, Markey.  Mrs. Markey must give me some
dinner.  Anything'll do."

Markey signalled that he had heard, and those brown eyes under
eyebrows meeting and forming one long, dark line, took his master
in from head to heel.  He had already nodded last night, when his
wife had said the gov'nor would take it hard.  Retiring to the back
premises, he jerked his head toward the street and made a motion
upward with his hand, by which Mrs. Markey, an astute woman,
understood that she had to go out and shop because the gov'nor was
dining in.  When she had gone, Markey sat down opposite Betty,
Gyp's old nurse.  The stout woman was still crying in a quiet way.
It gave him the fair hump, for he felt inclined to howl like a dog
himself.  After watching her broad, rosy, tearful face in silence
for some minutes, he shook his head, and, with a gulp and a tremor
of her comfortable body, Betty desisted.  One paid attention to
Markey.

Winton went first into his daughter's bedroom, and gazed at its
emptied silken order, its deserted silver mirror, twisting
viciously at his little moustache.  Then, in his sanctum, he sat
down before the fire, without turning up the light.  Anyone looking
in, would have thought he was asleep; but the drowsy influence of
that deep chair and cosy fire had drawn him back into the long-ago.
What unhappy chance had made him pass HER house to-day!


Some say there is no such thing as an affinity, no case--of a man,
at least--made bankrupt of passion by a single love.  In theory, it
may be so; in fact, there are such men--neck-or-nothing men, quiet
and self-contained, the last to expect that nature will play them
such a trick, the last to desire such surrender of themselves, the
last to know when their fate is on them.  Who could have seemed to
himself, and, indeed, to others, less likely than Charles Clare
Winton to fall over head and ears in love when he stepped into the
Belvoir Hunt ballroom at Grantham that December evening, twenty-
four years ago?  A keen soldier, a dandy, a first-rate man to
hounds, already almost a proverb in his regiment for coolness and
for a sort of courteous disregard of women as among the minor
things of life--he had stood there by the door, in no hurry to
dance, taking a survey with an air that just did not give an
impression of "side" because it was not at all put on.  And--
behold!--SHE had walked past him, and his world was changed for
ever.  Was it an illusion of light that made her whole spirit seem
to shine through a half-startled glance?  Or a little trick of
gait, a swaying, seductive balance of body; was it the way her hair
waved back, or a subtle scent, as of a flower?  What was it?  The
wife of a squire of those parts, with a house in London.  Her name?
It doesn't matter--she has been long enough dead.  There was no
excuse--not an ill-treated woman; an ordinary, humdrum marriage, of
three years standing; no children.  An amiable good fellow of a
husband, fifteen years older than herself, inclined already to be
an invalid.  No excuse!  Yet, in one month from that night, Winton
and she were lovers, not only in thought but in deed.  A thing so
utterly beyond "good form" and his sense of what was honourable and
becoming in an officer and gentleman that it was simply never a
question of weighing pro and con, the cons had it so completely.
And yet from that first evening, he was hers, she his.  For each of
them the one thought was how to be with the other.  If so--why did
they not at least go off together?  Not for want of his beseeching.
And no doubt, if she had survived Gyp's birth, they would have
gone.  But to face the prospect of ruining two men, as it looked to
her, had till then been too much for that soft-hearted creature.
Death stilled her struggle before it was decided.  There are women
in whom utter devotion can still go hand in hand with a doubting
soul.  Such are generally the most fascinating; for the power of
hard and prompt decision robs women of mystery, of the subtle
atmosphere of change and chance.  Though she had but one part in
four of foreign blood, she was not at all English.  But Winton was
English to his back-bone, English in his sense of form, and in that
curious streak of whole-hearted desperation that will break form to
smithereens in one department and leave it untouched in every other
of its owner's life.  To have called Winton a "crank" would never
have occurred to any one--his hair was always perfectly parted; his
boots glowed; he was hard and reticent, accepting and observing
every canon of well-bred existence.  Yet, in that, his one
infatuation, he was as lost to the world and its opinion as the
longest-haired lentil-eater of us all.  Though at any moment during
that one year of their love he would have risked his life and
sacrificed his career for a whole day in her company, he never, by
word or look, compromised her.  He had carried his punctilious
observance of her "honour" to a point more bitter than death,
consenting, even, to her covering up the tracks of their child's
coming.  Paying that gambler's debt was by far the bravest deed of
his life, and even now its memory festered.

To this very room he had come back after hearing she was dead; this
very room which he had refurnished to her taste, so that even now,
with its satinwood chairs, little dainty Jacobean bureau, shaded
old brass candelabra, divan, it still had an air exotic to
bachelordom.  There, on the table, had been a letter recalling him
to his regiment, ordered on active service.  If he had realized
what he would go through before he had the chance of trying to lose
his life out there, he would undoubtedly have taken that life,
sitting in this very chair before the fire--the chair sacred to her
and memory.  He had not the luck he wished for in that little war--
men who don't care whether they live or die seldom have.  He
secured nothing but distinction.  When it was over, he went on,
with a few more lines in his face, a few more wrinkles in his
heart, soldiering, shooting tigers, pig-sticking, playing polo,
riding to hounds harder than ever; giving nothing away to the
world; winning steadily the curious, uneasy admiration that men
feel for those who combine reckless daring with an ice-cool manner.
Since he was less of a talker even than most of his kind, and had
never in his life talked of women, he did not gain the reputation
of a woman-hater, though he so manifestly avoided them.  After six
years' service in India and Egypt, he lost his right hand in a
charge against dervishes, and had, perforce, to retire, with the
rank of major, aged thirty-four.  For a long time he had hated the
very thought of the child--his child, in giving birth to whom the
woman he loved had died.  Then came a curious change of feeling;
and for three years before his return to England, he had been in
the habit of sending home odds and ends picked up in the bazaars,
to serve as toys.  In return, he had received, twice annually at
least, a letter from the man who thought himself Gyp's father.
These letters he read and answered.  The squire was likable, and
had been fond of HER; and though never once had it seemed possible
to Winton to have acted otherwise than he did, he had all the time
preserved a just and formal sense of the wrong he had done this
man.  He did not experience remorse, but he had always an irksome
feeling as of a debt unpaid, mitigated by knowledge that no one had
ever suspected, and discounted by memory of the awful torture he
had endured to make sure against suspicion.

When, plus distinction and minus his hand, he was at last back in
England, the squire had come to see him.  The poor man was failing
fast from Bright's disease.  Winton entered again that house in
Mount Street with an emotion, to stifle which required more courage
than any cavalry charge.  But one whose heart, as he would have put
it, is "in the right place" does not indulge the quaverings of his
nerves, and he faced those rooms where he had last seen her, faced
that lonely little dinner with her husband, without sign of
feeling.  He did not see little Ghita, or Gyp, as she had nicknamed
herself, for she was already in her bed; and it was a whole month
before he brought himself to go there at an hour when he could see
the child if he would.  The fact is, he was afraid.  What would the
sight of this little creature stir in him?  When Betty, the nurse,
brought her in to see the soldier gentleman with "the leather
hand," who had sent her those funny toys, she stood calmly staring
with her large, deep-brown eyes.  Being seven, her little brown-
velvet frock barely reached the knees of her thin, brown-stockinged
legs planted one just in front of the other, as might be the legs
of a small brown bird; the oval of her gravely wondering face was
warm cream colour without red in it, except that of the lips, which
were neither full nor thin, and had a little tuck, the tiniest
possible dimple at one corner.  Her hair of warm dark brown had
been specially brushed and tied with a narrow red ribbon back from
her forehead, which was broad and rather low, and this added to her
gravity.  Her eyebrows were thin and dark and perfectly arched; her
little nose was perfectly straight, her little chin in perfect
balance between round and point.  She stood and stared till Winton
smiled.  Then the gravity of her face broke, her lips parted, her
eyes seemed to fly a little.  And Winton's heart turned over within
him--she was the very child of her that he had lost!  And he said,
in a voice that seemed to him to tremble:

"Well, Gyp?"

"Thank you for my toys; I like them."

He held out his hand, and she gravely put her small hand into it.
A sense of solace, as if some one had slipped a finger in and
smoothed his heart, came over Winton.  Gently, so as not to startle
her, he raised her hand a little, bent, and kissed it.  It may have
been from his instant recognition that here was one as sensitive as
child could be, or the way many soldiers acquire from dealing with
their men--those simple, shrewd children--or some deeper
instinctive sense of ownership between them; whatever it was, from
that moment, Gyp conceived for him a rushing admiration, one of
those headlong affections children will sometimes take for the most
unlikely persons.

He used to go there at an hour when he knew the squire would be
asleep, between two and five.  After he had been with Gyp, walking
in the park, riding with her in the Row, or on wet days sitting in
her lonely nursery telling stories, while stout Betty looked on
half hypnotized, a rather queer and doubting look on her
comfortable face--after such hours, he found it difficult to go to
the squire's study and sit opposite him, smoking.  Those interviews
reminded him too much of past days, when he had kept such desperate
check on himself--too much of the old inward chafing against the
other man's legal ownership--too much of the debt owing.  But
Winton was triple-proofed against betrayal of feeling.  The squire
welcomed him eagerly, saw nothing, felt nothing, was grateful for
his goodness to the child.  Well, well!  He had died in the
following spring.  And Winton found that he had been made Gyp's
guardian and trustee.  Since his wife's death, the squire had
muddled his affairs, his estate was heavily mortgaged; but Winton
accepted the position with an almost savage satisfaction, and, from
that moment, schemed deeply to get Gyp all to himself.  The Mount
Street house was sold; the Lincolnshire place let.  She and Nurse
Betty were installed at his own hunting-box, Mildenham.  In this
effort to get her away from all the squire's relations, he did not
scruple to employ to the utmost the power he undoubtedly had of
making people feel him unapproachable.  He was never impolite to
any of them; he simply froze them out.  Having plenty of money
himself, his motives could not be called in question.  In one year
he had isolated her from all except stout Betty.  He had no qualms,
for Gyp was no more happy away from him than he from her.  He had
but one bad half-hour.  It came when he had at last decided that
she should be called by his name, if not legally at least by
custom, round Mildenham.  It was to Markey he had given the order
that Gyp was to be little Miss Winton for the future.  When he came
in from hunting that day, Betty was waiting in his study.  She
stood in the centre of the emptiest part of that rather dingy room,
as far as possible away from any good or chattel.  How long she had
been standing there, heaven only knew; but her round, rosy face was
confused between awe and resolution, and she had made a sad mess of
her white apron.  Her blue eyes met Winton's with a sort of
desperation.

"About what Markey told me, sir.  My old master wouldn't have liked
it, sir."

Touched on the raw by this reminder that before the world he had
been nothing to the loved one, that before the world the squire,
who had been nothing to her, had been everything, Winton said
icily:

"Indeed!  You will be good enough to comply with my wish, all the
same."

The stout woman's face grew very red.  She burst out, breathless:

"Yes, sir; but I've seen what I've seen.  I never said anything,
but I've got eyes.  If Miss Gyp's to take your name, sir, then
tongues'll wag, and my dear, dead mistress--"

But at the look on his face she stopped, with her mouth open.

"You will be kind enough to keep your thoughts to yourself.  If any
word or deed of yours gives the slightest excuse for talk--you go.
Understand me, you go, and you never see Gyp again!  In the
meantime you will do what I ask.  Gyp is my adopted daughter."

She had always been a little afraid of him, but she had never seen
that look in his eyes or heard him speak in that voice.  And she
bent her full moon of a face and went, with her apron crumpled as
apron had never been, and tears in her eyes.  And Winton, at the
window, watching the darkness gather, the leaves flying by on a
sou'-westerly wind, drank to the dregs a cup of bitter triumph.  He
had never had the right to that dead, forever-loved mother of his
child.  He meant to have the child.  If tongues must wag, let them!
This was a defeat of all his previous precaution, a deep victory of
natural instinct.  And his eyes narrowed and stared into the
darkness.


II


In spite of his victory over all human rivals in the heart of Gyp,
Winton had a rival whose strength he fully realized perhaps for the
first time now that she was gone, and he, before the fire, was
brooding over her departure and the past.  Not likely that one of
his decisive type, whose life had so long been bound up with swords
and horses, would grasp what music might mean to a little girl.
Such ones, he knew, required to be taught scales, and "In a Cottage
near a Wood" with other melodies.  He took care not to go within
sound of them, so that he had no conception of the avidity with
which Gyp had mopped up all, and more than all, her governess could
teach her.  He was blind to the rapture with which she listened to
any stray music that came its way to Mildenham--to carols in the
Christmas dark, to certain hymns, and one special "Nunc Dimittis"
in the village church, attended with a hopeless regularity; to the
horn of the hunter far out in the quivering, dripping coverts; even
to Markey's whistling, which was full and strangely sweet.

He could share her love of dogs and horses, take an anxious
interest in her way of catching bumblebees in the hollow of her
hand and putting them to her small, delicate ears to hear them
buzz, sympathize with her continual ravages among the flowerbeds,
in the old-fashioned garden, full of lilacs and laburnums in
spring, pinks, roses, cornflowers in summer, dahlias and sunflowers
in autumn, and always a little neglected and overgrown, a little
squeezed in, and elbowed by the more important surrounding
paddocks.  He could sympathize with her attempts to draw his
attention to the song of birds; but it was simply not in him to
understand how she loved and craved for music.  She was a cloudy
little creature, up and down in mood--rather like a brown lady
spaniel that she had, now gay as a butterfly, now brooding as
night.  Any touch of harshness she took to heart fearfully.  She
was the strangest compound of pride and sell-disparagement; the
qualities seemed mixed in her so deeply that neither she nor any
one knew of which her cloudy fits were the result.  Being so
sensitive, she "fancied" things terribly.  Things that others did
to her, and thought nothing of, often seemed to her conclusive
evidence that she was not loved by anybody, which was dreadfully
unjust, because she wanted to love everyone--nearly.  Then suddenly
she would feel: "If they don't love me, I don't care.  I don't want
anything of anybody!"  Presently, all would blow away just like a
cloud, and she would love and be gay, until something fresh,
perhaps not at all meant to hurt her, would again hurt her
horribly.  In reality, the whole household loved and admired her.
But she was one of those delicate-treading beings, born with a skin
too few, who--and especially in childhood--suffer from themselves
in a world born with a skin too many.

To Winton's extreme delight, she took to riding as a duck to water,
and knew no fear on horseback.  She had the best governess he could
get her, the daughter of an admiral, and, therefore, in distressed
circumstances; and later on, a tutor for her music, who came twice
a week all the way from London--a sardonic man who cherished for
her even more secret admiration than she for him.  In fact, every
male thing fell in love with her at least a little.  Unlike most
girls, she never had an epoch of awkward plainness, but grew like a
flower, evenly, steadily.  Winton often gazed at her with a sort of
intoxication; the turn of her head, the way those perfectly shaped,
wonderfully clear brown eyes would "fly," the set of her straight,
round neck, the very shaping of her limbs were all such poignant
reminders of what he had so loved.  And yet, for all that likeness
to her mother, there was a difference, both in form and character.
Gyp had, as it were, an extra touch of "breeding," more chiselling
in body, more fastidiousness in soul, a little more poise, a little
more sheer grace; in mood, more variance, in mind, more clarity
and, mixed with her sweetness, a distinct spice of scepticism which
her mother had lacked.

In modern times there are no longer "toasts," or she would have
been one with both the hunts.  Though delicate in build, she was
not frail, and when her blood was up would "go" all day, and come
in so bone-tired that she would drop on to the tiger skin before
the fire, rather than face the stairs.  Life at Mildenham was
lonely, save for Winton's hunting cronies, and they but few, for
his spiritual dandyism did not gladly suffer the average country
gentleman and his frigid courtesy frightened women.

Besides, as Betty had foreseen, tongues did wag--those tongues of
the countryside, avid of anything that might spice the tedium of
dull lives and brains.  And, though no breath of gossip came to
Winton's ears, no women visited at Mildenham.  Save for the
friendly casual acquaintanceships of churchyard, hunting-field, and
local race-meetings, Gyp grew up knowing hardly any of her own sex.
This dearth developed her reserve, kept her backward in sex-
perception, gave her a faint, unconscious contempt for men--
creatures always at the beck and call of her smile, and so easily
disquieted by a little frown--gave her also a secret yearning for
companions of her own gender.  Any girl or woman that she did
chance to meet always took a fancy to her, because she was so nice
to them, which made the transitory nature of these friendships
tantalizing.  She was incapable of jealousies or backbiting.  Let
men beware of such--there is coiled in their fibre a secret
fascination!

Gyp's moral and spiritual growth was not the sort of subject that
Winton could pay much attention to.  It was pre-eminently a matter
one did not talk about.  Outward forms, such as going to church,
should be preserved; manners should be taught her by his own
example as much as possible; beyond this, nature must look after
things.  His view had much real wisdom.  She was a quick and
voracious reader, bad at remembering what she read; and though she
had soon devoured all the books in Winton's meagre library,
including Byron, Whyte-Melville, and Humboldt's "Cosmos," they had
not left too much on her mind.  The attempts of her little
governess to impart religion were somewhat arid of result, and the
interest of the vicar, Gyp, with her instinctive spice of
scepticism soon put into the same category as the interest of all
the other males she knew.  She felt that he enjoyed calling her "my
dear" and patting her shoulder, and that this enjoyment was enough
reward for his exertions.

Tucked away in that little old dark manor house, whose stables
alone were up to date--three hours from London, and some thirty
miles from The Wash, it must be confessed that her upbringing
lacked modernity.  About twice a year, Winton took her up to town
to stay with his unmarried sister Rosamund in Curzon Street.  Those
weeks, if they did nothing else, increased her natural taste for
charming clothes, fortified her teeth, and fostered her passion for
music and the theatre.  But the two main nourishments of the modern
girl--discussion and games--she lacked utterly.  Moreover, those
years of her life from fifteen to nineteen were before the social
resurrection of 1906, and the world still crawled like a winter fly
on a window-pane.  Winton was a Tory, Aunt Rosamund a Tory,
everybody round her a Tory.  The only spiritual development she
underwent all those years of her girlhood was through her headlong
love for her father.  After all, was there any other way in which
she could really have developed?  Only love makes fruitful the
soul.  The sense of form that both had in such high degree
prevented much demonstration; but to be with him, do things for
him, to admire, and credit him with perfection; and, since she
could not exactly wear the same clothes or speak in the same
clipped, quiet, decisive voice, to dislike the clothes and voices
of other men--all this was precious to her beyond everything.  If
she inherited from him that fastidious sense of form, she also
inherited his capacity for putting all her eggs in one basket.  And
since her company alone gave him real happiness, the current of
love flowed over her heart all the time.  Though she never realized
it, abundant love FOR somebody was as necessary to her as water
running up the stems of flowers, abundant love FROM somebody as
needful as sunshine on their petals.  And Winton's somewhat
frequent little runs to town, to Newmarket, or where not, were
always marked in her by a fall of the barometer, which recovered as
his return grew near.

One part of her education, at all events, was not neglected--
cultivation of an habitual sympathy with her poorer neighbours.
Without concerning himself in the least with problems of sociology,
Winton had by nature an open hand and heart for cottagers, and
abominated interference with their lives.  And so it came about
that Gyp, who, by nature also never set foot anywhere without
invitation, was always hearing the words: "Step in, Miss Gyp";
"Step in, and sit down, lovey," and a good many words besides from
even the boldest and baddest characters.  There is nothing like a
soft and pretty face and sympathetic listening for seducing the
hearts of "the people."

So passed the eleven years till she was nineteen and Winton forty-
six.  Then, under the wing of her little governess, she went to the
hunt-ball.  She had revolted against appearing a "fluffy miss,"
wanting to be considered at once full-fledged; so that her dress,
perfect in fit, was not white but palest maize-colour, as if she
had already been to dances.  She had all Winton's dandyism, and
just so much more as was appropriate to her sex.  With her dark
hair, wonderfully fluffed and coiled, waving across her forehead,
her neck bare for the first time, her eyes really "flying," and a
demeanour perfectly cool--as though she knew that light and
movement, covetous looks, soft speeches, and admiration were her
birthright--she was more beautiful than even Winton had thought
her.  At her breast she wore some sprigs of yellow jasmine procured
by him from town--a flower of whose scent she was very fond, and
that he had never seen worn in ballrooms.  That swaying, delicate
creature, warmed by excitement, reminded him, in every movement and
by every glance of her eyes, of her whom he had first met at just
such a ball as this.  And by the carriage of his head, the twist of
his little moustache, he conveyed to the world the pride he was
feeling.

That evening held many sensations for Gyp--some delightful, one
confused, one unpleasant.  She revelled in her success.  Admiration
was very dear to her.  She passionately enjoyed dancing, loved
feeling that she was dancing well and giving pleasure.  But, twice
over, she sent away her partners, smitten with compassion for her
little governess sitting there against the wall--all alone, with no
one to take notice of her, because she was elderly, and roundabout,
poor darling!  And, to that loyal person's horror, she insisted on
sitting beside her all through two dances.  Nor would she go in to
supper with anyone but Winton.  Returning to the ballroom on his
arm, she overheard an elderly woman say: "Oh, don't you know?  Of
course he really IS her father!" and an elderly man answer: "Ah,
that accounts for it--quite so!"  With those eyes at the back of
the head which the very sensitive possess, she could see their
inquisitive, cold, slightly malicious glances, and knew they were
speaking of her.  And just then her partner came for her.

"Really IS her father!"  The words meant TOO much to be grasped
this evening of full sensations.  They left a little bruise
somewhere, but softened and anointed, just a sense of confusion at
the back of her mind.  And very soon came that other sensation, so
disillusioning, that all else was crowded out.  It was after a
dance--a splendid dance with a good-looking man quite twice her
age.  They were sitting behind some palms, he murmuring in his
mellow, flown voice admiration for her dress, when suddenly he bent
his flushed face and kissed her bare arm above the elbow.  If he
had hit her he could not have astonished or hurt her more.  It
seemed to her innocence that he would never have done such a thing
if she had not said something dreadful to encourage him.  Without a
word she got up, gazed at him a moment with eyes dark from pain,
shivered, and slipped away.  She went straight to Winton.  From her
face, all closed up, tightened lips, and the familiar little droop
at their corners, he knew something dire had happened, and his eyes
boded ill for the person who had hurt her; but she would say
nothing except that she was tired and wanted to go home.  And so,
with the little faithful governess, who, having been silent
perforce nearly all the evening, was now full of conversation, they
drove out into the frosty night.  Winton sat beside the chauffeur,
smoking viciously, his fur collar turned up over his ears, his eyes
stabbing the darkness, under his round, low-drawn fur cap.  Who had
dared upset his darling?  And, within the car, the little governess
chattered softly, and Gyp, shrouded in lace, in her dark corner sat
silent, seeing nothing but the vision of that insult.  Sad end to a
lovely night!

She lay awake long hours in the darkness, while a sort of coherence
was forming in her mind.  Those words: "Really IS her father!" and
that man's kissing of her bare arm were a sort of revelation of
sex-mystery, hardening the consciousness that there was something
at the back of her life.  A child so sensitive had not, of course,
quite failed to feel the spiritual draughts around her; but
instinctively she had recoiled from more definite perceptions.  The
time before Winton came was all so faint--Betty, toys, short
glimpses of a kind, invalidish man called "Papa."  As in that word
there was no depth compared with the word "Dad" bestowed on Winton,
so there had been no depth in her feelings towards the squire.
When a girl has no memory of her mother, how dark are many things!
None, except Betty, had ever talked of her mother.  There was
nothing sacred in Gyp's associations, no faiths to be broken by any
knowledge that might come to her; isolated from other girls, she
had little realisation even of the conventions.  Still, she
suffered horribly, lying there in the dark--from bewilderment, from
thorns dragged over her skin, rather than from a stab in the heart.
The knowledge of something about her conspicuous, doubtful,
provocative of insult, as she thought, grievously hurt her
delicacy.  Those few wakeful hours made a heavy mark.  She fell
asleep at last, still all in confusion, and woke up with a
passionate desire to KNOW.  All that morning she sat at her piano,
playing, refusing to go out, frigid to Betty and the little
governess, till the former was reduced to tears and the latter to
Wordsworth.  After tea she went to Winton's study, that dingy
little room where he never studied anything, with leather chairs
and books which--except "Mr. Jorrocks," Byron, those on the care of
horses, and the novels of Whyte-Melville--were never read; with
prints of superequine celebrities, his sword, and photographs of
Gyp and of brother officers on the walls.  Two bright spots there
were indeed--the fire, and the little bowl that Gyp always kept
filled with flowers.

When she came gliding in like that, a slender, rounded figure, her
creamy, dark-eyed, oval face all cloudy, she seemed to Winton to
have grown up of a sudden.  He had known all day that something was
coming, and had been cudgelling his brains finely.  From the
fervour of his love for her, he felt an anxiety that was almost
fear.  What could have happened last night--that first night of her
entrance into society--meddlesome, gossiping society!  She slid
down to the floor against his knee.  He could not see her face,
could not even touch her; for she had settled down on his right
side.  He mastered his tremors and said:

"Well, Gyp--tired?"

"No."

"A little bit?"

"No."

"Was it up to what you thought, last night?"

"Yes."

The logs hissed and crackled; the long flames ruffled in the
chimney-draught; the wind roared outside--then, so suddenly that it
took his breath away:

"Dad, are you really and truly my father?"

When that which one has always known might happen at last does
happen, how little one is prepared!  In the few seconds before an
answer that could in no way be evaded, Winton had time for a tumult
of reflection.  A less resolute character would have been caught by
utter mental blankness, then flung itself in panic on "Yes" or
"No."  But Winton was incapable of losing his head; he would not
answer without having faced the consequences of his reply.  To be
her father was the most warming thing in his life; but if he avowed
it, how far would he injure her love for him?  What did a girl
know?  How make her understand?  What would her feeling be about
her dead mother?  How would that dead loved one feel?  What would
she have wished?

It was a cruel moment.  And the girl, pressed against his knee,
with face hidden, gave him no help.  Impossible to keep it from
her, now that her instinct was roused!  Silence, too, would answer
for him.  And clenching his hand on the arm of his chair, he said:

"Yes, Gyp; your mother and I loved each other."  He felt a quiver
go through her, would have given much to see her face.  What, even
now, did she understand?  Well, it must be gone through with, and
he said:

"What made you ask?"

She shook her head and murmured:

"I'm glad."

Grief, shock, even surprise would have roused all his loyalty to
the dead, all the old stubborn bitterness, and he would have frozen
up against her.  But this acquiescent murmur made him long to
smooth it down.

"Nobody has ever known.  She died when you were born.  It was a
fearful grief to me.  If you've heard anything, it's just gossip,
because you go by my name.  Your mother was never talked about.
But it's best you should know, now you're grown up.  People don't
often love as she and I loved.  You needn't be ashamed."

She had not moved, and her face was still turned from him.  She
said quietly:

"I'm not ashamed.  Am I very like her?"

"Yes; more than I could ever have hoped."

Very low she said:

"Then you don't love me for myself?"

Winton was but dimly conscious of how that question revealed her
nature, its power of piercing instinctively to the heart of things,
its sensitive pride, and demand for utter and exclusive love.  To
things that go too deep, one opposes the bulwark of obtuseness.
And, smiling, he simply said:

"What do you think?"

Then, to his dismay, he perceived that she was crying--struggling
against it so that her shoulder shook against his knee.  He had
hardly ever known her cry, not in all the disasters of unstable
youth, and she had received her full meed of knocks and tumbles.
He could only stroke that shoulder, and say:

"Don't cry, Gyp; don't cry!"

She ceased as suddenly as she had begun, got up, and, before he too
could rise, was gone.

That evening, at dinner, she was just as usual.  He could not
detect the slightest difference in her voice or manner, or in her
good-night kiss.  And so a moment that he had dreaded for years was
over, leaving only the faint shame which follows a breach of
reticence on the spirits of those who worship it.  While the old
secret had been quite undisclosed, it had not troubled him.
Disclosed, it hurt him.  But Gyp, in those twenty-four hours, had
left childhood behind for good; her feeling toward men had
hardened.  If she did not hurt them a little, they would hurt her!
The sex-instinct had come to life.  To Winton she gave as much love
as ever, even more, perhaps; but the dew was off.


III


The next two years were much less solitary, passed in more or less
constant gaiety.  His confession spurred Winton on to the
fortification of his daughter's position.  He would stand no
nonsense, would not have her looked on askance.  There is nothing
like "style" for carrying the defences of society--only, it must be
the genuine thing.  Whether at Mildenham, or in London under the
wing of his sister, there was no difficulty.  Gyp was too pretty,
Winton too cool, his quietness too formidable.  She had every
advantage.  Society only troubles itself to make front against the
visibly weak.

The happiest time of a girl's life is that when all appreciate and
covet her, and she herself is free as air--a queen of hearts, for
none of which she hankers; or, if not the happiest, at all events
it is the gayest time.  What did Gyp care whether hearts ached for
her--she knew not love as yet, perhaps would never know the pains
of unrequited love.  Intoxicated with life, she led her many
admirers a pretty dance, treating them with a sort of bravura.  She
did not want them to be unhappy, but she simply could not take them
seriously.  Never was any girl so heart-free.  She was a queer
mixture in those days, would give up any pleasure for Winton, and
most for Betty or her aunt--her little governess was gone--but of
nobody else did she seem to take account, accepting all that was
laid at her feet as the due of her looks, her dainty frocks, her
music, her good riding and dancing, her talent for amateur
theatricals and mimicry.  Winton, whom at least she never failed,
watched that glorious fluttering with quiet pride and satisfaction.
He was getting to those years when a man of action dislikes
interruption of the grooves into which his activity has fallen.  He
pursued his hunting, racing, card-playing, and his very stealthy
alms and services to lame ducks of his old regiment, their
families, and other unfortunates--happy in knowing that Gyp was
always as glad to be with him as he to be with her.  Hereditary
gout, too, had begun to bother him.

The day that she came of age they were up in town, and he summoned
her to the room, in which he now sat by the fire recalling all
these things, to receive an account of his stewardship.  He had
nursed her greatly embarrassed inheritance very carefully till it
amounted to some twenty thousand pounds.  He had never told her of
it--the subject was dangerous, and, since his own means were ample,
she had not wanted for anything.  When he had explained exactly
what she owned, shown her how it was invested, and told her that
she must now open her own banking account, she stood gazing at the
sheets of paper, whose items she had been supposed to understand,
and her face gathered the look which meant that she was troubled.
Without lifting her eyes she asked:

"Does it all come from--him?"

He had not expected that, and flushed under his tan.

"No; eight thousand of it was your mother's."

Gyp looked at him, and said:

"Then I won't take the rest--please, Dad."

Winton felt a sort of crabbed pleasure.  What should be done with
that money if she did not take it, he did not in the least know.
But not to take it was like her, made her more than ever his
daughter--a kind of final victory.  He turned away to the window
from which he had so often watched for her mother.  There was the
corner she used to turn!  In one minute, surely she would be
standing there, colour glowing in her cheeks, her eyes soft behind
her veil, her breast heaving a little with her haste, waiting for
his embrace.  There she would stand, drawing up her veil.  He
turned round.  Difficult to believe it was not she!  And he said:

"Very well, my love.  But you will take the equivalent from me
instead.  The other can be put by; some one will benefit some day!"

At those unaccustomed words, "My love," from his undemonstrative
lips, the colour mounted in her cheeks and her eyes shone.  She
threw her arms round his neck.

She had her fill of music in those days, taking piano lessons from
a Monsieur Harmost, a grey-haired native of Liege, with mahogany
cheeks and the touch of an angel, who kept her hard at it and
called her his "little friend."  There was scarcely a concert of
merit that she did not attend or a musician of mark whose playing
she did not know, and, though fastidiousness saved her from
squirming in adoration round the feet of those prodigious
performers, she perched them all on pedestals, men and women alike,
and now and then met them at her aunt's house in Curzon Street.

Aunt Rosamund, also musical, so far as breeding would allow, stood
for a good deal to Gyp, who had built up about her a romantic story
of love wrecked by pride from a few words she had once let drop.
She was a tall and handsome woman, a year older than Winton, with a
long, aristocratic face, deep-blue, rather shining eyes, a
gentlemanly manner, warm heart, and one of those indescribable, not
unmelodious drawls that one connects with an unshakable sense of
privilege.  She, in turn, was very fond of Gyp; and what passed
within her mind, by no means devoid of shrewdness, as to their real
relationship, remained ever discreetly hidden.  She was, so far
again as breeding would allow, something of a humanitarian and
rebel, loving horses and dogs, and hating cats, except when they
had four legs.  The girl had just that softness which fascinates
women who perhaps might have been happier if they had been born
men.  Not that Rosamund Winton was of an aggressive type--she
merely had the resolute "catch hold of your tail, old fellow"
spirit so often found in Englishwomen of the upper classes.  A
cheery soul, given to long coats and waistcoats, stocks, and a
crutch-handled stick, she--like her brother--had "style," but more
sense of humour--valuable in musical circles!  At her house, the
girl was practically compelled to see fun as well as merit in all
those prodigies, haloed with hair and filled to overflowing with
music and themselves.  And, since Gyp's natural sense of the
ludicrous was extreme, she and her aunt could rarely talk about
anything without going into fits of laughter.

Winton had his first really bad attack of gout when Gyp was twenty-
two, and, terrified lest he might not be able to sit a horse in
time for the opening meets, he went off with her and Markey to
Wiesbaden.  They had rooms in the Wilhelmstrasse, overlooking the
gardens, where leaves were already turning, that gorgeous
September.  The cure was long and obstinate, and Winton badly
bored.  Gyp fared much better.  Attended by the silent Markey, she
rode daily on the Neroberg, chafing at regulations which reduced
her to specified tracks in that majestic wood where the beeches
glowed.  Once or even twice a day she went to the concerts in the
Kurhaus, either with her father or alone.

The first time she heard Fiorsen play she was alone.  Unlike most
violinists, he was tall and thin, with great pliancy of body and
swift sway of movement.  His face was pale, and went strangely with
hair and moustache of a sort of dirt-gold colour, and his thin
cheeks with very broad high cheek-bones had little narrow scraps of
whisker.  Those little whiskers seemed to Gyp awful--indeed, he
seemed rather awful altogether--but his playing stirred and swept
her in the most uncanny way.  He had evidently remarkable
technique; and the emotion, the intense wayward feeling of his
playing was chiselled by that technique, as if a flame were being
frozen in its swaying.  When he stopped, she did not join in the
tornado of applause, but sat motionless, looking up at him.  Quite
unconstrained by all those people, he passed the back of his hand
across his hot brow, shoving up a wave or two of that queer-
coloured hair; then, with a rather disagreeable smile, he made a
short supple bow or two.  And she thought, "What strange eyes he
has--like a great cat's!"  Surely they were green; fierce, yet shy,
almost furtive--mesmeric!  Certainly the strangest man she had ever
seen, and the most frightening.  He seemed looking straight at her;
and, dropping her gaze, she clapped.  When she looked again, his
face had lost that smile for a kind of wistfulness.  He made
another of those little supple bows straight at her--it seemed to
Gyp--and jerked his violin up to his shoulder.  "He's going to play
to me," she thought absurdly.  He played without accompaniment a
little tune that seemed to twitch the heart.  When he finished,
this time she did not look up, but was conscious that he gave one
impatient bow and walked off.

That evening at dinner she said to Winton:

"I heard a violinist to-day, Dad, the most wonderful playing--
Gustav Fiorsen.  Is that Swedish, do you think--or what?"

Winton answered:

"Very likely.  What sort of a bounder was he to look at?  I used to
know a Swede in the Turkish army--nice fellow, too."

"Tall and thin and white-faced, with bumpy cheek-bones, and hollows
under them, and queer green eyes.  Oh, and little goldy side-
whiskers."

"By Jove!  It sounds the limit."

Gyp murmured, with a smile:

"Yes; I think perhaps he is."

She saw him next day in the gardens.  They were sitting close to
the Schiller statue, Winton reading The Times, to whose advent he
looked forward more than he admitted, for he was loath by
confessions of boredom to disturb Gyp's manifest enjoyment of her
stay.  While perusing the customary comforting animadversions on
the conduct of those "rascally Radicals" who had just come into
power, and the account of a Newmarket meeting, he kept stealing
sidelong glances at his daughter.

Certainly she had never looked prettier, daintier, shown more
breeding than she did out here among these Germans with their thick
pasterns, and all the cosmopolitan hairy-heeled crowd in this God-
forsaken place!  The girl, unconscious of his stealthy regalement,
was letting her clear eyes rest, in turn, on each figure that
passed, on the movements of birds and dogs, watching the sunlight
glisten on the grass, burnish the copper beeches, the lime-trees,
and those tall poplars down there by the water.  The doctor at
Mildenham, once consulted on a bout of headache, had called her
eyes "perfect organs," and certainly no eyes could take things in
more swiftly or completely.  She was attractive to dogs, and every
now and then one would stop, in two minds whether or no to put his
nose into this foreign girl's hand.  From a flirtation of eyes with
a great Dane, she looked up and saw Fiorsen passing, in company
with a shorter, square man, having very fashionable trousers and a
corseted waist.  The violinist's tall, thin, loping figure was
tightly buttoned into a brownish-grey frock-coat suit; he wore a
rather broad-brimmed, grey, velvety hat; in his buttonhole was a
white flower; his cloth-topped boots were of patent leather; his
tie was bunched out at the ends over a soft white-linen shirt--
altogether quite a dandy!  His most strange eyes suddenly swept
down on hers, and he made a movement as if to put his hand to his
hat.

'Why, he remembers me,' thought Gyp.  That thin-waisted figure with
head set just a little forward between rather high shoulders, and
its long stride, curiously suggested a leopard or some lithe
creature.  He touched his short companion's arm, muttered
something, turned round, and came back.  She could see him staring
her way, and knew he was coming simply to look at her.  She knew,
too, that her father was watching.  And she felt that those
greenish eyes would waver before his stare--that stare of the
Englishman of a certain class, which never condescends to be
inquisitive.  They passed; Gyp saw Fiorsen turn to his companion,
slightly tossing back his head in their direction, and heard the
companion laugh.  A little flame shot up in her.

Winton said:

"Rum-looking Johnnies one sees here!"

"That was the violinist I told you of--Fiorsen."

"Oh!  Ah!"  But he had evidently forgotten.

The thought that Fiorsen should have picked her out of all that
audience for remembrance subtly flattered her vanity.  She lost her
ruffled feeling.  Though her father thought his dress awful, it was
really rather becoming.  He would not have looked as well in proper
English clothes.  Once, at least, during the next two days, she
noticed the short, square young man who had been walking with him,
and was conscious that he followed her with his eyes.

And then a certain Baroness von Maisen, a cosmopolitan friend of
Aunt Rosamund's, German by marriage, half-Dutch, half-French by
birth, asked her if she had heard the Swedish violinist, Fiorsen.
He would be, she said, the best violinist of the day, if--and she
shook her head.  Finding that expressive shake unquestioned, the
baroness pursued her thoughts:

"Ah, these musicians!  He wants saving from himself.  If he does
not halt soon, he will be lost.  Pity!  A great talent!"

Gyp looked at her steadily and asked:

"Does he drink, then?"

"Pas mal!  But there are things besides drink, ma chere."

Instinct and so much life with Winton made the girl regard it as
beneath her to be shocked.  She did not seek knowledge of life, but
refused to shy away from it or be discomfited; and the baroness, to
whom innocence was piquant, went on:

"Des femmes--toujours des femmes!  C'est grand dommage.  It will
spoil his spirit.  His sole chance is to find one woman, but I pity
her; sapristi, quelle vie pour elle!"

Gyp said calmly:

"Would a man like that ever love?"

The baroness goggled her eyes.

"I have known such a man become a slave.  I have known him running
after a woman like a lamb while she was deceiving him here and
there.  On ne peut jamais dire.  Ma belle, il y a des choses que
vous ne savez pas encore."  She took Gyp's hand.  "And yet, one
thing is certain.  With those eyes and those lips and that figure,
YOU have a time before you!"

Gyp withdrew her hand, smiled, and shook her head; she did not
believe in love.

"Ah, but you will turn some heads!  No fear! as you English say.
There is fatality in those pretty brown eyes!"

A girl may be pardoned who takes as a compliment the saying that
her eyes are fatal.  The words warmed Gyp, uncontrollably light-
hearted in these days, just as she was warmed when people turned to
stare at her.  The soft air, the mellowness of this gay place, much
music, a sense of being a rara avis among people who, by their
heavier type, enhanced her own, had produced in her a kind of
intoxication, making her what the baroness called "un peu folle."
She was always breaking into laughter, having that precious feeling
of twisting the world round her thumb, which does not come too
often in the life of one who is sensitive.  Everything to her just
then was either "funny" or "lovely."  And the baroness, conscious
of the girl's chic, genuinely attracted by one so pretty, took care
that she saw all the people, perhaps more than all, that were
desirable.

To women and artists, between whom there is ever a certain kinship,
curiosity is a vivid emotion.  Besides, the more a man has
conquered, the more precious field he is for a woman's conquest.
To attract a man who has attracted many, what is it but a proof
that one's charm is superior to that of all those others?  The
words of the baroness deepened in Gyp the impression that Fiorsen
was "impossible," but secretly fortified the faint excitement she
felt that he should have remembered her out of all that audience.
Later on, they bore more fruit than that.  But first came that
queer incident of the flowers.

Coming in from a ride, a week after she had sat with Winton under
the Schiller statue, Gyp found on her dressing-table a bunch of
Gloire de Dijon and La France roses.  Plunging her nose into them,
she thought: "How lovely!  Who sent me these?"  There was no card.
All that the German maid could say was that a boy had brought them
from a flower shop "fur Fraulein Vinton"; it was surmised that they
came from the baroness.  In her bodice at dinner, and to the
concert after, Gyp wore one La France and one Gloire de Dijon--a
daring mixture of pink and orange against her oyster-coloured
frock, which delighted her, who had a passion for experiments in
colour.  They had bought no programme, all music being the same to
Winton, and Gyp not needing any.  When she saw Fiorsen come
forward, her cheeks began to colour from sheer anticipation.

He played first a minuet by Mozart; then the Cesar Franck sonata;
and when he came back to make his bow, he was holding in his hand a
Gloire de Dijon and a La France rose.  Involuntarily, Gyp raised
her hand to her own roses.  His eyes met hers; he bowed just a
little lower.  Then, quite naturally, put the roses to his lips as
he was walking off the platform.  Gyp dropped her hand, as if it
had been stung.  Then, with the swift thought: "Oh, that's
schoolgirlish!" she contrived a little smile.  But her cheeks were
flushing.  Should she take out those roses and let them fall?  Her
father might see, might notice Fiorsen's--put two and two together!
He would consider she had been insulted.  Had she?  She could not
bring herself to think so.  It was too pretty a compliment, as if
he wished to tell her that he was playing to her alone.  The
baroness's words flashed through her mind: "He wants saving from
himself.  Pity!  A great talent!"  It WAS a great talent.  There
must be something worth saving in one who could play like that!
They left after his last solo.  Gyp put the two roses carefully
back among the others.

Three days later, she went to an afternoon "at home" at the
Baroness von Maisen's.  She saw him at once, over by the piano,
with his short, square companion, listening to a voluble lady, and
looking very bored and restless.  All that overcast afternoon,
still and with queer lights in the sky, as if rain were coming, Gyp
had been feeling out of mood, a little homesick.  Now she felt
excited.  She saw the short companion detach himself and go up to
the baroness; a minute later, he was brought up to her and
introduced--Count Rosek.  Gyp did not like his face; there were
dark rings under the eyes, and he was too perfectly self-possessed,
with a kind of cold sweetness; but he was very agreeable and
polite, and spoke English well.  He was--it seemed--a Pole, who
lived in London, and seemed to know all that was to be known about
music.  Miss Winton--he believed--had heard his friend Fiorsen
play; but not in London?  No?  That was odd; he had been there some
months last season.  Faintly annoyed at her ignorance, Gyp
answered:

"Yes; but I was in the country nearly all last summer."

"He had a great success.  I shall take him back; it is best for his
future.  What do you think of his playing?"

In spite of herself, for she did not like expanding to this
sphinxlike little man, Gyp murmured:

"Oh, simply wonderful, of course!"

He nodded, and then rather suddenly said, with a peculiar little
smile:

"May I introduce him?  Gustav--Miss Winton!"

Gyp turned.  There he was, just behind her, bowing; and his eyes
had a look of humble adoration which he made no attempt whatever to
conceal.  Gyp saw another smile slide over the Pole's lips; and she
was alone in the bay window with Fiorsen.  The moment might well
have fluttered a girl's nerves after his recognition of her by the
Schiller statue, after that episode of the flowers, and what she
had heard of him.  But life had not yet touched either her nerves
or spirit; she only felt amused and a little excited.  Close to, he
had not so much that look of an animal behind bars, and he
certainly was in his way a dandy, beautifully washed--always an
important thing--and having some pleasant essence on his
handkerchief or hair, of which Gyp would have disapproved if he had
been English.  He wore a diamond ring also, which did not somehow
seem bad form on that particular little finger.  His height, his
broad cheek-bones, thick but not long hair, the hungry vitality of
his face, figure, movements, annulled those evidences of
femininity.  He was male enough, rather too male.  Speaking with a
queer, crisp accent, he said:

"Miss Winton, you are my audience here.  I play to you--only to you."

Gyp laughed.

"You laugh at me; but you need not.  I play for you because I
admire you.  I admire you terribly.  If I sent you those flowers,
it was not to be rude.  It was my gratitude for the pleasure of
your face."  His voice actually trembled.  And, looking down, Gyp
answered:

"Thank you.  It was very kind of you.  I want to thank you for your
playing.  It is beautiful--really beautiful!"

He made her another little bow.

"When I go back to London, will you come and hear me?"

"I should think any one would go to hear you, if they had the
chance."

He gave a short laugh.

"Bah!  Here, I do it for money; I hate this place.  It bores me--
bores me!  Was that your father sitting with you under the statue?"

Gyp nodded, suddenly grave.  She had not forgotten the slighting
turn of his head.

He passed his hand over his face, as if to wipe off its expression.

"He is very English.  But you--of no country--you belong to all!"

Gyp made him an ironical little bow.

"No; I should not know your country--you are neither of the North
nor of the South.  You are just Woman, made to be adored.  I came
here hoping to meet you; I am extremely happy.  Miss Winton, I am
your very devoted servant."

He was speaking very fast, very low, with an agitated earnestness
that surely could not be put on.  But suddenly muttering: "These
people!" he made her another of his little bows and abruptly
slipped away.  The baroness was bringing up another man.  The chief
thought left by that meeting was: "Is that how he begins to
everyone?"  She could not quite believe it.  The stammering
earnestness of his voice, those humbly adoring looks!  Then she
remembered the smile on the lips of the little Pole, and thought:
"But he must know I'm not silly enough just to be taken in by
vulgar flattery!"

Too sensitive to confide in anyone, she had no chance to ventilate
the curious sensations of attraction and repulsion that began
fermenting in her, feelings defying analysis, mingling and
quarrelling deep down in her heart.  It was certainly not love, not
even the beginning of that; but it was the kind of dangerous
interest children feel in things mysterious, out of reach, yet
within reach, if only they dared!  And the tug of music was there,
and the tug of those words of the baroness about salvation--the
thought of achieving the impossible, reserved only for the woman of
supreme charm, for the true victress.  But all these thoughts and
feelings were as yet in embryo.  She might never see him again!
And she certainly did not know whether she even wanted to.


IV


Gyp was in the habit of walking with Winton to the Kochbrunnen,
where, with other patient-folk, he was required to drink slowly for
twenty minutes every morning.  While he was imbibing she would sit
in a remote corner of the garden, and read a novel in the Reclam
edition, as a daily German lesson.

She was sitting there, the morning after the "at-home" at the
Baroness von Maisen's, reading Turgenev's "Torrents of Spring,"
when she saw Count Rosek sauntering down the path with a glass of
the waters in his hand.  Instant memory of the smile with which he
had introduced Fiorsen made her take cover beneath her sunshade.
She could see his patent-leathered feet, and well-turned, peg-top-
trousered legs go by with the gait of a man whose waist is
corseted.  The certainty that he wore those prerogatives of
womanhood increased her dislike.  How dare men be so effeminate?
Yet someone had told her that he was a good rider, a good fencer,
and very strong.  She drew a breath of relief when he was past,
and, for fear he might turn and come back, closed her little book
and slipped away.  But her figure and her springing step were more
unmistakable than she knew.

Next morning, on the same bench, she was reading breathlessly the
scene between Gemma and Sanin at the window, when she heard
Fiorsen's voice, behind her, say:

"Miss Winton!"

He, too, held a glass of the waters in one hand, and his hat in the
other.

"I have just made your father's acquaintance.  May I sit down a
minute?"

Gyp drew to one side on the bench, and he sat down.

"What are you reading?"

"A story called 'Torrents of Spring.'"

"Ah, the finest ever written!  Where are you?"

"Gemma and Sanin in the thunderstorm."

"Wait!  You have Madame Polozov to come!  What a creation!  How old
are you, Miss Winton?"

"Twenty-two."

"You would be too young to appreciate that story if you were not
YOU.  But you know much--by instinct.  What is your Christian name--
forgive me!"

"Ghita."

"Ghita?  Not soft enough."

"I am always called Gyp."

"Gyp--ah, Gyp!  Yes; Gyp!"

He repeated her name so impersonally that she could not be angry.

"I told your father I have had the pleasure of meeting you.  He was
very polite."

Gyp said coldly:

"My father is always polite."

"Like the ice in which they put champagne."

Gyp smiled; she could not help it.

And suddenly he said:

"I suppose they have told you that I am a mauvais sujet."  Gyp
inclined her head.  He looked at her steadily, and said: "It is
true.  But I could be better--much."

She wanted to look at him, but could not.  A queer sort of
exultation had seized on her.  This man had power; yet she had
power over him.  If she wished she could make him her slave, her
dog, chain him to her.  She had but to hold out her hand, and he
would go on his knees to kiss it.  She had but to say, "Come," and
he would come from wherever he might be.  She had but to say, "Be
good," and he would be good.  It was her first experience of power;
and it was intoxicating.  But--but!  Gyp could never be self-
confident for long; over her most victorious moments brooded the
shadow of distrust.  As if he read her thought, Fiorsen said:

"Tell me to do something--anything; I will do it, Miss Winton."

"Then--go back to London at once.  You are wasting yourself here,
you know.  You said so!"

He looked at her, bewildered and upset, and muttered:

"You have asked me the one thing I can't do, Miss--Miss Gyp!"

"Please--not that; it's like a servant!"

"I AM your servant!"

"Is that why you won't do what I ask you?"

"You are cruel."

Gyp laughed.

He got up and said, with sudden fierceness:

"I am not going away from you; do not think it."  Bending with the
utmost swiftness, he took her hand, put his lips to it, and turned
on his heel.

Gyp, uneasy and astonished, stared at her hand, still tingling from
the pressure of his bristly moustache.  Then she laughed again--it
was just "foreign" to have your hand kissed--and went back to her
book, without taking in the words.


Was ever courtship more strange than that which followed?  It is
said that the cat fascinates the bird it desires to eat; here the
bird fascinated the cat, but the bird too was fascinated.  Gyp
never lost the sense of having the whip-hand, always felt like one
giving alms, or extending favour, yet had a feeling of being unable
to get away, which seemed to come from the very strength of the
spell she laid on him.  The magnetism with which she held him
reacted on herself.  Thoroughly sceptical at first, she could not
remain so.  He was too utterly morose and unhappy if she did not
smile on him, too alive and excited and grateful if she did.  The
change in his eyes from their ordinary restless, fierce, and
furtive expression to humble adoration or wistful hunger when they
looked at her could never have been simulated.  And she had no lack
of chance to see that metamorphosis.  Wherever she went, there he
was.  If to a concert, he would be a few paces from the door,
waiting for her entrance.  If to a confectioner's for tea, as
likely as not he would come in.  Every afternoon he walked where
she must pass, riding to the Neroberg.

Except in the gardens of the Kochbrunnen, when he would come up
humbly and ask to sit with her five minutes, he never forced his
company, or tried in any way to compromise her.  Experience, no
doubt, served him there; but he must have had an instinct that it
was dangerous with one so sensitive.  There were other moths, too,
round that bright candle, and they served to keep his attentions
from being too conspicuous.  Did she comprehend what was going on,
understand how her defences were being sapped, grasp the danger to
retreat that lay in permitting him to hover round her?  Not really.
It all served to swell the triumphant intoxication of days when she
was ever more and more in love with living, more and more conscious
that the world appreciated and admired her, that she had power to
do what others couldn't.

Was not Fiorsen, with his great talent, and his dubious reputation,
proof of that?  And he excited her.  Whatever else one might be in
his moody, vivid company, one would not be dull.  One morning, he
told her something of his life.  His father had been a small
Swedish landowner, a very strong man and a very hard drinker; his
mother, the daughter of a painter.  She had taught him the violin,
but died while he was still a boy.  When he was seventeen he had
quarrelled with his father, and had to play his violin for a living
in the streets of Stockholm.  A well-known violinist, hearing him
one day, took him in hand.  Then his father had drunk himself to
death, and he had inherited the little estate.  He had sold it at
once--"for follies," as he put it crudely.  "Yes, Miss Winton; I
have committed many follies, but they are nothing to those I shall
commit the day I do not see you any more!"  And, with that
disturbing remark, he got up and left her.  She had smiled at his
words, but within herself she felt excitement, scepticism,
compassion, and something she did not understand at all.  In those
days, she understood herself very little.

But how far did Winton understand, how far see what was going on?
He was a stoic; but that did not prevent jealousy from taking
alarm, and causing him twinges more acute than those he still felt
in his left foot.  He was afraid of showing disquiet by any
dramatic change, or he would have carried her off a fortnight at
least before his cure was over.  He knew too well the signs of
passion.  That long, loping, wolfish fiddling fellow with the broad
cheekbones and little side-whiskers (Good God!) and greenish eyes
whose looks at Gyp he secretly marked down, roused his complete
distrust.  Perhaps his inbred English contempt for foreigners and
artists kept him from direct action.  He COULD not take it quite
seriously.  Gyp, his fastidious perfect Gyp, succumbing, even a
little to a fellow like that!  Never!  His jealous affection, too,
could not admit that she would neglect to consult him in any doubt
or difficulty.  He forgot the sensitive secrecy of girls, forgot
that his love for her had ever shunned words, her love for him
never indulged in confidences.  Nor did he see more than a little
of what there was to see, and that little was doctored by Fiorsen
for his eyes, shrewd though they were.  Nor was there in all so
very much, except one episode the day before they left, and of that
he knew nothing.

That last afternoon was very still, a little mournful.  It had
rained the night before, and the soaked tree-trunks, the soaked
fallen leaves gave off a faint liquorice-like perfume.  In Gyp
there was a feeling, as if her spirit had been suddenly emptied of
excitement and delight.  Was it the day, or the thought of leaving
this place where she had so enjoyed herself?  After lunch, when
Winton was settling his accounts, she wandered out through the long
park stretching up the valley.  The sky was brooding-grey, the
trees were still and melancholy.  It was all a little melancholy,
and she went on and on, across the stream, round into a muddy lane
that led up through the outskirts of a village, on to the higher
ground whence she could return by the main road.  Why must things
come to an end?  For the first time in her life, she thought of
Mildenham and hunting without enthusiasm.  She would rather stay in
London.  There she would not be cut off from music, from dancing,
from people, and all the exhilaration of being appreciated.  On the
air came the shrilly, hollow droning of a thresher, and the sound
seemed exactly to express her feelings.  A pigeon flew over, white
against the leaden sky; some birch-trees that had gone golden
shivered and let fall a shower of drops.  It was lonely here!  And,
suddenly, two little boys bolted out of the hedge, nearly upsetting
her, and scurried down the road.  Something had startled them.
Gyp, putting up her face to see, felt on it soft pin-points of
rain.  Her frock would be spoiled, and it was one she was fond of--
dove-coloured, velvety, not meant for weather.  She turned for
refuge to the birch-trees.  It would be over directly, perhaps.
Muffled in distance, the whining drone of that thresher still came
travelling, deepening her discomfort.  Then in the hedge, whence
the boys had bolted down, a man reared himself above the lane, and
came striding along toward her.  He jumped down the bank, among the
birch-trees.  And she saw it was Fiorsen--panting, dishevelled,
pale with heat.  He must have followed her, and climbed straight up
the hillside from the path she had come along in the bottom, before
crossing the stream.  His artistic dandyism had been harshly
treated by that scramble.  She might have laughed; but, instead,
she felt excited, a little scared by the look on his hot, pale
face.  He said, breathlessly:

"I have caught you.  So you are going to-morrow, and never told me!
You thought you would slip away--not a word for me!  Are you always
so cruel?  Well, I will not spare you, either!"

Crouching suddenly, he took hold of her broad ribbon sash, and
buried his face in it.  Gyp stood trembling--the action had not
stirred her sense of the ridiculous.  He circled her knees with his
arms.

"Oh, Gyp, I love you--I love you--don't send me away--let me be
with you!  I am your dog--your slave.  Oh, Gyp, I love you!"

His voice moved and terrified her.  Men had said "I love you"
several times during those last two years, but never with that
lost-soul ring of passion, never with that look in the eyes at once
fiercely hungry and so supplicating, never with that restless,
eager, timid touch of hands.  She could only murmur:

"Please get up!"

But he went on:

"Love me a little, only a little--love me!  Oh, Gyp!"

The thought flashed through Gyp: 'To how many has he knelt, I
wonder?'  His face had a kind of beauty in its abandonment--the
beauty that comes from yearning--and she lost her frightened
feeling.  He went on, with his stammering murmur: "I am a prodigal,
I know; but if you love me, I will no longer be.  I will do great
things for you.  Oh, Gyp, if you will some day marry me!  Not now.
When I have proved.  Oh, Gyp, you are so sweet--so wonderful!"

His arms crept up till he had buried his face against her waist.
Without quite knowing what she did, Gyp touched his hair, and said
again:

"No; please get up."

He got up then, and standing near, with his hands hard clenched at
his sides, whispered:

"Have mercy!  Speak to me!"

She could not.  All was strange and mazed and quivering in her, her
spirit straining away, drawn to him, fantastically confused.  She
could only look into his face with her troubled, dark eyes.  And
suddenly she was seized and crushed to him.  She shrank away,
pushing him back with all her strength.  He hung his head, abashed,
suffering, with eyes shut, lips trembling; and her heart felt again
that quiver of compassion.  She murmured:

"I don't know.  I will tell you later--later--in England."

He bowed, folding his arms, as if to make her feel safe from him.
And when, regardless of the rain, she began to move on, he walked
beside her, a yard or so away, humbly, as though he had never
poured out those words or hurt her lips with the violence of his
kiss.

Back in her room, taking off her wet dress, Gyp tried to remember
what he had said and what she had answered.  She had not promised
anything.  But she had given him her address, both in London and
the country.  Unless she resolutely thought of other things, she
still felt the restless touch of his hands, the grip of his arms,
and saw his eyes as they were when he was kissing her; and once
more she felt frightened and excited.

He was playing at the concert that evening--her last concert.  And
surely he had never played like that--with a despairing beauty, a
sort of frenzied rapture.  Listening, there came to her a feeling--
a feeling of fatality--that, whether she would or no, she could not
free herself from him.


V


Once back in England, Gyp lost that feeling, or very nearly.  Her
scepticism told her that Fiorsen would soon see someone else who
seemed all he had said she was!  How ridiculous to suppose that he
would stop his follies for her, that she had any real power over
him!  But, deep down, she did not quite believe this.  It would
have wounded her belief in herself too much--a belief so subtle and
intimate that she was not conscious of it; belief in that something
about her which had inspired the baroness to use the word
"fatality."

Winton, who breathed again, hurried her off to Mildenham.  He had
bought her a new horse.  They were in time for the last of the
cubbing.  And, for a week at least, the passion for riding and the
sight of hounds carried all before it.  Then, just as the real
business of the season was beginning, she began to feel dull and
restless.  Mildenham was dark; the autumn winds made dreary noises.
Her little brown spaniel, very old, who seemed only to have held on
to life just for her return, died.  She accused herself terribly
for having left it so long when it was failing.  Thinking of all
the days Lass had been watching for her to come home--as Betty,
with that love of woeful recital so dear to simple hearts, took
good care to make plain--she felt as if she had been cruel.  For
events such as these, Gyp was both too tender-hearted and too hard
on herself.  She was quite ill for several days.  The moment she
was better, Winton, in dismay, whisked her back to Aunt Rosamund,
in town.  He would lose her company, but if it did her good, took
her out of herself, he would be content.  Running up for the week-
end, three days later, he was relieved to find her decidedly
perked-up, and left her again with the easier heart.

It was on the day after he went back to Mildenham that she received
a letter from Fiorsen, forwarded from Bury Street.  He was--it
said--just returning to London; he had not forgotten any look she
had ever given him, or any word she had spoken.  He should not rest
till he could see her again.  "For a long time," the letter ended,
"before I first saw you, I was like the dead--lost.  All was bitter
apples to me.  Now I am a ship that comes from the whirlpools to a
warm blue sea; now I see again the evening star.  I kiss your
hands, and am your faithful slave--Gustav Fiorsen."  These words,
which from any other man would have excited her derision, renewed
in Gyp that fluttered feeling, the pleasurable, frightened sense
that she could not get away from his pursuit.

She wrote in answer to the address he gave her in London, to say
that she was staying for a few days in Curzon Street with her aunt,
who would be glad to see him if he cared to come in any afternoon
between five and six, and signed herself "Ghita Winton."  She was
long over that little note.  Its curt formality gave her
satisfaction.  Was she really mistress of herself--and him; able to
dispose as she wished?  Yes; and surely the note showed it.

It was never easy to tell Gyp's feelings from her face; even Winton
was often baffled.  Her preparation of Aunt Rosamund for the
reception of Fiorsen was a masterpiece of casualness.  When he duly
came, he, too, seemed doubly alive to the need for caution, only
gazing at Gyp when he could not be seen doing so.  But, going out,
he whispered: "Not like this--not like this; I must see you alone--
I must!"  She smiled and shook her head.  But bubbles had come back
to the wine in her cup.

That evening she said quietly to Aunt Rosamund:

"Dad doesn't like Mr. Fiorsen--can't appreciate his playing, of
course."

And this most discreet remark caused Aunt Rosamund, avid--in a
well-bred way--of music, to omit mention of the intruder when
writing to her brother.  The next two weeks he came almost every
day, always bringing his violin, Gyp playing his accompaniments,
and though his hungry stare sometimes made her feel hot, she would
have missed it.

But when Winton next came up to Bury Street, she was in a quandary.
To confess that Fiorsen was here, having omitted to speak of him in
her letters?  Not to confess, and leave him to find it out from
Aunt Rosamund?  Which was worse?  Seized with panic, she did
neither, but told her father she was dying for a gallop.  Hailing
that as the best of signs, he took her forthwith back to Mildenham.
And curious were her feelings--light-hearted, compunctious, as of
one who escapes yet knows she will soon be seeking to return.  The
meet was rather far next day, but she insisted on riding to it,
since old Pettance, the superannuated jockey, charitably employed
as extra stable help at Mildenham, was to bring on her second
horse.  There was a good scenting-wind, with rain in the offing,
and outside the covert they had a corner to themselves--Winton
knowing a trick worth two of the field's at-large.  They had
slipped there, luckily unseen, for the knowing were given to
following the one-handed horseman in faded pink, who, on his bang-
tailed black mare, had a knack of getting so well away.  One of the
whips, a little dark fellow with smouldery eyes and sucked-in
weathered cheeks, dashed out of covert, rode past, saluting, and
dashed in again.  A jay came out with a screech, dived, and doubled
back; a hare made off across the fallow--the light-brown lopping
creature was barely visible against the brownish soil.  Pigeons,
very high up, flew over and away to the next wood.  The shrilling
voices of the whips rose from the covert-depths, and just a whimper
now and then from the hounds, swiftly wheeling their noses among
the fern and briers.

Gyp, crisping her fingers on the reins, drew-in deep breaths.  It
smelled so sweet and soft and fresh under that sky, pied of blue,
and of white and light-grey swift-moving clouds--not half the wind
down here that there was up there, just enough to be carrying off
the beech and oak leaves, loosened by frost two days before.  If
only a fox would break this side, and they could have the first
fields to themselves!  It was so lovely to be alone with hounds!
One of these came trotting out, a pretty young creature, busy and
unconcerned, raising its tan-and-white head, its mild reproachful
deep-brown eyes, at Winton's, "Loo-in Trix!"  What a darling!  A
burst of music from the covert, and the darling vanished among the
briers.

Gyp's new brown horse pricked its ears.  A young man in a grey
cutaway, buff cords, and jack-boots, on a low chestnut mare, came
slipping round the covert.  Oh--did that mean they were all coming?
Impatiently she glanced at this intruder, who raised his hat a
little and smiled.  That smile, faintly impudent, was so
infectious, that Gyp was melted to a slight response.  Then she
frowned.  He had spoiled their lovely loneliness.  Who was he?  He
looked unpardonably serene and happy sitting there.  She did not
remember his face at all, yet there was something familiar about
it.  He had taken his hat off--a broad face, very well cut, and
clean-shaved, with dark curly hair, extraordinary clear eyes, a
bold, cool, merry look.  Where had she seen somebody like him?

A tiny sound from Winton made her turn her head.  The fox--stealing
out beyond those further bushes!  Breathless, she fixed her eyes on
her father's face.  It was hard as steel, watching.  Not a sound,
not a quiver, as if horse and man had turned to metal.  Was he
never going to give the view-halloo?  Then his lips writhed, and
out it came.  Gyp cast a swift smile of gratitude at the young man
for having had taste and sense to leave that to her father, and
again he smiled at her.  There were the first hounds streaming out--
one on the other--music and feather!  Why didn't Dad go?  They
would all be round this way in a minute!

Then the black mare slid past her, and, with a bound, her horse
followed.  The young man on the chestnut was away on the left.
Only the hunts-man and one whip--beside their three selves!
Glorious!  The brown horse went too fast at that first fence and
Winton called back: "Steady, Gyp!  Steady him!"  But she couldn't;
and it didn't matter.  Grass, three fields of grass!  Oh, what a
lovely fox--going so straight!  And each time the brown horse rose,
she thought: "Perfect!  I CAN ride!  Oh, I am happy!"  And she
hoped her father and the young man were looking.  There was no
feeling in the world like this, with a leader like Dad, hounds
moving free, good going, and the field distanced.  Better than
dancing; better--yes, better than listening to music.  If one could
spend one's life galloping, sailing over fences; if it would never
stop!  The new horse was a darling, though he DID pull.

She crossed the next fence level with the young man, whose low
chestnut mare moved with a stealthy action.  His hat was crammed
down now, and his face very determined, but his lips still had
something of that smile.  Gyp thought: "He's got a good seat--very
strong, only he looks like 'thrusting.'  Nobody rides like Dad--so
beautifully quiet!"  Indeed, Winton's seat on a horse was
perfection, all done with such a minimum expenditure.  The hounds
swung round in a curve.  Now she was with them, really with them!
What a pace--cracking!  No fox could stand this long!

And suddenly she caught sight of him, barely a field ahead,
scurrying desperately, brush down; and the thought flashed through
her: 'Oh! don't let's catch you.  Go on, fox; go on!  Get away!'
Were they really all after that little hunted red thing--a hundred
great creatures, horses and men and women and dogs, and only that
one little fox!  But then came another fence, and quickly another,
and she lost feelings of shame and pity in the exultation of flying
over them.  A minute later the fox went to earth within a few
hundred yards of the leading hound, and she was glad.  She had been
in at deaths before--horrid!  But it had been a lovely gallop.
And, breathless, smiling rapturously, she wondered whether she
could mop her face before the field came up, without that young man
noticing.

She could see him talking to her father, and taking out a wisp of a
handkerchief that smelled of cyclamen, she had a good scrub round.
When she rode up, the young man raised his hat, and looking full at
her said: "You did go!"  His voice, rather high-pitched, had in it
a spice of pleasant laziness.  Gyp made him an ironical little bow,
and murmured: "My new horse, you mean."  He broke again into that
irrepressible smile, but, all the same, she knew that he admired
her.  And she kept thinking: 'Where HAVE I seen someone like him?'

They had two more runs, but nothing like that first gallop.  Nor
did she again see the young man, whose name--it seemed--was
Summerhay, son of a certain Lady Summerhay at Widrington, ten miles
from Mildenham.

All that long, silent jog home with Winton in fading daylight, she
felt very happy--saturated with air and elation.  The trees and
fields, the hay-stacks, gates, and ponds beside the lanes grew dim;
lights came up in the cottage windows; the air smelled sweet of
wood smoke.  And, for the first time all day, she thought of
Fiorsen, thought of him almost longingly.  If he could be there in
the cosy old drawing-room, to play to her while she lay back--
drowsing, dreaming by the fire in the scent of burning cedar logs--
the Mozart minuet, or that little heart-catching tune of Poise,
played the first time she heard him, or a dozen other of the things
he played unaccompanied!  That would be the most lovely ending to
this lovely day.  Just the glow and warmth wanting, to make all
perfect--the glow and warmth of music and adoration!

And touching the mare with her heel, she sighed.  To indulge
fancies about music and Fiorsen was safe here, far away from him;
she even thought she would not mind if he were to behave again as
he had under the birch-trees in the rain at Wiesbaden.  It was so
good to be adored.  Her old mare, ridden now six years, began the
series of contented snuffles that signified she smelt home.  Here
was the last turn, and the loom of the short beech-tree avenue to
the house--the old manor-house, comfortable, roomy, rather dark,
with wide shallow stairs.  Ah, she was tired; and it was drizzling
now.  She would be nicely stiff to-morrow.  In the light coming
from the open door she saw Markey standing; and while fishing from
her pocket the usual lumps of sugar, heard him say: "Mr. Fiorsen,
sir--gentleman from Wiesbaden--to see you."

Her heart thumped.  What did this mean?  Why had he come?  How had
he dared?  How could he have been so treacherous to her?  Ah, but
he was ignorant, of course, that she had not told her father.  A
veritable judgment on her!  She ran straight in and up the stairs.
The voice of Betty, "Your bath's ready, Miss Gyp," roused her.  And
crying, "Oh, Betty darling, bring me up my tea!" she ran into the
bathroom.  She was safe there; and in the delicious heat of the
bath faced the situation better.

There could be only one meaning.  He had come to ask for her.  And,
suddenly, she took comfort.  Better so; there would be no more
secrecy from Dad!  And he would stand between her and Fiorsen if--
if she decided not to marry him.  The thought staggered her.  Had
she, without knowing it, got so far as this?  Yes, and further.  It
was all no good; Fiorsen would never accept refusal, even if she
gave it!  But, did she want to refuse?

She loved hot baths, but had never stayed in one so long.  Life was
so easy there, and so difficult outside.  Betty's knock forced her
to get out at last, and let her in with tea and the message.  Would
Miss Gyp please to go down when she was ready?


VI


Winton was staggered.  With a glance at Gyp's vanishing figure, he
said curtly to Markey, "Where have you put this gentleman?"  But
the use of the word "this" was the only trace he showed of his
emotions.  In that little journey across the hall he entertained
many extravagant thoughts.  Arrived at the study, he inclined his
head courteously enough, waiting for Fiorsen to speak.  The
"fiddler," still in his fur-lined coat, was twisting a squash hat
in his hands.  In his own peculiar style he was impressive.  But
why couldn't he look you in the face; or, if he did, why did he
seem about to eat you?

"You knew I was returned to London, Major Winton?"

Then Gyp had been seeing the fellow without letting him know!  The
thought was chill and bitter to Winton.  He must not give her away,
however, and he simply bowed.  He felt that his visitor was afraid
of his frigid courtesy; and he did not mean to help him over that
fear.  He could not, of course, realize that this ascendancy would
not prevent Fiorsen from laughing at him behind his back and acting
as if he did not exist.  No real contest, in fact, was possible
between men moving on such different planes, neither having the
slightest respect for the other's standards or beliefs.

Fiorsen, who had begun to pace the room, stopped, and said with
agitation:

"Major Winton, your daughter is the most beautiful thing on earth.
I love her desperately.  I am a man with a future, though you may
not think it.  I have what future I like in my art if only I can
marry her.  I have a little money, too--not much; but in my violin
there is all the fortune she can want."

Winton's face expressed nothing but cold contempt.  That this
fellow should take him for one who would consider money in
connection with his daughter simply affronted him.

Fiorsen went on:

"You do not like me--that is clear.  I saw it the first moment.
You are an English gentleman"--he pronounced the words with a sort
of irony--"I am nothing to you.  Yet, in MY world, I am something.
I am not an adventurer.  Will you permit me to beg your daughter to
be my wife?"  He raised his hands that still held the hat;
involuntarily they had assumed the attitude of prayer.

For a second, Winton realized that he was suffering.  That weakness
went in a flash, and he said frigidly:

"I am obliged to you, sir, for coming to me first.  You are in my
house, and I don't want to be discourteous, but I should be glad if
you would be good enough to withdraw and take it that I shall
certainly oppose your wish as best I can."

The almost childish disappointment and trouble in Fiorsen's face
changed quickly to an expression fierce, furtive, mocking; and then
shifted to despair.

"Major Winton, you have loved; you must have loved her mother.  I
suffer!"

Winton, who had turned abruptly to the fire, faced round again.

"I don't control my daughter's affections, sir; she will do as she
wishes.  I merely say it will be against my hopes and judgment if
she marries you.  I imagine you've not altogether waited for my
leave.  I was not blind to the way you hung about her at Wiesbaden,
Mr. Fiorsen."

Fiorsen answered with a twisted, miserable smile:

"Poor wretches do what they can.  May I see her?  Let me just see
her."

Was it any good to refuse?  She had been seeing the fellow already
without his knowledge, keeping from him--HIM--all her feelings,
whatever they were.  And he said:

"I'll send for her.  In the meantime, perhaps you'll have some
refreshment?"

Fiorsen shook his head, and there followed half an hour of acute
discomfort.  Winton, in his mud-stained clothes before the fire,
supported it better than his visitor.  That child of nature, after
endeavouring to emulate his host's quietude, renounced all such
efforts with an expressive gesture, fidgeted here, fidgeted there,
tramped the room, went to the window, drew aside the curtains and
stared out into the dark; came back as if resolved again to
confront Winton; then, baffled by that figure so motionless before
the fire, flung himself down in an armchair, and turned his face to
the wall.  Winton was not cruel by nature, but he enjoyed the
writhings of this fellow who was endangering Gyp's happiness.
Endangering?  Surely not possible that she would accept him!  Yet,
if not, why had she not told him?  And he, too, suffered.

Then she came.  He had expected her to be pale and nervous; but Gyp
never admitted being naughty till she had been forgiven.  Her
smiling face had in it a kind of warning closeness.  She went up to
Fiorsen, and holding out her hand, said calmly:

"How nice of you to come!"

Winton had the bitter feeling that he--he--was the outsider.  Well,
he would speak plainly; there had been too much underhand doing.

"Mr. Fiorsen has done us the honour to wish to marry you.  I've
told him that you decide such things for yourself.  If you accept
him, it will be against my wish, naturally."

While he was speaking, the glow in her cheeks deepened; she looked
neither at him nor at Fiorsen.  Winton noted the rise and fall of
the lace on her breast.  She was smiling, and gave the tiniest
shrug of her shoulders.  And, suddenly smitten to the heart, he
walked stiffly to the door.  It was evident that she had no use for
his guidance.  If her love for him was not worth to her more than
this fellow!  But there his resentment stopped.  He knew that he
could not afford wounded feelings; could not get on without her.
Married to the greatest rascal on earth, he would still be standing
by her, wanting her companionship and love.  She represented too
much in the present and--the past.  With sore heart, indeed, he
went down to dinner.

Fiorsen was gone when he came down again.  What the fellow had
said, or she had answered, he would not for the world have asked.
Gulfs between the proud are not lightly bridged.  And when she came
up to say good-night, both their faces were as though coated with
wax.

In the days that followed, she gave no sign, uttered no word in any
way suggesting that she meant to go against his wishes.  Fiorsen
might not have existed, for any mention made of him.  But Winton
knew well that she was moping, and cherishing some feeling against
himself.  And this he could not bear.  So, one evening, after
dinner, he said quietly:

"Tell me frankly, Gyp; do you care for that chap?"

She answered as quietly:

"In a way--yes."

"Is that enough?"

"I don't know, Dad."

Her lips had quivered; and Winton's heart softened, as it always
did when he saw her moved.  He put his hand out, covered one of
hers, and said:

"I shall never stand in the way of your happiness, Gyp.  But it
must BE happiness.  Can it possibly be that?  I don't think so.
You know what they said of him out there?"

"Yes."

He had not thought she knew.  And his heart sank.

"That's pretty bad, you know.  And is he of our world at all?"

Gyp looked up.

"Do you think I belong to 'our world,' Dad?"

Winton turned away.  She followed, slipping her hand under his arm.

"I didn't mean to hurt.  But it's true, isn't it?  I don't belong
among society people.  They wouldn't have me, you know--if they
knew about what you told me.  Ever since that I've felt I don't
belong to them.  I'm nearer him.  Music means more to me than
anything!"

Winton gave her hand a convulsive grip.  A sense of coming defeat
and bereavement was on him.

"If your happiness went wrong, Gyp, I should be most awfully cut
up."

"But why shouldn't I be happy, Dad?"

"If you were, I could put up with anyone.  But, I tell you, I can't
believe you would be.  I beg you, my dear--for God's sake, make
sure.  I'll put a bullet into the man who treats you badly."

Gyp laughed, then kissed him.  But they were silent.  At bedtime he
said:

"We'll go up to town to-morrow."

Whether from a feeling of the inevitable, or from the forlorn hope
that seeing more of the fellow might be the only chance of curing
her--he put no more obstacles in the way.

And the queer courtship began again.  By Christmas she had
consented, still under the impression that she was the mistress,
not the slave--the cat, not the bird.  Once or twice, when Fiorsen
let passion out of hand and his overbold caresses affronted her,
she recoiled almost with dread from what she was going toward.
But, in general, she lived elated, intoxicated by music and his
adoration, withal remorseful that she was making her father sad.
She was but little at Mildenham, and he, in his unhappiness, was
there nearly all the time, riding extra hard, and leaving Gyp with
his sister.  Aunt Rosamund, though under the spell of Fiorsen's
music, had agreed with her brother that Fiorsen was "impossible."
But nothing she said made any effect on Gyp.  It was new and
startling to discover in this soft, sensitive girl such a vein of
stubbornness.  Opposition seemed to harden her resolution.  And the
good lady's natural optimism began to persuade her that Gyp would
make a silk purse out of that sow's ear yet.  After all, the man
was a celebrity in his way!

It was settled for February.  A house with a garden was taken in
St. John's Wood.  The last month went, as all such last months go,
in those intoxicating pastimes, the buying of furniture and
clothes.  If it were not for that, who knows how many engagement
knots would slip!


And to-day they had been married.  To the last, Winton had hardly
believed it would come to that.  He had shaken the hand of her
husband and kept pain and disappointment out of his face, knowing
well that he deceived no one.  Thank heaven, there had been no
church, no wedding-cake, invitations, congratulations, fal-lals of
any kind--he could never have stood them.  Not even Rosamund--who
had influenza--to put up with!

Lying back in the recesses of that old chair, he stared into the
fire.

They would be just about at Torquay by now--just about.  Music!
Who would have thought noises made out of string and wood could
have stolen her away from him?  Yes, they would be at Torquay by
now, at their hotel.  And the first prayer Winton had uttered for
years escaped his lips:

"Let her be happy!  Let her be happy!"

Then, hearing Markey open the door, he closed his eyes and feigned
sleep.


Part II


I


When a girl first sits opposite the man she has married, of what
does she think?  Not of the issues and emotions that lie in wait.
They are too overwhelming; she would avoid them while she can.  Gyp
thought of her frock, a mushroom-coloured velvet cord.  Not many
girls of her class are married without "fal-lals," as Winton had
called them.  Not many girls sit in the corner of their reserved
first-class compartments without the excitement of having been
supreme centre of the world for some flattering hours to buoy them
up on that train journey, with no memories of friends' behaviour,
speech, appearance, to chat of with her husband, so as to keep
thought away.  For Gyp, her dress, first worn that day, Betty's
breakdown, the faces, blank as hats, of the registrar and clerk,
were about all she had to distract her.  She stole a look at her
husband, clothed in blue serge, just opposite.  Her husband!  Mrs.
Gustav Fiorsen!  No!  People might call her that; to herself, she
was Ghita Winton.  Ghita Fiorsen would never seem right.  And, not
confessing that she was afraid to meet his eyes, but afraid all the
same, she looked out of the window.  A dull, bleak, dismal day; no
warmth, no sun, no music in it--the Thames as grey as lead, the
willows on its banks forlorn.

Suddenly she felt his hand on hers.  She had not seen his face like
that before--yes; once or twice when he was playing--a spirit
shining though.  She felt suddenly secure.  If it stayed like that,
then!--His hand rested on her knee; his face changed just a little;
the spirit seemed to waver, to be fading; his lips grew fuller.  He
crossed over and sat beside her.  Instantly she began to talk about
their house, where they were going to put certain things--presents
and all that.  He, too, talked of the house; but every now and then
he glanced at the corridor, and muttered.  It was pleasant to feel
that the thought of her possessed him through and through, but she
was tremulously glad of that corridor.  Life is mercifully made up
of little things!  And Gyp was always able to live in the moment.
In the hours they had spent together, up to now, he had been like a
starved man snatching hasty meals; now that he had her to himself
for good, he was another creature altogether--like a boy out of
school, and kept her laughing nearly all the time.

Presently he got down his practise violin, and putting on the mute,
played, looking at her over his shoulder with a droll smile.  She
felt happy, much warmer at heart, now.  And when his face was
turned away, she looked at him.  He was so much better looking now
than when he had those little whiskers.  One day she had touched
one of them and said: "Ah! if only these wings could fly!"  Next
morning they had flown.  His face was not one to be easily got used
to; she was not used to it yet, any more than she was used to his
touch.  When it grew dark, and he wanted to draw down the blinds,
she caught him by the sleeve, and said:

"No, no; they'll know we're honeymooners!"

"Well, my Gyp, and are we not?"

But he obeyed; only, as the hours went on, his eyes seemed never to
let her alone.

At Torquay, the sky was clear and starry; the wind brought whiffs
of sea-scent into their cab; lights winked far out on a headland;
and in the little harbour, all bluish dark, many little boats
floated like tame birds.  He had put his arm round her, and she
could feel his hand resting on her heart.  She was grateful that he
kept so still.  When the cab stopped and they entered the hall of
the hotel, she whispered:

"Don't let's let them see!"

Still, mercifully, little things!  Inspecting the three rooms,
getting the luggage divided between dressing-room and bedroom,
unpacking, wondering which dress to put on for dinner, stopping to
look out over the dark rocks and the sea, where the moon was coming
up, wondering if she dared lock the door while she was dressing,
deciding that it would be silly; dressing so quickly, fluttering
when she found him suddenly there close behind her, beginning to do
up her hooks.  Those fingers were too skilful!  It was the first
time she had thought of his past with a sort of hurt pride and
fastidiousness.  When he had finished, he twisted her round, held
her away, looked at her from head to foot, and said below his
breath:

"Mine!"

Her heart beat fast then; but suddenly he laughed, slipped his arm
about her, and danced her twice round the room.  He let her go
demurely down the stairs in front of him, saying:

"They shan't see--my Gyp.  Oh, they shan't see!  We are old married
people, tired of each other--very!"

At dinner it amused him at first--her too, a little--to keep up
this farce of indifference.  But every now and then he turned and
stared at some inoffensive visitor who was taking interest in them,
with such fierce and genuine contempt that Gyp took alarm; whereon
he laughed.  When she had drunk a little wine and he had drunk a
good deal, the farce of indifference came to its end.  He talked at
a great rate now, slying nicknaming the waiters and mimicking the
people around--happy thrusts that made her smile but shiver a
little, lest they should be heard or seen.  Their heads were close
together across the little table.  They went out into the lounge.
Coffee came, and he wanted her to smoke with him.  She had never
smoked in a public room.  But it seemed stiff and "missish" to
refuse--she must do now as his world did.  And it was another
little thing; she wanted little things, all the time wanted them.
She drew back a window-curtain, and they stood there side by side.
The sea was deep blue beneath bright stars, and the moon shone
through a ragged pine-tree on a little headland.  Though she stood
five feet six in her shoes, she was only up to his mouth.  He
sighed and said: "Beautiful night, my Gyp!"  And suddenly it struck
her that she knew nothing of what was in him, and yet he was her
husband!  "Husband"--funny word, not pretty!  She felt as a child
opening the door of a dark room, and, clutching his arm, said:

"Look!  There's a sailing-boat.  What's it doing out there at
night?"  Another little thing!  Any little thing!

Presently he said:

"Come up-stairs!  I'll play to you."

Up in their sitting-room was a piano, but--not possible; to-morrow
they would have to get another.  To-morrow!  The fire was hot, and
he took off his coat to play.  In one of his shirt-sleeves there
was a rent.  She thought, with a sort of triumph: 'I shall mend
that!'  It was something definite, actual--a little thing.  There
were lilies in the room that gave a strong, sweet scent.  He
brought them up to her to sniff, and, while she was sniffing,
stooped suddenly and kissed her neck.  She shut her eyes with a
shiver.  He took the flowers away at once, and when she opened her
eyes again, his violin was at his shoulder.  For a whole hour he
played, and Gyp, in her cream-coloured frock, lay back, listening.
She was tired, not sleepy.  It would have been nice to have been
sleepy.  Her mouth had its little sad tuck or dimple at the corner;
her eyes were deep and dark--a cloudy child.  His gaze never left
her face; he played and played, and his own fitful face grew
clouded.  At last he put away the violin, and said:

"Go to bed, Gyp; you're tired."

Obediently she got up and went into the bedroom.  With a sick
feeling in her heart, and as near the fire as she could get, she
undressed with desperate haste, and got to bed.  An age--it seemed--
she lay there shivering in her flimsy lawn against the cold
sheets, her eyes not quite closed, watching the flicker of the
firelight.  She did not think--could not--just lay stiller than the
dead.  The door creaked.  She shut her eyes.  Had she a heart at
all?  It did not seem to beat.  She lay thus, with eyes shut, till
she could bear it no longer.  By the firelight she saw him
crouching at the foot of the bed; could just see his face--like a
face--a face--where seen?  Ah yes!--a picture--of a wild man
crouching at the feet of Iphigenia--so humble, so hungry--so lost
in gazing.  She gave a little smothered sob and held out her hand.


II


Gyp was too proud to give by halves.  And in those early days she
gave Fiorsen everything except--her heart.  She earnestly desired
to give that too; but hearts only give themselves.  Perhaps if the
wild man in him, maddened by beauty in its power, had not so ousted
the spirit man, her heart might have gone with her lips and the
rest of her.  He knew he was not getting her heart, and it made
him, in the wildness of his nature and the perversity of a man, go
just the wrong way to work, trying to conquer her by the senses,
not the soul.

Yet she was not unhappy--it cannot be said she was unhappy, except
for a sort of lost feeling sometimes, as if she were trying to
grasp something that kept slipping, slipping away.  She was glad to
give him pleasure.  She felt no repulsion--this was man's nature.
Only there was always that feeling that she was not close.  When he
was playing, with the spirit-look on his face, she would feel:
'Now, now, surely I shall get close to him!'  But the look would
go; how to keep it there she did not know, and when it went, her
feeling went too.

Their little suite of rooms was at the very end of the hotel, so
that he might play as much as he wished.  While he practised in the
mornings she would go into the garden, which sloped in rock-
terraces down to the sea.  Wrapped in fur, she would sit there with
a book.  She soon knew each evergreen, or flower that was coming
out--aubretia, and laurustinus, a little white flower whose name
was uncertain, and one star-periwinkle.  The air was often soft;
the birds sang already and were busy with their weddings, and
twice, at least, spring came in her heart--that wonderful feeling
when first the whole being scents new life preparing in the earth
and the wind--the feeling that only comes when spring is not yet,
and one aches and rejoices all at once.  Seagulls often came over
her, craning down their greedy bills and uttering cries like a
kitten's mewing.

Out here she had feelings, that she did not get with him, of being
at one with everything.  She did not realize how tremendously she
had grown up in these few days, how the ground bass had already
come into the light music of her life.  Living with Fiorsen was
opening her eyes to much beside mere knowledge of "man's nature";
with her perhaps fatal receptivity, she was already soaking up the
atmosphere of his philosophy.  He was always in revolt against
accepting things because he was expected to; but, like most
executant artists, he was no reasoner, just a mere instinctive
kicker against the pricks.  He would lose himself in delight with a
sunset, a scent, a tune, a new caress, in a rush of pity for a
beggar or a blind man, a rush of aversion from a man with large
feet or a long nose, of hatred for a woman with a flat chest or an
expression of sanctimony.  He would swing along when he was
walking, or dawdle, dawdle; he would sing and laugh, and make her
laugh too till she ached, and half an hour later would sit staring
into some pit of darkness in a sort of powerful brooding of his
whole being.  Insensibly she shared in this deep drinking of
sensation, but always gracefully, fastidiously, never losing sense
of other people's feelings.

In his love-raptures, he just avoided setting her nerves on edge,
because he never failed to make her feel his enjoyment of her
beauty; that perpetual consciousness, too, of not belonging to the
proper and respectable, which she had tried to explain to her
father, made her set her teeth against feeling shocked.  But in
other ways he did shock her.  She could not get used to his utter
oblivion of people's feelings, to the ferocious contempt with which
he would look at those who got on his nerves, and make half-audible
comments, just as he had commented on her own father when he and
Count Rosek passed them, by the Schiller statue.  She would visibly
shrink at those remarks, though they were sometimes so
excruciatingly funny that she had to laugh, and feel dreadful
immediately after.  She saw that he resented her shrinking; it
seemed to excite him to run amuck the more.  But she could not help
it.  Once she got up and walked away.  He followed her, sat on the
floor beside her knees, and thrust his head, like a great cat,
under her hand.

"Forgive me, my Gyp; but they are such brutes.  Who could help it?
Now tell me--who could, except my Gyp?"  And she had to forgive
him.  But, one evening, when he had been really outrageous during
dinner, she answered:

"No; I can't.  It's you that are the brute.  You WERE a brute to
them!"

He leaped up with a face of furious gloom and went out of the room.
It was the first time he had given way to anger with her.  Gyp sat
by the fire, very disturbed; chiefly because she was not really
upset at having hurt him.  Surely she ought to be feeling miserable
at that!

But when, at ten o'clock, he had not come back, she began to
flutter in earnest.  She had said a dreadful thing!  And yet, in
her heart, she did not take back her judgment.  He really HAD been
a brute.  She would have liked to soothe herself by playing, but it
was too late to disturb people, and going to the window, she looked
out over the sea, feeling beaten and confused.  This was the first
time she had given free rein to her feeling against what Winton
would have called his "bounderism."  If he had been English, she
would never have been attracted by one who could trample so on
other people's feelings.  What, then, had attracted her?  His
strangeness, wildness, the mesmeric pull of his passion for her,
his music!  Nothing could spoil that in him.  The sweep, the surge,
and sigh in his playing was like the sea out there, dark, and surf-
edged, beating on the rocks; or the sea deep-coloured in daylight,
with white gulls over it; or the sea with those sinuous paths made
by the wandering currents, the subtle, smiling, silent sea, holding
in suspense its unfathomable restlessness, waiting to surge and
spring again.  That was what she wanted from him--not his embraces,
not even his adoration, his wit, or his queer, lithe comeliness
touched with felinity; no, only that in his soul which escaped
through his fingers into the air and dragged at her soul.  If, when
he came in, she were to run to him, throw her arms round his neck,
make herself feel close, lose herself in him!  Why not?  It was her
duty; why not her delight, too?  But she shivered.  Some instinct
too deep for analysis, something in the very heart of her nerves
made her recoil, as if she were afraid, literally scared of letting
herself go, of loving--the subtlest instinct of self-preservation
against something fatal; against being led on beyond--yes, it was
like that curious, instinctive sinking which some feel at the mere
sight of a precipice, a dread of going near, lest they should be
drawn on and over by resistless attraction.

She passed into their bedroom and began slowly to undress.  To go
to bed without knowing where he was, what doing, thinking, seemed
already a little odd; and she sat brushing her hair slowly with the
silver-backed brushes, staring at her own pale face, whose eyes
looked so very large and dark.  At last there came to her the
feeling: "I can't help it!  I don't care!"  And, getting into bed,
she turned out the light.  It seemed queer and lonely; there was no
fire.  And then, without more ado, she slept.

She had a dream of being between Fiorsen and her father in a
railway-carriage out at sea, with the water rising higher and
higher, swishing and sighing.  Awakening always, like a dog, to
perfect presence of mind, she knew that he was playing in the
sitting-room, playing--at what time of night?  She lay listening to
a quivering, gibbering tune that she did not know.  Should she be
first to make it up, or should she wait for him?  Twice she half
slipped out of bed, but both times, as if fate meant her not to
move, he chose that moment to swell out the sound, and each time
she thought: 'No, I can't.  It's just the same now; he doesn't care
how many people he wakes up.  He does just what he likes, and cares
nothing for anyone.'  And covering her ears with her hands, she
continued to lie motionless.

When she withdrew her hands at last, he had stopped.  Then she
heard him coming, and feigned sleep.  But he did not spare even
sleep.  She submitted to his kisses without a word, her heart
hardening within her--surely he smelled of brandy!  Next morning he
seemed to have forgotten it all.  But Gyp had not.  She wanted
badly to know what he had felt, where he had gone, but was too
proud to ask.

She wrote twice to her father in the first week, but afterwards,
except for a postcard now and then, she never could.  Why tell him
what she was doing, in company of one whom he could not bear to
think of?  Had he been right?  To confess that would hurt her pride
too much.  But she began to long for London.  The thought of her
little house was a green spot to dwell on.  When they were settled
in, and could do what they liked without anxiety about people's
feelings, it would be all right perhaps.  When he could start again
really working, and she helping him, all would be different.  Her
new house, and so much to do; her new garden, and fruit-trees
coming into blossom!  She would have dogs and cats, would ride when
Dad was in town.  Aunt Rosamund would come, friends, evenings of
music, dances still, perhaps--he danced beautifully, and loved it,
as she did.  And his concerts--the elation of being identified with
his success!  But, above all, the excitement of making her home as
dainty as she could, with daring experiments in form and colour.
And yet, at heart she knew that to be already looking forward,
banning the present, was a bad sign.

One thing, at all events, she enjoyed--sailing.  They had blue days
when even the March sun was warm, and there was just breeze enough.
He got on excellently well with the old salt whose boat they used,
for he was at his best with simple folk, whose lingo he could
understand about as much as they could understand his.

In those hours, Gyp had some real sensations of romance.  The sea
was so blue, the rocks and wooded spurs of that Southern coast so
dreamy in the bright land-haze.  Oblivious of "the old salt," he
would put his arm round her; out there, she could swallow down her
sense of form, and be grateful for feeling nearer to him in spirit.
She made loyal efforts to understand him in these weeks that were
bringing a certain disillusionment.  The elemental part of marriage
was not the trouble; if she did not herself feel passion, she did
not resent his.  When, after one of those embraces, his mouth
curled with a little bitter smile, as if to say, "Yes, much you
care for me," she would feel compunctious and yet aggrieved.  But
the trouble lay deeper--the sense of an insuperable barrier; and
always that deep, instinctive recoil from letting herself go.  She
could not let herself be known, and she could not know him.  Why
did his eyes often fix her with a stare that did not seem to see
her?  What made him, in the midst of serious playing, break into
some furious or desolate little tune, or drop his violin?  What
gave him those long hours of dejection, following the maddest
gaiety?  Above all, what dreams had he in those rare moments when
music transformed his strange pale face?  Or was it a mere physical
illusion--had he any dreams?  "The heart of another is a dark
forest"--to all but the one who loves.

One morning, he held up a letter.

"Ah, ha!  Paul Rosek went to see our house.  'A pretty dove's
nest!' he calls it."

The memory of the Pole's sphinxlike, sweetish face, and eyes that
seemed to know so many secrets, always affected Gyp unpleasantly.
She said quietly:

"Why do you like him, Gustav?"

"Like him?  Oh, he is useful.  A good judge of music, and--many
things."

"I think he is hateful."

Fiorsen laughed.

"Hateful?  Why hateful, my Gyp?  He is a good friend.  And he
admires you--oh, he admires you very much!  He has success with
women.  He always says, 'J'ai une technique merveilleuse pour
seduire une femme'"

Gyp laughed.

"Ugh!  He's like a toad, I think."

"Ah, I shall tell him that!  He will be flattered."

"If you do; if you give me away--I--"

He jumped up and caught her in his arms; his face was so comically
compunctious that she calmed down at once.  She thought over her
words afterwards and regretted them.  All the same, Rosek was a
sneak and a cold sensualist, she was sure.  And the thought that he
had been spying at their little house tarnished her anticipations
of homecoming.

They went to Town three days later.  While the taxi was skirting
Lord's Cricket-ground, Gyp slipped her hand into Fiorsen's.  She
was brimful of excitement.  The trees were budding in the gardens
that they passed; the almond-blossom coming--yes, really coming!
They were in the road now.  Five, seven, nine--thirteen!  Two more!
There it was, nineteen, in white figures on the leaf-green
railings, under the small green lilac buds; yes, and their almond-
blossom was out, too!  She could just catch a glimpse over those
tall railings of the low white house with its green outside
shutters.  She jumped out almost into the arms of Betty, who stood
smiling all over her broad, flushed face, while, from under each
arm peered forth the head of a black devil, with pricked ears and
eyes as bright as diamonds.

"Betty!  What darlings!"

"Major Winton's present, my dear--ma'am!"

Giving the stout shoulders a hug, Gyp seized the black devils, and
ran up the path under the trellis, while the Scotch-terrier pups,
squeezed against her breast, made confused small noises and licked
her nose and ears.  Through the square hall she ran into the
drawing-room, which opened out on to the lawn; and there, in the
French window, stood spying back at the spick-and-span room, where
everything was, of course, placed just wrong.  The colouring,
white, ebony, and satinwood, looked nicer even than she had hoped.
Out in the garden--her own garden--the pear-trees were thickening,
but not in blossom yet; a few daffodils were in bloom along the
walls, and a magnolia had one bud opened.  And all the time she
kept squeezing the puppies to her, enjoying their young, warm,
fluffy savour, and letting them kiss her.  She ran out of the
drawing-room, up the stairs.  Her bedroom, the dressing-room, the
spare room, the bathroom--she dashed into them all.  Oh, it was
nice to be in your own place, to be--  Suddenly she felt herself
lifted off the ground from behind, and in that undignified
position, her eyes flying, she turned her face till he could reach
her lips.


III

To wake, and hear the birds at early practise, and feel that winter
is over--is there any pleasanter moment?

That first morning in her new house, Gyp woke with the sparrow, or
whatever the bird which utters the first cheeps and twitters, soon
eclipsed by so much that is more important in bird-song.  It seemed
as if all the feathered creatures in London must be assembled in
her garden; and the old verse came into her head:


     "All dear Nature's children sweet
      Lie at bride and bridegroom's feet,
      Blessing their sense.
      Not a creature of the air,
      Bird melodious or bird fair,
      Be absent hence!"


She turned and looked at her husband.  He lay with his head
snoozled down into the pillow, so that she could only see his
thick, rumpled hair.  And a shiver went through her, exactly as if
a strange man were lying there.  Did he really belong to her, and
she to him--for good?  And was this their house--together?  It all
seemed somehow different, more serious and troubling, in this
strange bed, of this strange room, that was to be so permanent.
Careful not to wake him, she slipped out and stood between the
curtains and the window.  Light was all in confusion yet; away low
down behind the trees, the rose of dawn still clung.  One might
almost have been in the country, but for the faint, rumorous noises
of the town beginning to wake, and that film of ground-mist which
veils the feet of London mornings.  She thought: "I am mistress in
this house, have to direct it all--see to everything!  And my pups!
Oh, what do they eat?"

That was the first of many hours of anxiety, for she was very
conscientious.  Her fastidiousness desired perfection, but her
sensitiveness refused to demand it of others--especially servants.
Why should she harry them?

Fiorsen had not the faintest notion of regularity.  She found that
he could not even begin to appreciate her struggles in
housekeeping.  And she was much too proud to ask his help, or
perhaps too wise, since he was obviously unfit to give it.  To live
like the birds of the air was his motto.  Gyp would have liked
nothing better; but, for that, one must not have a house with three
servants, several meals, two puppy-dogs, and no great experience of
how to deal with any of them.

She spoke of her difficulties to no one and suffered the more.
With Betty--who, bone-conservative, admitted Fiorsen as hardly as
she had once admitted Winton--she had to be very careful.  But her
great trouble was with her father.  Though she longed to see him,
she literally dreaded their meeting.  He first came--as he had been
wont to come when she was a tiny girl--at the hour when he thought
the fellow to whom she now belonged would most likely be out.  Her
heart beat, when she saw him under the trellis.  She opened the
door herself, and hung about him so that his shrewd eyes should not
see her face.  And she began at once to talk of the puppies, whom
she had named Don and Doff.  They were perfect darlings; nothing
was safe from them; her slippers were completely done for; they had
already got into her china-cabinet and gone to sleep there!  He
must come and see all over.

Hooking her arm into his, and talking all the time, she took him
up-stairs and down, and out into the garden, to the studio, or
music-room, at the end, which had an entrance to itself on to a
back lane.  This room had been the great attraction.  Fiorsen could
practice there in peace.  Winton went along with her very quietly,
making a shrewd comment now and then.  At the far end of the
garden, looking over the wall, down into that narrow passage which
lay between it and the back of another garden he squeezed her arm
suddenly and said:

"Well, Gyp, what sort of a time?"

The question had come at last.

"Oh, rather lovely--in some ways."  But she did not look at him,
nor he at her.  "See, Dad!  The cats have made quite a path there!"

Winton bit his lips and turned from the wall.  The thought of that
fellow was bitter within him.  She meant to tell him nothing, meant
to keep up that lighthearted look--which didn't deceive him a bit!

"Look at my crocuses!  It's really spring today!"

It was.  Even a bee or two had come.  The tiny leaves had a
transparent look, too thin as yet to keep the sunlight from passing
through them.  The purple, delicate-veined crocuses, with little
flames of orange blowing from their centres, seemed to hold the
light as in cups.  A wind, without harshness, swung the boughs; a
dry leaf or two still rustled round here and there.  And on the
grass, and in the blue sky, and on the almond-blossom was the first
spring brilliance.  Gyp clasped her hands behind her head.

"Lovely--to feel the spring!"

And Winton thought: 'She's changed!'  She had softened, quickened--
more depth of colour in her, more gravity, more sway in her body,
more sweetness in her smile.  But--was she happy?

A voice said:

"Ah, what a pleasure!"

The fellow had slunk up like the great cat he was.  And it seemed
to Winton that Gyp had winced.

"Dad thinks we ought to have dark curtains in the music-room,
Gustav."

Fiorsen made a bow.

"Yes, yes--like a London club."

Winton, watching, was sure of supplication in her face.  And,
forcing a smile, he said:

"You seem very snug here.  Glad to see you again.  Gyp looks
splendid."

Another of those bows he so detested!  Mountebank!  Never, never
would he be able to stand the fellow!  But he must not, would not,
show it.  And, as soon as he decently could, he went, taking his
lonely way back through this region, of which his knowledge was
almost limited to Lord's Cricket-ground, with a sense of doubt and
desolation, an irritation more than ever mixed with the resolve to
be always at hand if the child wanted him.

He had not been gone ten minutes before Aunt Rosamund appeared,
with a crutch-handled stick and a gentlemanly limp, for she, too,
indulged her ancestors in gout.  A desire for exclusive possession
of their friends is natural to some people, and the good lady had
not known how fond she was of her niece till the girl had slipped
off into this marriage.  She wanted her back, to go about with and
make much of, as before.  And her well-bred drawl did not quite
disguise this feeling.

Gyp could detect Fiorsen subtly mimicking that drawl; and her ears
began to burn.  The puppies afforded a diversion--their points,
noses, boldness, and food, held the danger in abeyance for some
minutes.  Then the mimicry began again.  When Aunt Rosamund had
taken a somewhat sudden leave, Gyp stood at the window of her
drawing-room with the mask off her face.  Fiorsen came up, put his
arm round her from behind, and said with a fierce sigh:

"Are they coming often--these excellent people?"

Gyp drew back from him against the wall.

"If you love me, why do you try to hurt the people who love me
too?"

"Because I am jealous.  I am jealous even of those puppies."

"And shall you try to hurt them?"

"If I see them too much near you, perhaps I shall."

"Do you think I can be happy if you hurt things because they love
me?"

He sat down and drew her on to his knee.  She did not resist, but
made not the faintest return to his caresses.  The first time--the
very first friend to come into her own new home!  It was too much!

Fiorsen said hoarsely:

"You do not love me.  If you loved me, I should feel it through
your lips.  I should see it in your eyes.  Oh, love me, Gyp!  You
shall!"

But to say to Love: "Stand and deliver!" was not the way to touch
Gyp.  It seemed to her mere ill-bred stupidity.  She froze against
him in soul, all the more that she yielded her body.  When a woman
refuses nothing to one whom she does not really love, shadows are
already falling on the bride-house.  And Fiorsen knew it; but his
self-control about equalled that of the two puppies.

Yet, on the whole, these first weeks in her new home were happy,
too busy to allow much room for doubting or regret.  Several
important concerts were fixed for May.  She looked forward to these
with intense eagerness, and pushed everything that interfered with
preparation into the background.  As though to make up for that
instinctive recoil from giving her heart, of which she was always
subconscious, she gave him all her activities, without calculation
or reserve.  She was ready to play for him all day and every day,
just as from the first she had held herself at the disposal of his
passion.  To fail him in these ways would have tarnished her
opinion of herself.  But she had some free hours in the morning,
for he had the habit of lying in bed till eleven, and was never
ready for practise before twelve.  In those early hours she got
through her orders and her shopping--that pursuit which to so many
women is the only real "sport"--a chase of the ideal; a pitting of
one's taste and knowledge against that of the world at large; a
secret passion, even in the beautiful, for making oneself and one's
house more beautiful.  Gyp never went shopping without that faint
thrill running up and down her nerves.  She hated to be touched by
strange fingers, but not even that stopped her pleasure in turning
and turning before long mirrors, while the saleswoman or man, with
admiration at first crocodilic and then genuine, ran the tips of
fingers over those curves, smoothing and pinning, and uttering the
word, "moddam."

On other mornings, she would ride with Winton, who would come for
her, leaving her again at her door after their outings.  One day,
after a ride in Richmond Park, where the horse-chestnuts were just
coming into flower, they had late breakfast on the veranda of a
hotel before starting for home.  Some fruit-trees were still in
blossom just below them, and the sunlight showering down from a
blue sky brightened to silver the windings of the river, and to
gold the budding leaves of the oak-trees.  Winton, smoking his
after-breakfast cigar, stared down across the tops of those trees
toward the river and the wooded fields beyond.  Stealing a glance
at him, Gyp said very softly:

"Did you ever ride with my mother, Dad?"

"Only once--the very ride we've been to-day.  She was on a black
mare; I had a chestnut--"  Yes, in that grove on the little hill,
which they had ridden through that morning, he had dismounted and
stood beside her.

Gyp stretched her hand across the table and laid it on his.

"Tell me about her, dear.  Was she beautiful?"

"Yes."

"Dark?  Tall?"

"Very like you, Gyp.  A little--a little"--he did not know how to
describe that difference--"a little more foreign-looking perhaps.
One of her grandmothers was Italian, you know."

"How did you come to love her?  Suddenly?"

"As suddenly as"--he drew his hand away and laid it on the veranda
rail--"as that sun came on my hand."

Gyp said quietly, as if to herself:

"Yes; I don't think I understand that--yet."

Winton drew breath through his teeth with a subdued hiss.

"Did she love you at first sight, too?"

He blew out a long puff of smoke.

"One easily believes what one wants to--but I think she did.  She
used to say so."

"And how long?"

"Only a year."

Gyp said very softly:

"Poor darling Dad."  And suddenly she added: "I can't bear to think
I killed her--I can't bear it!"

Winton got up in the discomfort of these sudden confidences; a
blackbird, startled by the movement, ceased his song.  Gyp said in
a hard voice:

"No; I don't want to have any children."

"Without that, I shouldn't have had you, Gyp."

"No; but I don't want to have them.  And I don't--I don't want to
love like that.  I should be afraid."

Winton looked at her for a long time without speaking, his brows
drawn down, frowning, puzzled, as though over his own past.

"Love," he said, "it catches you, and you're gone.  When it comes,
you welcome it, whether it's to kill you or not.  Shall we start
back, my child?"

When she got home, it was not quite noon.  She hurried over her
bath and dressing, and ran out to the music-room.  Its walls had
been hung with Willesden scrim gilded over; the curtains were
silver-grey; there was a divan covered with silver-and-gold stuff,
and a beaten brass fireplace.  It was a study in silver, and gold,
save for two touches of fantasy--a screen round the piano-head,
covered with brilliantly painted peacocks' tails, and a blue
Persian vase, in which were flowers of various hues of red.

Fiorsen was standing at the window in a fume of cigarette smoke.
He did not turn round.  Gyp put her hand within his arm, and said:

"So sorry, dear.  But it's only just half-past twelve."

His face was as if the whole world had injured him.

"Pity you came back!  Very nice, riding, I'm sure!"

Could she not go riding with her own father?  What insensate
jealousy and egomania!  She turned away, without a word, and sat
down at the piano.  She was not good at standing injustice--not
good at all!  The scent of brandy, too, was mixed with the fumes of
his cigarette.  Drink in the morning was so ugly--really horrid!
She sat at the piano, waiting.  He would be like this till he had
played away the fumes of his ill mood, and then he would come and
paw her shoulders and put his lips to her neck.  Yes; but it was
not the way to behave, not the way to make her love him.  And she
said suddenly:

"Gustav; what exactly have I done that you dislike?"

"You have had a father."

Gyp sat quite still for a few seconds, and then began to laugh.  He
looked so like a sulky child, standing there.  He turned swiftly on
her and put his hand over her mouth.  She looked up over that hand
which smelled of tobacco.  Her heart was doing the grand ecart
within her, this way in compunction, that way in resentment.  His
eyes fell before hers; he dropped his hand.

"Well, shall we begin?" she said.

He answered roughly: "No," and went out into the garden.

Gyp was left dismayed, disgusted.  Was it possible that she could
have taken part in such a horrid little scene?  She remained
sitting at the piano, playing over and over a single passage,
without heeding what it was.


IV


So far, they had seen nothing of Rosek at the little house.  She
wondered if Fiorsen had passed on to him her remark, though if he
had, he would surely say he hadn't; she had learned that her
husband spoke the truth when convenient, not when it caused him
pain.  About music, or any art, however, he could be implicitly
relied on; and his frankness was appalling when his nerves were
ruffled.

But at the first concert she saw Rosek's unwelcome figure on the
other side of the gangway, two rows back.  He was talking to a
young girl, whose face, short and beautifully formed, had the
opaque transparency of alabaster.  With her round blue eyes fixed
on him, and her lips just parted, she had a slightly vacant look.
Her laugh, too, was just a little vacant.  And yet her features
were so beautiful, her hair so smooth and fair, her colouring so
pale and fine, her neck so white and round, the poise of her body
so perfect that Gyp found it difficult to take her glance away.
She had refused her aunt's companionship.  It might irritate
Fiorsen and affect his playing to see her with "that stiff English
creature."  She wanted, too, to feel again the sensations of
Wiesbaden.  There would be a kind of sacred pleasure in knowing
that she had helped to perfect sounds which touched the hearts and
senses of so many listeners.  She had looked forward to this
concert so long.  And she sat scarcely breathing, abstracted from
consciousness of those about her, soft and still, radiating warmth
and eagerness.

Fiorsen looked his worst, as ever, when first coming before an
audience--cold, furtive, defensive, defiant, half turned away, with
those long fingers tightening the screws, touching the strings.  It
seemed queer to think that only six hours ago she had stolen out of
bed from beside him.  Wiesbaden!  No; this was not like Wiesbaden!
And when he played she had not the same emotions.  She had heard
him now too often, knew too exactly how he produced those sounds;
knew that their fire and sweetness and nobility sprang from
fingers, ear, brain--not from his soul.  Nor was it possible any
longer to drift off on those currents of sound into new worlds, to
hear bells at dawn, and the dews of evening as they fell, to feel
the divinity of wind and sunlight.  The romance and ecstasy that at
Wiesbaden had soaked her spirit came no more.  She was watching for
the weak spots, the passages with which he had struggled and she
had struggled; she was distracted by memories of petulance, black
moods, and sudden caresses.  And then she caught his eye.  The look
was like, yet how unlike, those looks at Wiesbaden.  It had the old
love-hunger, but had lost the adoration, its spiritual essence.
And she thought: 'Is it my fault, or is it only because he has me
now to do what he likes with?'  It was all another disillusionment,
perhaps the greatest yet.  But she kindled and flushed at the
applause, and lost herself in pleasure at his success.  At the
interval, she slipped out at once, for her first visit to the
artist's room, the mysterious enchantment of a peep behind the
scenes.  He was coming down from his last recall; and at sight of
her his look of bored contempt vanished; lifting her hand, he
kissed it.  Gyp felt happier than she had since her marriage.  Her
eyes shone, and she whispered:

"Beautiful!"

He whispered back:

"So!  Do you love me, Gyp?"

She nodded.  And at that moment she did, or thought so.

Then people began to come; amongst them her old music-master,
Monsieur Harmost, grey and mahogany as ever, who, after a
"Merveilleux," "Tres fort" or two to Fiorsen, turned his back on
him to talk to his old pupil.

So she had married Fiorsen--dear, dear!  That was extraordinary,
but extraordinary!  And what was it like, to be always with him--a
little funny--not so?  And how was her music?  It would be spoiled
now.  Ah, what a pity!  No?  She must come to him, then; yes, come
again.  All the time he patted her arm, as if playing the piano,
and his fingers, that had the touch of an angel, felt the firmness
of her flesh, as though debating whether she were letting it
deteriorate.  He seemed really to have missed "his little friend,"
to be glad at seeing her again; and Gyp, who never could withstand
appreciation, smiled at him.  More people came.  She saw Rosek
talking to her husband, and the young alabaster girl standing
silent, her lips still a little parted, gazing up at Fiorsen.  A
perfect figure, though rather short; a dovelike face, whose
exquisitely shaped, just-opened lips seemed to be demanding sugar-
plums.  She could not be more than nineteen.  Who was she?

A voice said almost in her ear:

"How do you do, Mrs. Fiorsen?  I am fortunate to see you again at
last."

She was obliged to turn.  If Gustav had given her away, one would
never know it from this velvet-masked creature, with his suave
watchfulness and ready composure, who talked away so smoothly.
What was it that she so disliked in him?  Gyp had acute instincts,
the natural intelligence deep in certain natures not over
intellectual, but whose "feelers" are too delicate to be deceived.
And, for something to say, she asked:

"Who is the girl you were talking to, Count Rosek?  Her face is so
lovely."

He smiled, exactly the smile she had so disliked at Wiesbaden;
following his glance, she saw her husband talking to the girl,
whose lips at that moment seemed more than ever to ask for
sugar-plums.

"A young dancer, Daphne Wing--she will make a name.  A dove flying!
So you admire her, Madame Gyp?"

Gyp said, smiling:

"She's very pretty--I can imagine her dancing beautifully."

"Will you come one day and see her?  She has still to make her
debut."

Gyp answered:

"Thank you.  I don't know.  I love dancing, of course."

"Good!  I will arrange it."

And Gyp thought: "No, no!  I don't want to have anything to do with
you!  Why do I not speak the truth?  Why didn't I say I hate
dancing?"

Just then a bell sounded; people began hurrying away.  The girl
came up to Rosek.

"Miss Daphne Wing--Mrs. Fiorsen."

Gyp put out her hand with a smile--this girl was certainly a
picture.  Miss Daphne Wing smiled, too, and said, with the
intonation of those who have been carefully corrected of an accent:

"Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen, how beautifully your husband plays--doesn't he?"

It was not merely the careful speech but something lacking when the
perfect mouth moved--spirit, sensibility, who could say?  And Gyp
felt sorry, as at blight on a perfect flower.  With a friendly nod,
she turned away to Fiorsen, who was waiting to go up on to the
platform.  Was it at her or at the girl he had been looking?  She
smiled at him and slid away.  In the corridor, Rosek, in
attendance, said:

"Why not this evening?  Come with Gustav to my rooms.  She shall
dance to us, and we will all have supper.  She admires you, Madame
Gyp.  She will love to dance for you."

Gyp longed for the simple brutality to say: "I don't want to come.
I don't like you!"  But all she could manage was:

"Thank you.  I--I will ask Gustav."

Once in her seat again, she rubbed the cheek that his breath had
touched.  A girl was singing now--one of those faces that Gyp
always admired, reddish-gold hair, blue eyes--the very antithesis
of herself--and the song was "The Bens of Jura," that strange
outpouring from a heart broken by love:


     "And my heart reft of its own sun--"


Tears rose in her eyes, and the shiver of some very deep response
passed through her.  What was it Dad had said: "Love catches you,
and you're gone!"

She, who was the result of love like that, did not want to love!

The girl finished singing.  There was little applause.  Yet she had
sung beautifully; and what more wonderful song in the world?  Was
it too tragic, too painful, too strange--not "pretty" enough?  Gyp
felt sorry for her.  Her head ached now.  She would so have liked
to slip away when it was all over.  But she had not the needful
rudeness.  She would have to go through with this evening at
Rosek's and be gay.  And why not?  Why this shadow over everything?
But it was no new sensation, that of having entered by her own free
will on a life which, for all effort, would not give her a feeling
of anchorage or home.  Of her own accord she had stepped into the
cage!

On the way to Rosek's rooms, she disguised from Fiorsen her
headache and depression.  He was in one of his boy-out-of-school
moods, elated by applause, mimicking her old master, the idolatries
of his worshippers, Rosek, the girl dancer's upturned expectant
lips.  And he slipped his arm round Gyp in the cab, crushing her
against him and sniffing at her cheek as if she had been a flower.

Rosek had the first floor of an old-time mansion in Russell Square.
The smell of incense or some kindred perfume was at once about one;
and, on the walls of the dark hall, electric light burned, in jars
of alabaster picked up in the East.  The whole place was in fact a
sanctum of the collector's spirit.  Its owner had a passion for
black--the walls, divans, picture-frames, even some of the tilings
were black, with glimmerings of gold, ivory, and moonlight.  On a
round black table there stood a golden bowl filled with moonlight-
coloured velvety "palm" and "honesty"; from a black wall gleamed
out the ivory mask of a faun's face; from a dark niche the little
silver figure of a dancing girl.  It was beautiful, but deathly.
And Gyp, though excited always by anything new, keenly alive to
every sort of beauty, felt a longing for air and sunlight.  It was
a relief to get close to one of the black-curtained windows, and
see the westering sun shower warmth and light on the trees of the
Square gardens.  She was introduced to a Mr. and Mrs. Gallant, a
dark-faced, cynical-looking man with clever, malicious eyes, and
one of those large cornucopias of women with avid blue stares.  The
little dancer was not there.  She had "gone to put on nothing,"
Rosek informed them.

He took Gyp the round of his treasures, scarabs, Rops drawings,
death-masks, Chinese pictures, and queer old flutes, with an air of
displaying them for the first time to one who could truly
appreciate.  And she kept thinking of that saying, "Une technique
merveilleuse."  Her instinct apprehended the refined bone-
viciousness of this place, where nothing, save perhaps taste, would
be sacred.  It was her first glimpse into that gilt-edged bohemia,
whence the generosities, the elans, the struggles of the true
bohemia are as rigidly excluded as from the spheres where bishops
moved.  But she talked and smiled; and no one could have told that
her nerves were crisping as if at contact with a corpse.  While
showing her those alabaster jars, her host had laid his hand softly
on her wrist, and in taking it away, he let his fingers, with a
touch softer than a kitten's paw, ripple over the skin, then put
them to his lips.  Ah, there it was--the--the TECHNIQUE!  A
desperate desire to laugh seized her.  And he saw it--oh, yes, he
saw it!  He gave her one look, passed that same hand over his
smooth face, and--behold!--it showed as before, unmortified,
unconscious.  A deadly little man!

When they returned to the salon, as it was called, Miss Daphne Wing
in a black kimono, whence her face and arms emerged more like
alabaster than ever, was sitting on a divan beside Fiorsen.  She
rose at once and came across to Gyp.

"Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen"--why did everything she said begin with "Oh"--
"isn't this room lovely?  It's perfect for dancing.  I only brought
cream, and flame-colour; they go so beautifully with black."

She threw back her kimono for Gyp to inspect her dress--a girdled
cream-coloured shift, which made her ivory arms and neck seem more
than ever dazzling; and her mouth opened, as if for a sugar-plum of
praise.  Then, lowering her voice, she murmured:

"Do you know, I'm rather afraid of Count Rosek."

"Why?"

"Oh, I don't know; he's so critical, and smooth, and he comes up so
quietly.  I do think your husband plays wonderfully.  Oh, Mrs.
Fiorsen, you are beautiful, aren't you?"  Gyp laughed.  "What would
you like me to dance first?  A waltz of Chopin's?"

"Yes; I love Chopin."

"Then I shall.  I shall dance exactly what you like, because I do
admire you, and I'm sure you're awfully sweet.  Oh, yes; you are; I
can see that!  And I think your husband's awfully in love with you.
I should be, if I were a man.  You know, I've been studying five
years, and I haven't come out yet.  But now Count Rosek's going to
back me, I expect it'll be very soon.  Will you come to my first
night?  Mother says I've got to be awfully careful.  She only let
me come this evening because you were going to be here.  Would you
like me to begin?"

She slid across to Rosek, and Gyp heard her say:

"Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen wants me to begin; a Chopin waltz, please.  The
one that goes like this."

Rosek went to the piano, the little dancer to the centre of the
room.  Gyp sat down beside Fiorsen.

Rosek began playing, his eyes fixed on the girl, and his mouth
loosened from compression in a sweetish smile.  Miss Daphne Wing
was standing with her finger-tips joined at her breast--a perfect
statue of ebony and palest wax.  Suddenly she flung away the black
kimono.  A thrill swept Gyp from head to foot.  She COULD dance--
that common little girl!  Every movement of her round, sinuous
body, of her bare limbs, had the ecstasy of natural genius,
controlled by the quivering balance of a really fine training.  "A
dove flying!"  So she was.  Her face had lost its vacancy, or
rather its vacancy had become divine, having that look--not lost
but gone before--which dance demands.  Yes, she was a gem, even if
she had a common soul.  Tears came up in Gyp's eyes.  It was so
lovely--like a dove, when it flings itself up in the wind,
breasting on up, up--wings bent back, poised.  Abandonment,
freedom--chastened, shaped, controlled!

When, after the dance, the girl came and sat down beside her, she
squeezed her hot little hand, but the caress was for her art, not
for this moist little person with the lips avid of sugar-plums.

"Oh, did you like it?  I'm so glad.  Shall I go and put on my
flame-colour, now?"

The moment she was gone, comment broke out freely.  The dark and
cynical Gallant thought the girl's dancing like a certain
Napierkowska whom he had seen in Moscow, without her fire--the
touch of passion would have to be supplied.  She wanted love!
Love!  And suddenly Gyp was back in the concert-hall, listening to
that other girl singing the song of a broken heart.


     "Thy kiss, dear love--
      Like watercress gathered fresh from cool streams."


Love! in this abode--of fauns' heads, deep cushions, silver dancing
girls!  Love!  She had a sudden sense of deep abasement.  What was
she, herself, but just a feast for a man's senses?  Her home, what
but a place like this?  Miss Daphne Wing was back again.  Gyp
looked at her husband's face while she was dancing.  His lips!  How
was it that she could see that disturbance in him, and not care?
If she had really loved him, to see his lips like that would have
hurt her, but she might have understood perhaps, and forgiven.  Now
she neither quite understood nor quite forgave.


And that night, when he kissed her, she murmured:

"Would you rather it were that girl--not me?"

"That girl!  I could swallow her at a draft.  But you, my Gyp--I
want to drink for ever!"

Was that true?  IF she had loved him--how good to hear!


V


After this, Gyp was daily more and more in contact with high
bohemia, that curious composite section of society which embraces
the neck of music, poetry, and the drama.  She was a success, but
secretly she felt that she did not belong to it, nor, in truth, did
Fiorsen, who was much too genuine a bohemian, and artist, and
mocked at the Gallants and even the Roseks of this life, as he
mocked at Winton, Aunt Rosamund, and their world.  Life with him
had certainly one effect on Gyp; it made her feel less and less a
part of that old orthodox, well-bred world which she had known
before she married him; but to which she had confessed to Winton
she had never felt that she belonged, since she knew the secret of
her birth.  She was, in truth, much too impressionable, too avid of
beauty, and perhaps too naturally critical to accept the dictates
of their fact-and-form-governed routine; only, of her own accord,
she would never have had initiative enough to step out of its
circle.  Loosened from those roots, unable to attach herself to
this new soil, and not spiritually leagued with her husband, she
was more and more lonely.  Her only truly happy hours were those
spent with Winton or at her piano or with her puppies.  She was
always wondering at what she had done, longing to find the deep,
the sufficient reason for having done it.  But the more she sought
and longed, the deeper grew her bewilderment, her feeling of being
in a cage.  Of late, too, another and more definite uneasiness had
come to her.

She spent much time in her garden, where the blossoms had all
dropped, lilac was over, acacias coming into bloom, and blackbirds
silent.

Winton, who, by careful experiment, had found that from half-past
three to six there was little or no chance of stumbling across his
son-in-law, came in nearly every day for tea and a quiet cigar on
the lawn.  He was sitting there with Gyp one afternoon, when Betty,
who usurped the functions of parlour-maid whenever the whim moved
her, brought out a card on which were printed the words, "Miss
Daphne Wing."

"Bring her out, please, Betty dear, and some fresh tea, and
buttered toast--plenty of buttered toast; yes, and the chocolates,
and any other sweets there are, Betty darling."

Betty, with that expression which always came over her when she was
called "darling," withdrew across the grass, and Gyp said to her
father:

"It's the little dancer I told you of, Dad.  Now you'll see
something perfect.  Only, she'll be dressed.  It's a pity."

She was.  The occasion had evidently exercised her spirit.  In warm
ivory, shrouded by leaf-green chiffon, with a girdle of tiny
artificial leaves, and a lightly covered head encircled by other
green leaves, she was somewhat like a nymph peering from a bower.
If rather too arresting, it was charming, and, after all, no frock
could quite disguise the beauty of her figure.  She was evidently
nervous.

"Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen, I thought you wouldn't mind my coming.  I did so
want to see you again.  Count Rosek said he thought I might.  It's
all fixed for my coming-out.  Oh, how do you do?"  And with lips
and eyes opening at Winton, she sat down in the chair he placed for
her.  Gyp, watching his expression, felt inclined to laugh.  Dad,
and Daphne Wing!  And the poor girl so evidently anxious to make a
good impression!  Presently she asked:

"Have you been dancing at Count Rosek's again lately?"

"Oh, yes, haven't you--didn't you--I--"  And she stopped.

The thought flashed through Gyp, 'So Gustav's been seeing her, and
hasn't told me!'  But she said at once:

"Ah, yes, of course; I forgot.  When is the night of your coming-
out?"

"Next Friday week.  Fancy!  The Octagon.  Isn't it splendid?
They've given me such a good engagement.  I do so want you and Mr.
Fiorsen to come, though!"

Gyp, smiling, murmured:

"Of course we will.  My father loves dancing, too; don't you, Dad?"

Winton took his cigar from his mouth.

"When it's good," he said, urbanely.

"Oh, mine IS good; isn't it, Mrs. Fiorsen?  I mean, I HAVE worked--
ever since I was thirteen, you know.  I simply love it.  I think
YOU would dance beautifully, Mrs. Fiorsen.  You've got such a
perfect figure.  I simply love to see you walk."

Gyp flushed, and said:

"Do have one of these, Miss Wing--they've got whole raspberries
inside."

The little dancer put one in her mouth.

"Oh, but please don't call me Miss Wing!  I wish you'd call me
Daphne.  Mr. Fior--everybody does."

Conscious of her father's face, Gyp murmured:

"It's a lovely name.  Won't you have another?  These are apricot."

"They're perfect.  You know, my first dress is going to be all
orange-blossom; Mr. Fiorsen suggested that.  But I expect he told
you.  Perhaps you suggested it really; did you?"  Gyp shook her
head.  "Count Rosek says the world is waiting for me--"  She paused
with a sugar-plum halfway to her lips, and added doubtfully: "Do
you think that's true?"

Gyp answered with a soft: "I hope so."

"He says I'm something new.  It would be nice to think that.  He
has great taste; so has Mr. Fiorsen, hasn't he?"

Conscious of the compression in the lips behind the smoke of her
father's cigar, and with a sudden longing to get up and walk away,
Gyp nodded.

The little dancer placed the sweet in her mouth, and said
complacently:

"Of course he has; because he married you."

Then, seeming to grow conscious of Winton's eyes fixed so intently
on her, she became confused, swallowed hastily, and said:

"Oh, isn't it lovely here--like the country!  I'm afraid I must go;
it's my practice-time.  It's so important for me not to miss any
now, isn't it?"  And she rose.

Winton got up, too.  Gyp saw the girl's eyes, lighting on his rigid
hand, grow round and rounder; and from her, walking past the side
of the house, the careful voice floated back:

"Oh, I do hope--"  But what, could not be heard.

Sinking back in her chair, Gyp sat motionless.  Bees were murmurous
among her flowers, pigeons murmurous among the trees; the sunlight
warmed her knees, and her stretched-out feet through the openwork
of her stockings.  The maid's laughter, the delicious growling of
the puppies at play in the kitchen came drifting down the garden,
with the distant cry of a milkman up the road.  All was very
peaceful.  But in her heart were such curious, baffled emotions,
such strange, tangled feelings.  This moment of enlightenment
regarding the measure of her husband's frankness came close on the
heels of the moment fate had chosen for another revelation, for
clinching within her a fear felt for weeks past.  She had said to
Winton that she did not want to have a child.  In those conscious
that their birth has caused death or even too great suffering,
there is sometimes this hostile instinct.  She had not even the
consolation that Fiorsen wanted children; she knew that he did not.
And now she was sure one was coming.  But it was more than that.
She had not reached, and knew she could not reach, that point of
spirit-union which alone makes marriage sacred, and the sacrifices
demanded by motherhood a joy.  She was fairly caught in the web of
her foolish and presumptuous mistake!  So few months of marriage--
and so sure that it was a failure, so hopeless for the future!  In
the light of this new certainty, it was terrifying.  A hard,
natural fact is needed to bring a yearning and bewildered spirit to
knowledge of the truth.  Disillusionment is not welcome to a
woman's heart; the less welcome when it is disillusionment with
self as much as with another.  Her great dedication--her scheme of
life!  She had been going to--what?--save Fiorsen from himself!  It
was laughable.  She had only lost herself.  Already she felt in
prison, and by a child would be all the more bound.  To some women,
the knowledge that a thing must be brings assuagement of the
nerves.  Gyp was the opposite of those.  To force her was the way
to stiver up every contrary emotion.  She might will herself to
acquiesce, but--one cannot change one's nature.

And so, while the pigeons cooed and the sunlight warmed her feet,
she spent the bitterest moments of her life--so far.  Pride came to
her help.  She had made a miserable mess of it, but no one must
know--certainly not her father, who had warned her so desperately!
She had made her bed, and she would have to lie on it.

When Winton came back, he found her smiling, and said:

"I don't see the fascination, Gyp."

"Don't you think her face really rather perfect?"

"Common."

"Yes; but that drops off when she's dancing."

Winton looked at her from under half-closed eyelids.

"With her clothes?  What does Fiorsen think of her?"

Gyp smiled.

"Does he think of her?  I don't know."

She could feel the watchful tightening of his face.  And suddenly
he said:

"Daphne Wing!  By George!"

The words were a masterpiece of resentment and distrust.  His
daughter in peril from--such as that!

After he was gone Gyp sat on till the sun had quite vanished and
the dew was stealing through her thin frock.  She would think of
anything, anybody except herself!  To make others happy was the way
to be happy--or so they said.  She would try--must try.  Betty--so
stout, and with that rheumatism in her leg--did she ever think of
herself?  Or Aunt Rosamund, with her perpetual rescuings of lost
dogs, lame horses, and penniless musicians?  And Dad, for all his
man-of-the-world ways, was he not always doing little things for
the men of his old regiment, always thinking of her, too, and what
he could do to give her pleasure?  To love everybody, and bring
them happiness!  Was it not possible?  Only, people were hard to
love, different from birds and beasts and flowers, to love which
seemed natural and easy.

She went up to her room and began to dress for dinner.  Which of
her frocks did he like best?  The pale, low-cut amber, or that
white, soft one, with the coffee-dipped lace?  She decided on the
latter.  Scrutinizing her supple, slender image in the glass, a
shudder went through her.  That would all go; she would be like
those women taking careful exercise in the streets, who made her
wonder at their hardihood in showing themselves.  It wasn't fair
that one must become unsightly, offensive to the eye, in order to
bring life into the world.  Some women seemed proud to be like
that.  How was that possible?  She would never dare to show herself
in the days coming.

She finished dressing and went downstairs.  It was nearly eight,
and Fiorsen had not come in.  When the gong was struck, she turned
from the window with a sigh, and went in to dinner.  That sigh had
been relief.  She ate her dinner with the two pups beside her, sent
them off, and sat down at her piano.  She played Chopin--studies,
waltzes, mazurkas, preludes, a polonaise or two.  And Betty, who
had a weakness for that composer, sat on a chair by the door which
partitioned off the back premises, having opened it a little.  She
wished she could go and take a peep at her "pretty" in her white
frock, with the candle-flames on each side, and those lovely lilies
in the vase close by, smelling beautiful.  And one of the maids
coming too near, she shooed her angrily away.

It grew late.  The tray had been brought up; the maids had gone to
bed.  Gyp had long stopped playing, had turned out, ready to go up,
and, by the French window, stood gazing out into the dark.  How
warm it was--warm enough to draw forth the scent of the jessamine
along the garden wall!  Not a star.  There always seemed so few
stars in London.  A sound made her swing round.  Something tall was
over there in the darkness, by the open door.  She heard a sigh,
and called out, frightened:

"Is that you, Gustav?"

He spoke some words that she could not understand.  Shutting the
window quickly, she went toward him.  Light from the hall lit up
one side of his face and figure.  He was pale; his eyes shone
strangely; his sleeve was all white.  He said thickly:

"Little ghost!" and then some words that must be Swedish.  It was
the first time Gyp had ever come to close quarters with
drunkenness.  And her thought was simply: 'How awful if anybody
were to see--how awful!'  She made a rush to get into the hall and
lock the door leading to the back regions, but he caught her frock,
ripping the lace from her neck, and his entangled fingers clutched
her shoulder.  She stopped dead, fearing to make a noise or pull
him over, and his other hand clutched her other shoulder, so that
he stood steadying himself by her.  Why was she not shocked,
smitten to the ground with grief and shame and rage?  She only
felt: "What am I to do?  How get him upstairs without anyone
knowing?"  And she looked up into his face--it seemed to her so
pathetic with its shining eyes and its staring whiteness that she
could have burst into tears.  She said gently:

"Gustav, it's all right.  Lean on me; we'll go up."

His hands, that seemed to have no power or purpose, touched her
cheeks, mechanically caressing.  More than disgust, she felt that
awful pity.  Putting her arm round his waist, she moved with him
toward the stairs.  If only no one heard; if only she could get him
quietly up!  And she murmured:

"Don't talk; you're not well.  Lean on me hard."

He seemed to make a big effort; his lips puffed out, and with an
expression of pride that would have been comic if not so tragic, he
muttered something.

Holding him close with all her strength, as she might have held one
desperately loved, she began to mount.  It was easier than she had
thought.  Only across the landing now, into the bedroom, and then
the danger would be over.  Done!  He was lying across the bed, and
the door shut.  Then, for a moment, she gave way to a fit of
shivering so violent that she could hear her teeth chattering yet
could not stop them.  She caught sight of herself in the big
mirror.  Her pretty lace was all torn; her shoulders were red where
his hands had gripped her, holding himself up.  She threw off her
dress, put on a wrapper, and went up to him.  He was lying in a
sort of stupor, and with difficulty she got him to sit up and lean
against the bed-rail.  Taking off his tie and collar, she racked
her brains for what to give him.  Sal volatile!  Surely that must
be right.  It brought him to himself, so that he even tried to kiss
her.  At last he was in bed, and she stood looking at him.  His
eyes were closed; he would not see if she gave way now.  But she
would not cry--she would not.  One sob came--but that was all.
Well, there was nothing to be done now but get into bed too.  She
undressed, and turned out the light.  He was in a stertorous sleep.
And lying there, with eyes wide open, staring into the dark, a
smile came on her lips--a very strange smile!  She was thinking of
all those preposterous young wives she had read of, who, blushing,
trembling, murmur into the ears of their young husbands that they
"have something--something to tell them!"


VI


Looking at Fiorsen, next morning, still sunk in heavy sleep, her
first thought was: 'He looks exactly the same.'  And, suddenly, it
seemed queer to her that she had not been, and still was not,
disgusted.  It was all too deep for disgust, and somehow, too
natural.  She took this new revelation of his unbridled ways
without resentment.  Besides, she had long known of this taste of
his--one cannot drink brandy and not betray it.

She stole noiselessly from bed, noiselessly gathered up his boots
and clothes all tumbled on to a chair, and took them forth to the
dressing-room.  There she held the garments up to the early light
and brushed them, then, noiseless, stole back to bed, with needle
and thread and her lace.  No one must know; not even he must know.
For the moment she had forgotten that other thing so terrifically
important.  It came back to her, very sudden, very sickening.  So
long as she could keep it secret, no one should know that either--
he least of all.

The morning passed as usual; but when she came to the music-room at
noon, she found that he had gone out.  She was just sitting down to
lunch when Betty, with the broad smile which prevailed on her moon-
face when someone had tickled the right side of her, announced:

"Count Rosek."

Gyp got up, startled.

"Say that Mr. Fiorsen is not in, Betty.  But--but ask if he will
come and have some lunch, and get a bottle of hock up, please."

In the few seconds before her visitor appeared, Gyp experienced the
sort of excitement one has entering a field where a bull is
grazing.

But not even his severest critics could accuse Rosek of want of
tact.  He had hoped to see Gustav, but it was charming of her to
give him lunch--a great delight!

He seemed to have put off, as if for her benefit, his corsets, and
some, at all events, of his offending looks--seemed simpler, more
genuine.  His face was slightly browned, as if, for once, he had
been taking his due of air and sun.  He talked without cynical
submeanings, was most appreciative of her "charming little house,"
and even showed some warmth in his sayings about art and music.
Gyp had never disliked him less.  But her instincts were on the
watch.  After lunch, they went out across the garden to see the
music-room, and he sat down at the piano.  He had the deep,
caressing touch that lies in fingers of steel worked by a real
passion for tone.  Gyp sat on the divan and listened.  She was out
of his sight there; and she looked at him, wondering.  He was
playing Schumann's Child Music.  How could one who produced such
fresh idyllic sounds have sinister intentions?  And presently she
said:

"Count Rosek!"

"Madame?"

"Will you please tell me why you sent Daphne Wing here yesterday?"

"I send her?"

"Yes."

But instantly she regretted having asked that question.  He had
swung round on the music-stool and was looking full at her.  His
face had changed.

"Since you ask me, I thought you should know that Gustav is seeing
a good deal of her."

He had given the exact answer she had divined.

"Do you think I mind that?"

A flicker passed over his face.  He got up and said quietly:

"I am glad that you do not."

"Why glad?"

She, too, had risen.  Though he was little taller than herself, she
was conscious suddenly of how thick and steely he was beneath his
dapper garments, and of a kind of snaky will-power in his face.
Her heart beat faster.

He came toward her and said:

"I am glad you understand that it is over with Gustav--finished--"
He stopped dead, seeing at once that he had gone wrong, and not
knowing quite where.  Gyp had simply smiled.  A flush coloured his
cheeks, and he said:

"He is a volcano soon extinguished.  You see, I know him.  Better
you should know him, too.  Why do you smile?"

"Why is it better I should know?"

He went very pale, and said between his teeth:

"That you may not waste your time; there is love waiting for you."

But Gyp still smiled.

"Was it from love of me that you made him drunk last night?"

His lips quivered.

"Gyp!"  Gyp turned.  But with the merest change of front, he had
put himself between her and the door.  "You never loved him.  That
is my excuse.  You have given him too much already--more than he is
worth.  Ah!  God!  I am tortured by you; I am possessed."

He had gone white through and through like a flame, save for his
smouldering eyes.  She was afraid, and because she was afraid, she
stood her ground.  Should she make a dash for the door that opened
into the little lane and escape that way?  Then suddenly he seemed
to regain control; but she could feel that he was trying to break
through her defences by the sheer intensity of his gaze--by a kind
of mesmerism, knowing that he had frightened her.

Under the strain of this duel of eyes, she felt herself beginning
to sway, to get dizzy.  Whether or no he really moved his feet, he
seemed coming closer inch by inch.  She had a horrible feeling--as
if his arms were already round her.

With an effort, she wrenched her gaze from his, and suddenly his
crisp hair caught her eyes.  Surely--surely it was curled with
tongs!  A kind of spasm of amusement was set free in her heart,
and, almost inaudibly, the words escaped her lips: "Une technique
merveilleuse!"  His eyes wavered; he uttered a little gasp; his
lips fell apart.  Gyp walked across the room and put her hand on
the bell.  She had lost her fear.  Without a word, he turned, and
went out into the garden.  She watched him cross the lawn.  Gone!
She had beaten him by the one thing not even violent passions can
withstand--ridicule, almost unconscious ridicule.  Then she gave
way and pulled the bell with nervous violence.  The sight of the
maid, in her trim black dress and spotless white apron, coming from
the house completed her restoration.  Was it possible that she had
really been frightened, nearly failing in that encounter, nearly
dominated by that man--in her own house, with her own maids down
there at hand?  And she said quietly:

"I want the puppies, please."

"Yes, ma'am."

Over the garden, the day brooded in the first-gathered warmth of
summer.  Mid-June of a fine year.  The air was drowsy with hum and
scent.

And Gyp, sitting in the shade, while the puppies rolled and
snapped, searched her little world for comfort and some sense of
safety, and could not find it; as if there were all round her a hot
heavy fog in which things lurked, and where she kept erect only by
pride and the will not to cry out that she was struggling and
afraid.


Fiorsen, leaving his house that morning, had walked till he saw a
taxi-cab.  Leaning back therein, with hat thrown off, he caused
himself to be driven rapidly, at random.  This was one of his
habits when his mind was not at ease--an expensive idiosyncrasy,
ill-afforded by a pocket that had holes.  The swift motion and
titillation by the perpetual close shaving of other vehicles were
sedative to him.  He needed sedatives this morning.  To wake in his
own bed without the least remembering how he had got there was no
more new to him than to many another man of twenty-eight, but it
was new since his marriage.  If he had remembered even less he
would have been more at ease.  But he could just recollect standing
in the dark drawing-room, seeing and touching a ghostly Gyp quite
close to him.  And, somehow, he was afraid.  And when he was
afraid--like most people--he was at his worst.

If she had been like all the other women in whose company he had
eaten passion-fruit, he would not have felt this carking
humiliation.  If she had been like them, at the pace he had been
going since he obtained possession of her, he would already have
"finished," as Rosek had said.  And he knew well enough that he had
not "finished."  He might get drunk, might be loose-ended in every
way, but Gyp was hooked into his senses, and, for all that he could
not get near her, into his spirit.  Her very passivity was her
strength, the secret of her magnetism.  In her, he felt some of
that mysterious sentiency of nature, which, even in yielding to
man's fevers, lies apart with a faint smile--the uncapturable smile
of the woods and fields by day or night, that makes one ache with
longing.  He felt in her some of the unfathomable, soft, vibrating
indifference of the flowers and trees and streams, of the rocks, of
birdsongs, and the eternal hum, under sunshine or star-shine.  Her
dark, half-smiling eyes enticed him, inspired an unquenchable
thirst.  And his was one of those natures which, encountering
spiritual difficulty, at once jib off, seek anodynes, try to
bandage wounded egoism with excess--a spoiled child, with the
desperations and the inherent pathos, the something repulsive and
the something lovable that belong to all such.  Having wished for
this moon, and got her, he now did not know what to do with her,
kept taking great bites at her, with a feeling all the time of
getting further and further away.  At moments, he desired revenge
for his failure to get near her spiritually, and was ready to
commit follies of all kinds.  He was only kept in control at all by
his work.  For he did work hard; though, even there, something was
lacking.  He had all the qualities of making good, except the moral
backbone holding them together, which alone could give him his
rightful--as he thought--pre-eminence.  It often surprised and
vexed him to find that some contemporary held higher rank than
himself.

Threading the streets in his cab, he mused:

"Did I do anything that really shocked her last night?  Why didn't
I wait for her this morning and find out the worst?"  And his lips
twisted awry--for to find out the worst was not his forte.
Meditation, seeking as usual a scapegoat, lighted on Rosek.  Like
most egoists addicted to women, he had not many friends.  Rosek was
the most constant.  But even for him, Fiorsen had at once the
contempt and fear that a man naturally uncontrolled and yet of
greater scope has for one of less talent but stronger will-power.
He had for him, too, the feeling of a wayward child for its nurse,
mixed with the need that an artist, especially an executant artist,
feels for a connoisseur and patron with well-lined pockets.

'Curse Paul!' he thought.  'He must know--he does know--that brandy
of his goes down like water.  Trust him, he saw I was getting
silly!  He had some game on.  Where did I go after?  How did I get
home?'  And again: 'Did I hurt Gyp?'  If the servants had seen--
that would be the worst; that would upset her fearfully!  And he
laughed.  Then he had a fresh access of fear.  He didn't know her,
never knew what she was thinking or feeling, never knew anything
about her.  And he thought angrily: 'That's not fair!  I don't hide
myself from her.  I am as free as nature; I let her see everything.
What did I do?  That maid looked very queerly at me this morning!'
And suddenly he said to the driver: "Bury Street, St. James's."  He
could find out, at all events, whether Gyp had been to her
father's.  The thought of Winton ever afflicted him; and he changed
his mind several times before the cab reached that little street,
but so swiftly that he had not time to alter his instructions to
the driver.  A light sweat broke out on his forehead while he was
waiting for the door to be opened.

"Mrs. Fiorsen here?"

"No, sir."

"Not been here this morning?"

"No, sir."

He shrugged away the thought that he ought to give some explanation
of his question, and got into the cab again, telling the man to
drive to Curzon Street.  If she had not been to "that Aunt
Rosamund" either it would be all right.  She had not.  There was no
one else she would go to.  And, with a sigh of relief, he began to
feel hungry, having had no breakfast.  He would go to Rosek's,
borrow the money to pay his cab, and lunch there.  But Rosek was
not in.  He would have to go home to get the cab paid.  The driver
seemed to eye him queerly now, as though conceiving doubts about
the fare.

Going in under the trellis, Fiorsen passed a man coming out, who
held in his hand a long envelope and eyed him askance.

Gyp, who was sitting at her bureau, seemed to be adding up the
counterfoils in her cheque-book.  She did not turn round, and
Fiorsen paused.  How was she going to receive him?

"Is there any lunch?" he said.

She reached out and rang the bell.  He felt sorry for himself.  He
had been quite ready to take her in his arms and say: "Forgive me,
little Gyp; I'm sorry!"

Betty answered the bell.

"Please bring up some lunch for Mr. Fiorsen."

He heard the stout woman sniff as she went out.  She was a part of
his ostracism.  And, with sudden rage, he said:

"What do you want for a husband--a bourgeois who would die if he
missed his lunch?"

Gyp turned round to him and held out her cheque-book.

"I don't in the least mind about meals; but I do about this."  He
read on the counterfoil:

"Messrs. Travers & Sanborn, Tailors, Account rendered: L54 35s.
7d."  "Are there many of these, Gustav?"

Fiorsen had turned the peculiar white that marked deep injury to
his sell-esteem.  He said violently:

"Well, what of that?  A bill!  Did you pay it?  You have no
business to pay my bills."

"The man said if it wasn't paid this time, he'd sue you."  Her lips
quivered.  "I think owing money is horrible.  It's undignified.
Are there many others?  Please tell me!"

"I shall not tell you.  What is it to you?"

"It is a lot to me.  I have to keep this house and pay the maids
and everything, and I want to know how I stand.  I am not going to
make debts.  That's hateful."

Her face had a hardness that he did not know.  He perceived dimly
that she was different from the Gyp of this hour yesterday--the
last time when, in possession of his senses, he had seen or spoken
to her.  The novelty of her revolt stirred him in strange ways,
wounded his self-conceit, inspired a curious fear, and yet excited
his senses.  He came up to her, said softly:

"Money!  Curse money!  Kiss me!"  With a certain amazement at the
sheer distaste in her face, he heard her say:

"It's childish to curse money.  I will spend all the income I have;
but I will not spend more, and I will not ask Dad."

He flung himself down in a chair.

"Ho!  Ho!  Virtue!"

"No--pride."

He said gloomily:

"So you don't believe in me.  You don't believe I can earn as much
as I want--more than you have--any time?  You never have believed
in me."

"I think you earn now as much as you are ever likely to earn."

"That is what you think!  I don't want money--your money!  I can
live on nothing, any time.  I have done it--often."

"Hssh!"

He looked round and saw the maid in the doorway.

"Please, sir, the driver says can he have his fare, or do you want
him again?  Twelve shillings."

Fiorsen stared at her a moment in the way that--as the maid often
said--made you feel like a silly.

"No.  Pay him."

The girl glanced at Gyp, answered: "Yes, sir," and went out.

Fiorsen laughed; he laughed, holding his sides.  It was droll
coming on the top of his assertion, too droll!  And, looking up at
her, he said:

"That was good, wasn't it, Gyp?"

But her face had not abated its gravity; and, knowing that she was
even more easily tickled by the incongruous than himself, he felt
again that catch of fear.  Something was different.  Yes; something
was really different.

"Did I hurt you last night?"

She shrugged her shoulders and went to the window.  He looked at
her darkly, jumped up, and swung out past her into the garden.
And, almost at once, the sound of his violin, furiously played in
the music-room, came across the lawn.

Gyp listened with a bitter smile.  Money, too!  But what did it
matter?  She could not get out of what she had done.  She could
never get out.  Tonight he would kiss her; and she would pretend it
was all right.  And so it would go on and on!  Well, it was her own
fault.  Taking twelve shillings from her purse, she put them aside
on the bureau to give the maid.  And suddenly she thought: 'Perhaps
he'll get tired of me.  If only he would get tired!'  That was a
long way the furthest she had yet gone.


VII


They who have known the doldrums--how the sails of the listless
ship droop, and the hope of escape dies day by day--may understand
something of the life Gyp began living now.  On a ship, even
doldrums come to an end.  But a young woman of twenty-three, who
has made a mistake in her marriage, and has only herself to blame,
looks forward to no end, unless she be the new woman, which Gyp was
not.  Having settled that she would not admit failure, and clenched
her teeth on the knowledge that she was going to have a child, she
went on keeping things sealed up even from Winton.  To Fiorsen, she
managed to behave as usual, making material life easy and pleasant
for him--playing for him, feeding him well, indulging his
amorousness.  It did not matter; she loved no one else.  To count
herself a martyr would be silly!  Her malaise, successfully
concealed, was deeper--of the spirit; the subtle utter
discouragement of one who has done for herself, clipped her own
wings.

As for Rosek, she treated him as if that little scene had never
taken place.  The idea of appealing to her husband in a difficulty
was gone for ever since the night he came home drunk.  And she did
not dare to tell her father.  He would--what would he not do?  But
she was always on her guard, knowing that Rosek would not forgive
her for that dart of ridicule.  His insinuations about Daphne Wing
she put out of mind, as she never could have if she had loved
Fiorsen.  She set up for herself the idol of pride, and became its
faithful worshipper.  Only Winton, and perhaps Betty, could tell
she was not happy.  Fiorsen's debts and irresponsibility about
money did not worry her much, for she paid everything in the house--
rent, wages, food, and her own dress--and had so far made ends
meet; and what he did outside the house she could not help.

So the summer wore on till concerts were over, and it was supposed
to be impossible to stay in London.  But she dreaded going away.
She wanted to be left quiet in her little house.  It was this which
made her tell Fiorsen her secret one night, after the theatre.  He
had begun to talk of a holiday, sitting on the edge of the settee,
with a glass in his hand and a cigarette between his lips.  His
cheeks, white and hollow from too much London, went a curious dull
red; he got up and stared at her.  Gyp made an involuntary movement
with her hands.

"You needn't look at me.  It's true."

He put down glass and cigarette and began to tramp the room.  And
Gyp stood with a little smile, not even watching him.  Suddenly he
clasped his forehead and broke out:

"But I don't want it; I won't have it--spoiling my Gyp."  Then
quickly going up to her with a scared face: "I don't want it; I'm
afraid of it.  Don't have it."

In Gyp's heart came the same feeling as when he had stood there
drunk, against the wall--compassion, rather than contempt of his
childishness.  And taking his hand she said:

"All right, Gustav.  It shan't bother you.  When I begin to get
ugly, I'll go away with Betty till it's over."

He went down on his knees.

"Oh, no!  Oh, no!  Oh, no!  My beautiful Gyp!"

And Gyp sat like a sphinx, for fear that she too might let slip
those words: "Oh, no!"

The windows were open, and moths had come in.  One had settled on
the hydrangea plant that filled the hearth.  Gyp looked at the
soft, white, downy thing, whose head was like a tiny owl's against
the bluish petals; looked at the purple-grey tiles down there, and
the stuff of her own frock, in the shaded gleam of the lamps.  And
all her love of beauty rebelled, called up by his: "Oh, no!"  She
would be unsightly soon, and suffer pain, and perhaps die of it, as
her own mother had died.  She set her teeth, listening to that
grown-up child revolting against what he had brought on her, and
touched his hand, protectingly.

It interested, even amused her this night and next day to watch his
treatment of the disconcerting piece of knowledge.  For when at
last he realized that he had to acquiesce in nature, he began, as
she had known he would, to jib away from all reminder of it.  She
was careful not to suggest that he should go away without her,
knowing his perversity.  But when he proposed that she should come
to Ostend with him and Rosek, she answered, after seeming
deliberation, that she thought she had better not--she would rather
stay at home quite quietly; but he must certainly go and get a good
holiday.

When he was really gone, peace fell on Gyp--peace such as one
feels, having no longer the tight, banded sensations of a fever.
To be without that strange, disorderly presence in the house!  When
she woke in the sultry silence of the next morning, she utterly
failed to persuade herself that she was missing him, missing the
sound of his breathing, the sight of his rumpled hair on the
pillow, the outline of his long form under the sheet.  Her heart
was devoid of any emptiness or ache; she only felt how pleasant and
cool and tranquil it was to lie there alone.  She stayed quite late
in bed.  It was delicious, with window and door wide open and the
puppies running in and out, to lie and doze off, or listen to the
pigeons' cooing, and the distant sounds of traffic, and feel in
command once more of herself, body and soul.  Now that she had told
Fiorsen, she had no longer any desire to keep her condition secret.
Feeling that it would hurt her father to learn of it from anyone
but herself, she telephoned to tell him she was alone, and asked if
she might come to Bury Street and dine with him.

Winton had not gone away, because, between Goodwood and Doncaster
there was no racing that he cared for; one could not ride at this
time of year, so might just as well be in London.  In fact, August
was perhaps the pleasantest of all months in town; the club was
empty, and he could sit there without some old bore buttonholing
him.  Little Boncarte, the fencing-master, was always free for a
bout--Winton had long learned to make his left hand what his right
hand used to be; the Turkish baths in Jermyn Street were nearly
void of their fat clients; he could saunter over to Covent Garden,
buy a melon, and carry it home without meeting any but the most
inferior duchesses in Piccadilly; on warm nights he could stroll
the streets or the parks, smoking his cigar, his hat pushed back to
cool his forehead, thinking vague thoughts, recalling vague
memories.  He received the news that his daughter was alone and
free from that fellow with something like delight.  Where should he
dine her?  Mrs. Markey was on her holiday.  Why not Blafard's?
Quiet---small rooms--not too respectable--quite fairly cool--good
things to eat.  Yes; Blafard's!

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!"

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.



Part III


I


Gyp was going up to town.  She sat in the corner of a first-class
carriage, alone.  Her father had gone up by an earlier train, for
the annual June dinner of his old regiment, and she had stayed to
consult the doctor concerning "little Gyp," aged nearly nineteen
months, to whom teeth were making life a burden.

Her eyes wandered from window to window, obeying the faint
excitement within her.  All the winter and spring, she had been at
Mildenham, very quiet, riding much, and pursuing her music as best
she could, seeing hardly anyone except her father; and this
departure for a spell of London brought her the feeling that comes
on an April day, when the sky is blue, with snow-white clouds, when
in the fields the lambs are leaping, and the grass is warm for the
first time, so that one would like to roll in it.  At Widrington, a
porter entered, carrying a kit-bag, an overcoat, and some golf-
clubs; and round the door a little group, such as may be seen at
any English wayside station, clustered, filling the air with their
clean, slightly drawling voices.  Gyp noted a tall woman whose
blonde hair was going grey, a young girl with a fox-terrier on a
lead, a young man with a Scotch terrier under his arm and his back
to the carriage.  The girl was kissing the Scotch terrier's head.

"Good-bye, old Ossy!  Was he nice!  Tumbo, keep DOWN!  YOU'RE not
going!"

"Good-bye, dear boy!  Don't work too hard!"

The young man's answer was not audible, but it was followed by
irrepressible gurgles and a smothered:

"Oh, Bryan, you ARE--  Good-bye, dear Ossy!"  "Good-bye!"  "Good-
bye!"  The young man who had got in, made another unintelligible
joke in a rather high-pitched voice, which was somehow familiar,
and again the gurgles broke forth.  Then the train moved.  Gyp
caught a side view of him, waving his hat from the carriage window.
It was her acquaintance of the hunting-field--the "Mr. Bryn
Summer'ay," as old Pettance called him, who had bought her horse
last year.  Seeing him pull down his overcoat, to bank up the old
Scotch terrier against the jolting of the journey, she thought: 'I
like men who think first of their dogs.'  His round head, with
curly hair, broad brow, and those clean-cut lips, gave her again
the wonder: 'Where HAVE I seen someone like him?'  He raised the
window, and turned round.

"How would you like--  Oh, how d'you do!  We met out hunting.  You
don't remember me, I expect."

"Yes; perfectly.  And you bought my horse last summer.  How is he?"

"In great form.  I forgot to ask what you called him; I've named
him Hotspur--he'll never be steady at his fences.  I remember how
he pulled with you that day."

They were silent, smiling, as people will in remembrance of a good
run.

Then, looking at the dog, Gyp said softly:

"HE looks rather a darling.  How old?"

"Twelve.  Beastly when dogs get old!"

There was another little silence while he contemplated her steadily
with his clear eyes.

"I came over to call once--with my mother; November the year before
last.  Somebody was ill."

"Yes--I."

"Badly?"

Gyp shook her head.

"I heard you were married--"  The little drawl in his voice had
increased, as though covering the abruptness of that remark.  Gyp
looked up.

"Yes; but my little daughter and I live with my father again."
What "came over" her--as they say--to be so frank, she could not
have told.

He said simply:

"Ah!  I've often thought it queer I've never seen you since.  What
a run that was!"

"Perfect!  Was that your mother on the platform?"

"Yes--and my sister Edith.  Extraordinary dead-alive place,
Widrington; I expect Mildenham isn't much better?"

"It's very quiet, but I like it."

"By the way, I don't know your name now?"

"Fiorsen."

"Oh, yes!  The violinist.  Life's a bit of a gamble, isn't it?"

Gyp did not answer that odd remark, did not quite know what to make
of this audacious young man, whose hazel eyes and lazy smile were
queerly lovable, but whose face in repose had such a broad gravity.
He took from his pocket a little red book.

"Do you know these?  I always take them travelling.  Finest things
ever written, aren't they?"

The book--Shakespeare's Sonnets--was open at that which begins:


     "Let me not to the marriage of true minds
        Admit impediments.  Love is not love
      Which alters when it alteration finds,
        Or bends with the remover to remove--"


Gyp read on as far as the lines:


     "Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
        Within his bending sickle's compass come.
      Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks
        But bears it out even to the edge of doom--"


and looked out of the window.  The train was passing through a
country of fields and dykes, where the sun, far down in the west,
shone almost level over wide, whitish-green space, and the spotted
cattle browsed or stood by the ditches, lazily flicking their
tufted tails.  A shaft of sunlight flowed into the carriage, filled
with dust motes; and, handing the little book back through that
streak of radiance, she said softly:

"Yes; that's wonderful.  Do you read much poetry?"

"More law, I'm afraid.  But it is about the finest thing in the
world, isn't it?"

"No; I think music."

"Are you a musician?"

"Only a little."

"You look as if you might be."

"What?  A little?"

"No; I should think you had it badly."

"Thank you.  And you haven't it at all?"

"I like opera."

"The hybrid form--and the lowest!"

"That's why it suits me.  Don't you like it, though?"

"Yes; that's why I'm going up to London."

"Really?  Are you a subscriber?"

"This season."

"So am I.  Jolly--I shall see you."

Gyp smiled.  It was so long since she had talked to a man of her
own age, so long since she had seen a face that roused her
curiosity and admiration, so long since she had been admired.  The
sun-shaft, shifted by a westward trend of the train, bathed her
from the knees up; and its warmth increased her light-hearted sense
of being in luck--above her fate, instead of under it.

Astounding how much can be talked of in two or three hours of a
railway journey!  And what a friendly after-warmth clings round
those hours!  Does the difficulty of making oneself heard provoke
confidential utterance?  Or is it the isolation or the continual
vibration that carries friendship faster and further than will a
spasmodic acquaintanceship of weeks?  But in that long talk he was
far the more voluble.  There was, too, much of which she could not
speak.  Besides, she liked to listen.  His slightly drawling voice
fascinated her--his audacious, often witty way of putting things,
and the irrepressible bubble of laughter that would keep breaking
from him.  He disclosed his past, such as it was, freely--public-
school and college life, efforts at the bar, ambitions, tastes,
even his scrapes.  And in this spontaneous unfolding there was
perpetual flattery; Gyp felt through it all, as pretty women will,
a sort of subtle admiration.  Presently he asked her if she played
piquet.

"Yes; I play with my father nearly every evening."

"Shall we have a game, then?"

She knew he only wanted to play because he could sit nearer, joined
by the evening paper over their knees, hand her the cards after
dealing, touch her hand by accident, look in her face.  And this
was not unpleasant; for she, in turn, liked looking at his face,
which had what is called "charm"--that something light and
unepiscopal, entirely lacking to so many solid, handsome, admirable
faces.

But even railway journeys come to an end; and when he gripped her
hand to say good-bye, she gave his an involuntary little squeeze.
Standing at her cab window, with his hat raised, the old dog under
his arm, and a look of frank, rather wistful, admiration on his
face, he said:

"I shall see you at the opera, then, and in the Row perhaps; and I
may come along to Bury Street, some time, mayn't I?"

Nodding to those friendly words, Gyp drove off through the sultry
London evening.  Her father was not back from the dinner, and she
went straight to her room.  After so long in the country, it seemed
very close in Bury Street; she put on a wrapper and sat down to
brush the train-smoke out of her hair.

For months after leaving Fiorsen, she had felt nothing but relief.
Only of late had she begun to see her new position, as it was--that
of a woman married yet not married, whose awakened senses have
never been gratified, whose spirit is still waiting for unfoldment
in love, who, however disillusioned, is--even if in secret from
herself--more and more surely seeking a real mate, with every hour
that ripens her heart and beauty.  To-night--gazing at her face,
reflected, intent and mournful, in the mirror--she saw that
position more clearly, in all its aridity, than she had ever seen
it.  What was the use of being pretty?  No longer use to anyone!
Not yet twenty-six, and in a nunnery!  With a shiver, but not of
cold, she drew her wrapper close.  This time last year she had at
least been in the main current of life, not a mere derelict.  And
yet--better far be like this than go back to him whom memory
painted always standing over her sleeping baby, with his arms
stretched out and his fingers crooked like claws.

After that early-morning escape, Fiorsen had lurked after her for
weeks, in town, at Mildenham, followed them even to Scotland, where
Winton had carried her off.  But she had not weakened in her
resolution a second time, and suddenly he had given up pursuit, and
gone abroad.  Since then--nothing had come from him, save a few
wild or maudlin letters, written evidently during drinking-bouts.
Even they had ceased, and for four months she had heard no word.
He had "got over" her, it seemed, wherever he was--Russia, Sweden--
who knew--who cared?

She let the brush rest on her knee, thinking again of that walk
with her baby through empty, silent streets, in the early misty
morning last October, of waiting dead-tired outside here, on the
pavement, ringing till they let her in.  Often, since, she had
wondered how fear could have worked her up to that weird departure.
She only knew that it had not been unnatural at the time.  Her
father and Aunt Rosamund had wanted her to try for a divorce, and
no doubt they had been right.  But her instincts had refused, still
refused to let everyone know her secrets and sufferings--still
refused the hollow pretence involved, that she had loved him when
she never had.  No, it had been her fault for marrying him without
love--


     "Love is not love
      Which alters when it alteration finds!"


What irony--giving her that to read--if her fellow traveller had
only known!

She got up from before the mirror, and stood looking round her
room, the room she had always slept in as a girl.  So he had
remembered her all this time!  It had not seemed like meeting a
stranger.  They were not strangers now, anyway.  And, suddenly, on
the wall before her, she saw his face; or, if not, what was so like
that she gave a little gasp.  Of course!  How stupid of her not to
have known at once!  There, in a brown frame, hung a photograph of
the celebrated Botticelli or Masaccio "Head of a Young Man" in the
National Gallery.  She had fallen in love with it years ago, and on
the wall of her room it had been ever since.  That broad face, the
clear eyes, the bold, clean-cut mouth, the audacity--only, the live
face was English, not Italian, had more humour, more "breeding,"
less poetry--something "old Georgian" about it.  How he would laugh
if she told him he was like that peasant acolyte with fluffed-out
hair, and a little ruching round his neck!  And, smiling, Gyp
plaited her own hair and got into bed.

But she could not sleep; she heard her father come in and go up to
his room, heard the clocks strike midnight, and one, and two, and
always the dull roar of Piccadilly.  She had nothing over her but a
sheet, and still it was too hot.  There was a scent in the room, as
of honeysuckle.  Where could it come from?  She got up at last, and
went to the window.  There, on the window-sill, behind the
curtains, was a bowl of jessamine.  Her father must have brought it
up for her--just like him to think of that!

And, burying her nose in those white blossoms, she was visited by a
memory of her first ball--that evening of such delight and
disillusionment.  Perhaps Bryan Summerhay had been there--all that
time ago!  If he had been introduced to her then, if she had
happened to dance with him instead of with that man who had kissed
her arm, might she not have felt different toward all men?  And if
he had admired her--and had not everyone, that night--might she not
have liked, perhaps more than liked, him in return?  Or would she
have looked on him as on all her swains before she met Fiorsen, so
many moths fluttering round a candle, foolish to singe themselves,
not to be taken seriously?  Perhaps she had been bound to have her
lesson, to be humbled and brought low!

Taking a sprig of jessamine and holding it to her nose, she went up
to that picture.  In the dim light, she could just see the outline
of the face and the eyes gazing at her.  The scent of the blossom
penetrated her nerves; in her heart, something faintly stirred, as
a leaf turns over, as a wing flutters.  And, blossom and all, she
clasped her hands over her breast, where again her heart quivered
with that faint, shy tremor.

It was late, no--early, when she fell asleep and had a strange
dream.  She was riding her old mare through a field of flowers.
She had on a black dress, and round her head a crown of bright,
pointed crystals; she sat without saddle, her knee curled up,
perched so lightly that she hardly felt the mare's back, and the
reins she held were long twisted stems of honeysuckle.  Singing as
she rode, her eyes flying here and there, over the field, up to the
sky, she felt happier, lighter than thistledown.  While they raced
along, the old mare kept turning her head and biting at the
honeysuckle flowers; and suddenly that chestnut face became the
face of Summerhay, looking back at her with his smile.  She awoke.
Sunlight, through the curtains where she had opened them to find
the flowers, was shining on her.


II


Very late that same night, Summerhay came out of the little Chelsea
house, which he inhabited, and walked toward the river.  In certain
moods men turn insensibly toward any space where nature rules a
little--downs, woods, waters--where the sky is free to the eye and
one feels the broad comradeship of primitive forces.  A man is
alone when he loves, alone when he dies; nobody cares for one so
absorbed, and he cares for nobody, no--not he!  Summerhay stood by
the river-wall and looked up at the stars through the plane-tree
branches.  Every now and then he drew a long breath of the warm,
unstirring air, and smiled, without knowing that he smiled.  And he
thought of little, of nothing; but a sweetish sensation beset his
heart, a kind of quivering lightness his limbs.  He sat down on a
bench and shut his eyes.  He saw a face--only a face.  The lights
went out one by one in the houses opposite; no cabs passed now, and
scarce a passenger was afoot, but Summerhay sat like a man in a
trance, the smile coming and going on his lips; and behind him the
air that ever stirs above the river faintly moved with the tide
flowing up.

It was nearly three, just coming dawn, when he went in, and,
instead of going to bed, sat down to a case in which he was junior
on the morrow, and worked right on till it was time to ride before
his bath and breakfast.  He had one of those constitutions, not
uncommon among barristers--fostered perhaps by ozone in the Courts
of Law--that can do this sort of thing and take no harm.  Indeed,
he worked best in such long spurts of vigorous concentration.  With
real capacity and a liking for his work, this young man was
certainly on his way to make a name; though, in the intervals of
energy, no one gave a more complete impression of imperturbable
drifting on the tides of the moment.  Altogether, he was rather a
paradox.  He chose to live in that little Chelsea house which had a
scrap of garden rather than in the Temple or St. James's, because
he often preferred solitude; and yet he was an excellent companion,
with many friends, who felt for him the affectionate distrust
inspired by those who are prone to fits and starts of work and
play, conviviality and loneliness.  To women, he was almost
universally attractive.  But if he had scorched his wings a little
once or twice, he had kept heart-free on the whole.  He was, it
must be confessed, a bit of a gambler, the sort of gambler who gets
in deep, and then, by a plucky, lucky plunge, gets out again, until
some day perhaps--he stays there.  His father, a diplomatist, had
been dead fifteen years; his mother was well known in the semi-
intellectual circles of society.  He had no brothers, two sisters,
and an income of his own.  Such was Bryan Summerhay at the age of
twenty-six, his wisdom-teeth to cut, his depths unplumbed.

When he started that morning for the Temple, he had still a feeling
of extraordinary lightness in his limbs, and he still saw that
face--its perfect regularity, its warm pallor, and dark smiling
eyes rather wide apart, its fine, small, close-set ears, and the
sweep of the black-brown hair across the low brow.  Or was it
something much less definite he saw--an emanation or expression, a
trick, a turn, an indwelling grace, a something that appealed, that
turned, and touched him?  Whatever it was, it would not let him be,
and he did not desire that it should.  For this was in his
character; if he saw a horse that he liked, he put his money on
whatever it ran; if charmed by an opera, he went over and over
again; if by a poem, he almost learned it by heart.  And while he
walked along the river--his usual route--he had queer and
unaccustomed sensations, now melting, now pugnacious.  And he felt
happy.

He was rather late, and went at once into court.  In wig and gown,
that something "old Georgian" about him was very visible.  A
beauty-spot or two, a full-skirted velvet coat, a sword and snuff-
box, with that grey wig or its equivalent, and there would have
been a perfect eighteenth-century specimen of the less bucolic
stamp--the same strong, light build, breadth of face, brown pallor,
clean and unpinched cut of lips, the same slight insolence and
devil-may-caredom, the same clear glance, and bubble of vitality.
It was almost a pity to have been born so late.

Except that once or twice he drew a face on blotting-paper and
smeared it over, he remained normally attentive to his "lud" and
the matters in hand all day, conducted without error the
examination of two witnesses and with terror the cross-examination
of one; lunched at the Courts in perfect amity with the sucking
barrister on the other side of the case, for they had neither, as
yet, reached that maturity which enables an advocate to call his
enemy his "friend," and treat him with considerable asperity.
Though among his acquaintances Summerhay always provoked badinage,
in which he was scarcely ever defeated, yet in chambers and court,
on circuit, at his club, in society or the hunting-field, he had an
unfavourable effect on the grosser sort of stories.  There are men--
by no means strikingly moral--who exercise this blighting
influence.  They are generally what the French call "spirituel,"
and often have rather desperate love-affairs which they keep very
closely to themselves.

When at last in chambers, he had washed off that special reek of
clothes, and parchment, far-away herrings, and distemper, which
clings about the law, dipping his whole curly head in water, and
towelling vigorously, he set forth alone along the Embankment, his
hat tilted up, smoking a cigar.  It was nearly seven.  Just this
time yesterday he had got into the train, just this time yesterday
turned and seen the face which had refused to leave him since.
Fever recurs at certain hours, just so did the desire to see her
mount within him, becoming an obsession, because it was impossible
to gratify it.  One could not call at seven o'clock!  The idea of
his club, where at this time of day he usually went, seemed flat
and stale, until he remembered that he might pass up Bury Street to
get to it.  But, near Charing Cross, a hand smote him on the
shoulder, and the voice of one of his intimates said:

"Halo, Bryan!"

Odd, that he had never noticed before how vacuous this fellow was--
with his talk of politics, and racing, of this ass and that ass--
subjects hitherto of primary importance!  And, stopping suddenly,
he drawled out:

"Look here, old chap, you go on; see you at the club--presently."

"Why?  What's up?"

With his lazy smile, Summerhay answered:

"'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,'" and turned
on his heel.

When his friend had disappeared, he resumed his journey toward Bury
Street.  He passed his boot shop, where, for some time, he had been
meaning to order two pairs, and went by thinking: 'I wonder where
SHE goes for things.'  Her figure came to him so vividly--sitting
back in that corner, or standing by the cab, her hand in his.  The
blood rushed up in his cheeks.  She had been scented like flowers,
and--and a rainy wind!  He stood still before a plate-glass window,
in confusion, and suddenly muttered aloud: "Damn it!  I believe I
am!"  An old gentleman, passing, turned so suddenly, to see what he
was, that he ricked his neck.

But Summerhay still stood, not taking in at all the reflected image
of his frowning, rueful face, and of the cigar extinct between his
lips.  Then he shook his head vigorously and walked on.  He walked
faster, his mind blank, as it is sometimes for a short space after
a piece of sell-revelation that has come too soon for adjustment or
even quite for understanding.  And when he began to think, it was
irritably and at random.  He had come to Bury Street, and, while he
passed up it, felt a queer, weak sensation down the back of his
legs.  No flower-boxes this year broke the plain front of Winton's
house, and nothing whatever but its number and the quickened
beating of his heart marked it out for Summerhay from any other
dwelling.  The moment he turned into Jermyn Street, that beating of
the heart subsided, and he felt suddenly morose.  He entered his
club at the top of St. James' Street and passed at once into the
least used room.  This was the library; and going to the French
section, he took down "The Three Musketeers" and seated himself in
a window, with his back to anyone who might come in.  He had taken
this--his favourite romance, feeling in want of warmth and
companionship; but he did not read.  From where he sat he could
throw a stone to where she was sitting perhaps; except for walls he
could almost reach her with his voice, could certainly see her.
This was imbecile!  A woman he had only met twice.  Imbecile!  He
opened the book--


     "Oh, no; it is an ever-fixed mark
       That looks on tempests and is never shaken.
     It is the star to every wandering bark,
       Whose worth's unknown altho' its height be taken."


"Point of five!  Three queens--three knaves!  Do you know that
thing of Dowson's: 'I have been faithful to thee, Cynara, in my
fashion'?  Better than any Verlaine, except 'Les sanglots longs.'
What have you got?"

"Only quart to the queen.  Do you like the name 'Cynara'?"

"Yes; don't you?"

"Cynara!  Cynara!  Ye-es--an autumn, rose-petal, whirling, dead-
leaf sound."

"Good!  Pipped.  Shut up, Ossy--don't snore!"

"Ah, poor old dog!  Let him.  Shuffle for me, please.  Oh! there
goes another card!"  Her knee was touching his--! . . .

The book had dropped--Summerhay started.

Dash it!  Hopeless!  And, turning round in that huge armchair, he
snoozed down into its depths.  In a few minutes, he was asleep.  He
slept without a dream.

It was two hours later when the same friend, seeking distraction,
came on him, and stood grinning down at that curly head and face
which just then had the sleepy abandonment of a small boy's.
Maliciously he gave the chair a little kick.

Summerhay stirred, and thought: 'What!  Where am I?'

In front of the grinning face, above him, floated another, filmy,
charming.  He shook himself, and sat up.  "Oh, damn you!"

"Sorry, old chap!"

"What time is it?"

"Ten o'clock."

Summerhay uttered an unintelligible sound, and, turning over on the
other arm, pretended to snooze down again.  But he slept no more.
Instead, he saw her face, heard her voice, and felt again the touch
of her warm, gloved hand.


III


At the opera, that Friday evening, they were playing "Cavalleria"
and "Pagliacci"--works of which Gyp tolerated the first and loved
the second, while Winton found them, with "Faust" and "Carmen,"
about the only operas he could not sleep through.

Women's eyes, which must not stare, cover more space than the eyes
of men, which must not stare, but do; women's eyes have less
method, too, seeing all things at once, instead of one thing at a
time.  Gyp had seen Summerhay long before he saw her; seen him come
in and fold his opera hat against his white waistcoat, looking
round, as if for--someone.  Her eyes criticized him in this new
garb--his broad head, and its crisp, dark, shining hair, his air of
sturdy, lazy, lovable audacity.  He looked well in evening clothes.
When he sat down, she could still see just a little of his profile;
and, vaguely watching the stout Santuzza and the stouter Turiddu,
she wondered whether, by fixing her eyes on him, she could make him
turn and see her.  Just then he did see her, and his face lighted
up.  She smiled back.  Why not?  She had not so many friends
nowadays.  But it was rather startling to find, after that exchange
of looks, that she at once began to want another.  Would he like
her dress?  Was her hair nice?  She wished she had not had it
washed that morning.  But when the interval came, she did not look
round, until his voice said:

"How d'you do, Major Winton?  Oh, how d'you do?"

Winton had been told of the meeting in the train.  He was pining
for a cigarette, but had not liked to desert his daughter.  After a
few remarks, he got up and said:

"Take my pew a minute, Summerhay, I'm going to have a smoke."

He went out, thinking, not for the first time by a thousand: 'Poor
child, she never sees a soul!  Twenty-five, pretty as paint, and
clean out of the running.  What the devil am I to do about her?'

Summerhay sat down.  Gyp had a queer feeling, then, as if the house
and people vanished, and they two were back again in the railway-
carriage--alone together.  Ten minutes to make the most of!  To
smile and talk, and enjoy the look in his eyes, the sound of his
voice and laugh.  To laugh, too, and be warm and nice to him.  Why
not?  They were friends.  And, presently, she said, smiling:

"Oh, by the way, there's a picture in the National Gallery, I want
you to look at."

"Yes?  Which?  Will you take me?"

"If you like."

"To-morrow's Saturday; may I meet you there?  What time?  Three?"

Gyp nodded.  She knew she was flushing, and, at that moment, with
the warmth in her cheeks and the smile in her eyes, she had the
sensation, so rare and pleasant, of feeling beautiful.  Then he was
gone!  Her father was slipping back into his stall; and, afraid of
her own face, she touched his arm, and murmured:

"Dad, do look at that head-dress in the next row but one; did you
ever see anything so delicious!"

And while Winton was star-gazing, the orchestra struck up the
overture to "Pagliacci."  Watching that heart-breaking little plot
unfold, Gyp had something more than the old thrill, as if for the
first time she understood it with other than her aesthetic sense.
Poor Nedda! and poor Canio!  Poor Silvio!  Her breast heaved, and
her eyes filled with tears.  Within those doubled figures of the
tragi-comedy she seemed to see, to feel that passionate love--too
swift, too strong, too violent, sweet and fearful within them.


 "Thou hast my heart, and I am thine for ever--
  To-night and for ever I am thine!
  What is there left to me?  What have I but a heart that is broken?"


And the clear, heart-aching music mocking it all, down to those
last words:

La commedia e finita!

While she was putting on her cloak, her eyes caught Summerhay's.
She tried to smile--could not, gave a shake of her head, slowly
forced her gaze away from his, and turned to follow Winton.


At the National Gallery, next day, she was not late by coquetry,
but because she had changed her dress at the last minute, and
because she was afraid of letting him think her eager.  She saw him
at once standing under the colonnade, looking by no means
imperturbable, and marked the change in his face when he caught
sight of her, with a little thrill.  She led him straight up into
the first Italian room to contemplate his counterfeit.  A top hat
and modern collar did not improve the likeness, but it was there
still.

"Well!  Do you like it?"

"Yes.  What are you smiling at?"

"I've had a photograph of that, ever since I was fifteen; so you
see I've known you a long time."

He stared.

"Great Scott!  Am I like that?  All right; I shall try and find YOU
now."

But Gyp shook her head.

"No.  Come and look at my very favourite picture 'The Death of
Procris.'  What is it makes one love it so?  Procris is out of
drawing, and not beautiful; the faun's queer and ugly.  What is it--
can you tell?"

Summerhay looked not at the picture, but at her.  In aesthetic
sense, he was not her equal.  She said softly:

"The wonder in the faun's face, Procris's closed eyes; the dog, and
the swans, and the pity for what might have been!"

Summerhay repeated:

"Ah, for what might have been!  Did you enjoy 'Pagliacci'?"

Gyp shivered.

"I think I felt it too much."

"I thought you did.  I watched you."

"Destruction by--love--seems such a terrible thing!  Now show me
your favourites.  I believe I can tell you what they are, though."

"Well?"

"The 'Admiral,' for one."

"Yes.  What others?"

"The two Bellini's."

"By Jove, you ARE uncanny!"

Gyp laughed.

"You want decision, clarity, colour, and fine texture.  Is that
right?  Here's another of MY favourites."

On a screen was a tiny "Crucifixion" by da Messina--the thinnest of
high crosses, the thinnest of simple, humble, suffering Christs,
lonely, and actual in the clear, darkened landscape.

"I think that touches one more than the big, idealized sort.  One
feels it WAS like that.  Oh!  And look--the Francesca's!  Aren't
they lovely?"

He repeated:

"Yes; lovely!"  But his eyes said: "And so are you."

They spent two hours among those endless pictures, talking a little
of art and of much besides, almost as alone as in the railway
carriage.  But, when she had refused to let him walk back with her,
Summerhay stood stock-still beneath the colonnade.  The sun
streamed in under; the pigeons preened their feathers; people
passed behind him and down there in the square, black and tiny
against the lions and the great column.  He took in nothing of all
that.  What was it in her?  She was like no one he had ever known--
not one!  Different from girls and women in society as--  Simile
failed.  Still more different from anything in the half-world he
had met!  Not the new sort--college, suffrage!  Like no one!  And
he knew so little of her!  Not even whether she had ever really
been in love.  Her husband--where was he; what was he to her?  "The
rare, the mute, the inexpressive She!"  When she smiled; when her
eyes--but her eyes were so quick, would drop before he could see
right into them!  How beautiful she had looked, gazing at that
picture--her favourite, so softly, her lips just smiling!  If he
could kiss them, would he not go nearly mad?  With a deep sigh, he
moved down the wide, grey steps into the sunlight.  And London,
throbbing, overflowing with the season's life, seemed to him empty.
To-morrow--yes, to-morrow he could call!


IV


After that Sunday call, Gyp sat in the window at Bury Street close
to a bowl of heliotrope on the window-sill.  She was thinking over
a passage of their conversation.

"Mrs. Fiorsen, tell me about yourself."

"Why?  What do you want to know?"

"Your marriage?"

"I made a fearful mistake--against my father's wish.  I haven't
seen my husband for months; I shall never see him again if I can
help it.  Is that enough?"

"And you love him?"

"No."

"It must be like having your head in chancery.  Can't you get it
out?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Divorce-court!  Ugh!  I couldn't!"

"Yes, I know--it's hellish!"

Was he, who gripped her hand so hard and said that, really the same
nonchalant young man who had leaned out of the carriage window,
gurgling with laughter?  And what had made the difference?  She
buried her face in the heliotrope, whose perfume seemed the memory
of his visit; then, going to the piano, began to play.  She played
Debussy, McDowell, Ravel; the chords of modern music suited her
feelings just then.  And she was still playing when her father came
in.  During these last nine months of his daughter's society, he
had regained a distinct measure of youthfulness, an extra twist in
his little moustache, an extra touch of dandyism in his clothes,
and the gloss of his short hair.  Gyp stopped playing at once, and
shut the piano.

"Mr. Summerhay's been here, Dad.  He was sorry to miss you."

There was an appreciable pause before Winton answered:

"My dear, I doubt it."

And there passed through Gyp the thought that she could never again
be friends with a man without giving that pause.  Then, conscious
that her father was gazing at her, she turned and said:

"Well, was it nice in the Park?"

"Thirty years ago they were all nobs and snobs; now God himself
doesn't know what they are!"

"But weren't the flowers nice?"

"Ah--and the trees, and the birds--but, by Jove, the humans do
their best to dress the balance!"

"What a misanthrope you're getting!"

"I'd like to run a stud for two-leggers; they want proper breeding.
What sort of a fellow is young Summerhay?  Not a bad face."

She answered impassively:

"Yes; it's so alive."

In spite of his self-control, she could always read her father's
thoughts quicker than he could read hers, and knew that he was
struggling between the wish that she should have a good time and
the desire to convey some kind of warning.  He said, with a sigh:

"What does a young man's fancy turn to in summer, Gyp?"


Women who have subtle instincts and some experience are able to
impose their own restraint on those who, at the lifting of a hand,
would become their lovers.  From that afternoon on, Gyp knew that a
word from her would change everything; but she was far from
speaking it.  And yet, except at week-ends, when she went back to
her baby at Mildenham, she saw Summerhay most days--in the Row, at
the opera, or at Bury Street.  She had a habit of going to St.
James's Park in the late afternoon and sitting there by the water.
Was it by chance that he passed one day on his way home from
chambers, and that, after this, they sat there together constantly?
Why make her father uneasy--when there was nothing to be uneasy
about--by letting him come too often to Bury Street?  It was so
pleasant, too, out there, talking calmly of many things, while in
front of them the small ragged children fished and put the fishes
into clear glass bottles, to eat, or watch on rainy days, as is the
custom of man with the minor works of God.

So, in nature, when the seasons are about to change, the days pass,
tranquil, waiting for the wind that brings in the new.  And was it
not natural to sit under the trees, by the flowers and the water,
the pigeons and the ducks, that wonderful July?  For all was
peaceful in Gyp's mind, except, now and then, when a sort of
remorse possessed her, a sort of terror, and a sort of troubling
sweetness.


V


Summerhay did not wear his heart on his sleeve, and when, on the
closing-day of term, he left his chambers to walk to that last
meeting, his face was much as usual under his grey top hat.  But,
in truth, he had come to a pretty pass.  He had his own code of
what was befitting to a gentleman.  It was perhaps a trifle "old
Georgian," but it included doing nothing to distress a woman.  All
these weeks he had kept himself in hand; but to do so had cost him
more than he liked to reflect on.  The only witness of his
struggles was his old Scotch terrier, whose dreams he had disturbed
night after night, tramping up and down the long back-to-front
sitting-room of his little house.  She knew--must know--what he was
feeling.  If she wanted his love, she had but to raise her finger;
and she had not raised it.  When he touched her, when her dress
disengaged its perfume or his eyes traced the slow, soft movement
of her breathing, his head would go round, and to keep calm and
friendly had been torture.

While he could see her almost every day, this control had been just
possible; but now that he was about to lose her--for weeks--his
heart felt sick within him.  He had been hard put to it before the
world.  A man passionately in love craves solitude, in which to
alternate between fierce exercise and that trance-like stillness
when a lover simply aches or is busy conjuring her face up out of
darkness or the sunlight.  He had managed to do his work, had been
grateful for having it to do; but to his friends he had not given
attention enough to prevent them saying: "What's up with old
Bryan?"  Always rather elusive in his movements, he was now too
elusive altogether for those who had been accustomed to lunch,
dine, dance, and sport with him.  And yet he shunned his own
company--going wherever strange faces, life, anything distracted
him a little, without demanding real attention.  It must be
confessed that he had come unwillingly to discovery of the depth of
his passion, aware that it meant giving up too much.  But there are
women who inspire feeling so direct and simple that reason does not
come into play; and he had never asked himself whether Gyp was
worth loving, whether she had this or that quality, such or such
virtue.  He wanted her exactly as she was; and did not weigh her in
any sort of balance.  It is possible for men to love passionately,
yet know that their passion is but desire, possible for men to love
for sheer spiritual worth, feeling that the loved one lacks this or
that charm.

Summerhay's love had no such divided consciousness.  About her
past, too, he dismissed speculation.  He remembered having heard in
the hunting-field that she was Winton's natural daughter; even then
it had made him long to punch the head of that covertside scandal-
monger.  The more there might be against the desirability of loving
her, the more he would love her; even her wretched marriage only
affected him in so far as it affected her happiness.  It did not
matter--nothing mattered except to see her and be with her as much
as she would let him.  And now she was going to the sea for a
month, and he himself--curse it!--was due in Perthshire to shoot
grouse.  A month!

He walked slowly along the river.  Dared he speak?  At times, her
face was like a child's when it expects some harsh or frightening
word.  One could not hurt her--impossible!  But, at times, he had
almost thought she would like him to speak.  Once or twice he had
caught a slow soft glance--gone the moment he had sight of it.

He was before his time, and, leaning on the river parapet, watched
the tide run down.  The sun shone on the water, brightening its
yellowish swirl, and little black eddies--the same water that had
flowed along under the willows past Eynsham, past Oxford, under the
church at Clifton, past Moulsford, past Sonning.  And he thought:
'My God!  To have her to myself one day on the river--one whole
long day!'  Why had he been so pusillanimous all this time?  He
passed his hand over his face.  Broad faces do not easily grow
thin, but his felt thin to him, and this gave him a kind of morbid
satisfaction.  If she knew how he was longing, how he suffered!  He
turned away, toward Whitehall.  Two men he knew stopped to bandy a
jest.  One of them was just married.  They, too, were off to
Scotland for the twelfth.  Pah!  How stale and flat seemed that
which till then had been the acme of the whole year to him!  Ah,
but if he had been going to Scotland WITH HER!  He drew his breath
in with a sigh that nearly removed the Home Office.

Oblivious of the gorgeous sentries at the Horse Guards, oblivious
of all beauty, he passed irresolute along the water, making for
their usual seat; already, in fancy, he was sitting there, prodding
at the gravel, a nervous twittering in his heart, and that eternal
question: Dare I speak? asking itself within him.  And suddenly he
saw that she was before him, sitting there already.  His heart gave
a jump.  No more craning--he WOULD speak!

She was wearing a maize-coloured muslin to which the sunlight gave
a sort of transparency, and sat, leaning back, her knees crossed,
one hand resting on the knob of her furled sunshade, her face half
hidden by her shady hat.  Summerhay clenched his teeth, and went
straight up to her.

"Gyp!  No, I won't call you anything else.  This can't go on!  You
know it can't.  You know I worship you!  If you can't love me, I've
got to break away.  All day, all night, I think and dream of
nothing but you.  Gyp, do you want me to go?"

Suppose she said: "Yes, go!"  She made a little movement, as if in
protest, and without looking at him, answered very low:

"Of course I don't want you to go.  How could I?"

Summerhay gasped.

"Then you DO love me?"

She turned her face away.

"Wait, please.  Wait a little longer.  When we come back I'll tell
you: I promise!"

"So long?"

"A month.  Is that long?  Please!  It's not easy for me."  She
smiled faintly, lifted her eyes to him just for a second.  "Please
not any more now."

That evening at his club, through the bluish smoke of cigarette
after cigarette, he saw her face as she had lifted it for that one
second; and now he was in heaven, now in hell.


VI


The verandahed bungalow on the South Coast, built and inhabited by
an artist friend of Aunt Rosamund's, had a garden of which the
chief feature was one pine-tree which had strayed in advance of the
wood behind.  The little house stood in solitude, just above a low
bank of cliff whence the beach sank in sandy ridges.  The verandah
and thick pine wood gave ample shade, and the beach all the sun and
sea air needful to tan little Gyp, a fat, tumbling soul, as her
mother had been at the same age, incurably fond and fearless of
dogs or any kind of beast, and speaking words already that required
a glossary.

At night, Gyp, looking from her bedroom through the flat branches
of the pine, would get a feeling of being the only creature in the
world.  The crinkled, silvery sea, that lonely pine-tree, the cold
moon, the sky dark corn-flower blue, the hiss and sucking rustle of
the surf over the beach pebbles, even the salt, chill air, seemed
lonely.  By day, too--in the hazy heat when the clouds merged,
scarce drifting, into the blue, and the coarse sea-grass tufts
hardly quivered, and sea-birds passed close above the water with
chuckle and cry--it all often seemed part of a dream.  She bathed,
and grew as tanned as her little daughter, a regular Gypsy, in her
broad hat and linen frocks; and yet she hardly seemed to be living
down here at all, for she was never free of the memory of that last
meeting with Summerhay.  Why had he spoken and put an end to their
quiet friendship, and left her to such heart-searchings all by
herself?  But she did not want his words unsaid.  Only, how to know
whether to recoil and fly, or to pass beyond the dread of letting
herself go, of plunging deep into the unknown depths of love--of
that passion, whose nature for the first time she had tremulously
felt, watching "Pagliacci"--and had ever since been feeling and
trembling at!  Must it really be neck or nothing?  Did she care
enough to break through all barriers, fling herself into midstream?
When they could see each other every day, it was so easy to live
for the next meeting--not think of what was coming after.  But now,
with all else cut away, there was only the future to think about--
hers and his.  But need she trouble about his?  Would he not just
love her as long as he liked?

Then she thought of her father--still faithful to a memory--and
felt ashamed.  Some men loved on--yes--even beyond death!  But,
sometimes, she would think: 'Am I a candle-flame again?  Is he just
going to burn himself?  What real good can I be to him--I, without
freedom, and with my baby, who will grow up?'  Yet all these
thoughts were, in a way, unreal.  The struggle was in herself, so
deep that she could hardly understand it; as might be an effort to
subdue the instinctive dread of a precipice.  And she would feel a
kind of resentment against all the happy life round her these
summer days--the sea-birds, the sunlight, and the waves; the white
sails far out; the calm sun-steeped pine-trees; her baby, tumbling
and smiling and softly twittering; and Betty and the other
servants--all this life that seemed so simple and untortured.

To the one post each day she looked forward terribly.  And yet his
letters, which began like hers: "My dear friend," might have been
read by anyone--almost.  She spent a long time over her answers.
She was not sleeping well; and, lying awake, she could see his face
very distinct before her closed eyes--its teasing, lazy smile, its
sudden intent gravity.  Once she had a dream of him, rushing past
her down into the sea.  She called, but, without turning his head,
he swam out further, further, till she lost sight of him, and woke
up suddenly with a pain in her heart.  "If you can't love me, I've
got to break away!"  His face, his flung-back head reminded her too
sharply of those words.  Now that he was away from her, would he
not feel that it was best to break, and forget her?  Up there, he
would meet girls untouched by life--not like herself.  He had
everything before him; could he possibly go on wanting one who had
nothing before her?  Some blue-eyed girl with auburn hair--that
type so superior to her own--would sweep, perhaps had already swept
him, away from her!  What then?  No worse than it used to be?  Ah,
so much worse that she dared not think of it!

Then, for five days, no letter came.  And, with each blank morning,
the ache in her grew--a sharp, definite ache of longing and
jealousy, utterly unlike the mere feeling of outraged pride when
she had surprised Fiorsen and Daphne Wing in the music-room--a
hundred years ago, it seemed.  When on the fifth day the postman
left nothing but a bill for little Gyp's shoes, and a note from
Aunt Rosamund at Harrogate, where she had gone with Winton for the
annual cure, Gyp's heart sank to the depths.  Was this the end?
And, with a blind, numb feeling, she wandered out into the wood,
where the fall of the pine-needles, season after season, had made
of the ground one soft, dark, dust-coloured bed, on which the
sunlight traced the pattern of the pine boughs, and ants rummaged
about their great heaped dwellings.

Gyp went along till she could see no outer world for the grey-brown
tree-stems streaked with gum-resin; and, throwing herself down on
her face, dug her elbows deep into the pine dust.  Tears, so rare
with her, forced their way up, and trickled slowly to the hands
whereon her chin rested.  No good--crying!  Crying only made her
ill; crying was no relief.  She turned over on her back and lay
motionless, the sunbeams warm on her cheeks.  Silent here, even at
noon!  The sough of the calm sea could not reach so far; the flies
were few; no bird sang.  The tall bare pine stems rose up all round
like columns in a temple roofed with the dark boughs and sky.
Cloud-fleeces drifted slowly over the blue.  There should be peace--
but in her heart there was none!

A dusky shape came padding through the trees a little way off,
another--two donkeys loose from somewhere, who stood licking each
other's necks and noses.  Those two humble beasts, so friendly,
made her feel ashamed.  Why should she be sorry for herself, she
who had everything in life she wanted--except love--the love she
had thought she would never want?  Ah, but she wanted it now,
wanted it at last with all her being!

With a shudder, she sprang up; the ants had got to her, and she had
to pick them off her neck and dress.  She wandered back towards the
beach.  If he had truly found someone to fill his thoughts, and
drive her out, all the better for him; she would never, by word or
sign, show him that she missed, and wanted him--never!  She would
sooner die!

She came out into the sunshine.  The tide was low; and the wet
foreshore gleamed with opal tints; there were wandering tracks on
the sea, as of great serpents winding their way beneath the
surface; and away to the west the archwayed, tawny rock that cut
off the line of coast was like a dream-shape.  All was dreamy.
And, suddenly her heart began beating to suffocation and the colour
flooded up in her cheeks.  On the edge of the low cliff bank, by
the side of the path, Summerhay was sitting!

He got up and came toward her.  Putting her hands up to her glowing
face, she said:

"Yes; it's me.  Did you ever see such a gipsified object?  I
thought you were still in Scotland.  How's dear Ossy?"  Then her
self-possession failed, and she looked down.

"It's no good, Gyp.  I must know."

It seemed to Gyp that her heart had given up beating; she said
quietly: "Let's sit down a minute"; and moved under the cliff bank
where they could not be seen from the house.  There, drawing the
coarse grass blades through her fingers, she said, with a shiver:

"I didn't try to make you, did I?  I never tried."

"No; never."

"It's wrong."

"Who cares?  No one could care who loves as I do.  Oh, Gyp, can't
you love me?  I know I'm nothing much."  How quaint and boyish!
"But it's eleven weeks to-day since we met in the train.  I don't
think I've had one minute's let-up since."

"Have you tried?"

"Why should I, when I love you?"

Gyp sighed; relief, delight, pain--she did not know.

"Then what is to be done?  Look over there--that bit of blue in the
grass is my baby daughter.  There's her--and my father--and--"

"And what?"

"I'm afraid--afraid of love, Bryan!"

At that first use of his name, Summerhay turned pale and seized her
hand.

"Afraid--how--afraid?"

Gyp said very low:

"I might love too much.  Don't say any more now.  No; don't!  Let's
go in and have lunch."  And she got up.

He stayed till tea-time, and not a word more of love did he speak.
But when he was gone, she sat under the pine-tree with little Gyp
on her lap.  Love!  If her mother had checked love, she herself
would never have been born.  The midges were biting before she went
in.  After watching Betty give little Gyp her bath, she crossed the
passage to her bedroom and leaned out of the window.  Could it have
been to-day she had lain on the ground with tears of despair
running down on to her hands?  Away to the left of the pine-tree,
the moon had floated up, soft, barely visible in the paling sky.  A
new world, an enchanted garden!  And between her and it--what was
there?

That evening she sat with a book on her lap, not reading; and in
her went on the strange revolution which comes in the souls of all
women who are not half-men when first they love--the sinking of 'I'
into 'Thou,' the passionate, spiritual subjection, the intense,
unconscious giving-up of will, in preparation for completer union.

She slept without dreaming, awoke heavy and oppressed.  Too languid
to bathe, she sat listless on the beach with little Gyp all the
morning.  Had she energy or spirit to meet him in the afternoon by
the rock archway, as she had promised?  For the first time since
she was a small and naughty child, she avoided the eyes of Betty.
One could not be afraid of that stout, devoted soul, but one could
feel that she knew too much.  When the time came, after early tea,
she started out; for if she did not go, he would come, and she did
not want the servants to see him two days running.

This last day of August was warm and still, and had a kind of
beneficence--the corn all gathered in, the apples mellowing, robins
singing already, a few slumberous, soft clouds, a pale blue sky, a
smiling sea.  She went inland, across the stream, and took a
footpath back to the shore.  No pines grew on that side, where the
soil was richer--of a ruddy brown.  The second crops of clover were
already high; in them humblebees were hard at work; and, above, the
white-throated swallows dipped and soared.  Gyp gathered a bunch of
chicory flowers.  She was close above the shore before she saw him
standing in the rock archway, looking for her across the beach.
After the hum of the bees and flies, it was very quiet here--only
the faintest hiss of tiny waves.  He had not yet heard her coming,
and the thought flashed through her: 'If I take another step, it is
for ever!  She stood there scarcely breathing, the chicory flowers
held before her lips.  Then she heard him sigh, and, moving quickly
forward, said:

"Here I am."

He turned round, seized her hand, and, without a word, they passed
through the archway.  They walked on the hard sand, side by side,
till he said:

"Let's go up into the fields."

They scrambled up the low cliff and went along the grassy top to a
gate into a stubble field.  He held it open for her, but, as she
passed, caught her in his arms and kissed her lips as if he would
never stop.  To her, who had been kissed a thousand times, it was
the first kiss.  Deadly pale, she fell back from him against the
gate; then, her lips still quivering, her eyes very dark, she
looked at him distraught with passion, drunk on that kiss.  And,
suddenly turning round to the gate, she laid her arms on the top
bar and buried her face on them.  A sob came up in her throat that
seemed to tear her to bits, and she cried as if her heart would
break.  His timid despairing touches, his voice close to her ear:

"Gyp, Gyp!  My darling!  My love!  Oh, don't, Gyp!" were not of the
least avail; she could not stop.  That kiss had broken down
something in her soul, swept away her life up to that moment, done
something terrible and wonderful.  At last, she struggled out:

"I'm sorry--so sorry!  Don't--don't look at me!  Go away a little,
and I'll--I'll be all right."

He obeyed without a word, and, passing through the gate, sat down
on the edge of the cliff with his back to her, looking out over the
sea.

Gripping the wood of the old grey gate till it hurt her hands, Gyp
gazed at the chicory flowers and poppies that had grown up again in
the stubble field, at the butterflies chasing in the sunlight over
the hedge toward the crinkly foam edging the quiet sea till they
were but fluttering white specks in the blue.

But when she had rubbed her cheeks and smoothed her face, she was
no nearer to feeling that she could trust herself.  What had
happened in her was too violent, too sweet, too terrifying.  And
going up to him she said:

"Let me go home now by myself.  Please, let me go, dear.
To-morrow!"

Summerhay looked up.

"Whatever you wish, Gyp--always!"

He pressed her hand against his cheek, then let it go, and, folding
his arms tight, resumed his meaningless stare at the sea.  Gyp
turned away.  She crossed back to the other side of the stream, but
did not go in for a long time, sitting in the pine wood till the
evening gathered and the stars crept out in a sky of that mauve-
blue which the psychic say is the soul-garment colour of the good.

Late that night, when she had finished brushing her hair, she
opened her window and stepped out on to the verandah.  How warm!
How still!  Not a sound from the sleeping house--not a breath of
wind!  Her face, framed in her hair, her hands, and all her body,
felt as if on fire.  The moon behind the pine-tree branches was
filling every cranny of her brain with wakefulness.  The soft
shiver of the wellnigh surfless sea on a rising tide, rose, fell,
rose, fell.  The sand cliff shone like a bank of snow.  And all was
inhabited, as a moonlit night is wont to be, by a magical Presence.
A big moth went past her face, so close that she felt the flutter
of its wings.  A little night beast somewhere was scruttling in
bushes or the sand.  Suddenly, across the wan grass the shadow of
the pine-trunk moved.  It moved--ever so little--moved!  And,
petrified--Gyp stared.  There, joined to the trunk, Summerhay was
standing, his face just visible against the stem, the moonlight on
one cheek, a hand shading his eyes.  He moved that hand, held it
out in supplication.  For long--how long--Gyp did not stir, looking
straight at that beseeching figure.  Then, with a feeling she had
never known, she saw him coming.  He came up to the verandah and
stood looking up at her.  She could see all the workings of his
face--passion, reverence, above all amazement; and she heard his
awed whisper:

"Is it you, Gyp?  Really you?  You look so young--so young!"


VII


From the moment of surrender, Gyp passed straight into a state the
more enchanted because she had never believed in it, had never
thought that she could love as she now loved.  Days and nights went
by in a sort of dream, and when Summerhay was not with her, she was
simply waiting with a smile on her lips for the next hour of
meeting.  Just as she had never felt it possible to admit the world
into the secrets of her married life, so, now she did not consider
the world at all.  Only the thought of her father weighed on her
conscience.  He was back in town.  And she felt that she must tell
him.  When Summerhay heard this he only said: "All right, Gyp,
whatever you think best."

And two days before her month at the bungalow was up, she went,
leaving Betty and little Gyp to follow on the last day.  Winton,
pale and somewhat languid, as men are when they have been cured,
found her when he came in from the club.  She had put on evening
dress, and above the pallor of her shoulders, her sunwarmed face
and throat had almost the colour of a nectarine.  He had never seen
her look like that, never seen her eyes so full of light.  And he
uttered a quiet grunt of satisfaction.  It was as if a flower,
which he had last seen in close and elegant shape, had bloomed in
full perfection.  She did not meet his gaze quite steadily and all
that evening kept putting her confession off and off.  It was not
easy--far from easy.  At last, when he was smoking his "go-to-bed"
cigarette, she took a cushion and sank down on it beside his chair,
leaning against his knee, where her face was hidden from him, as on
that day after her first ball, when she had listened to HIS
confession.  And she began:

"Dad, do you remember my saying once that I didn't understand what
you and my mother felt for each other?"  Winton did not speak;
misgiving had taken possession of him.  Gyp went on: "I know now
how one would rather die than give someone up."

Winton drew his breath in sharply:

"Who?  Summerhay?"

"Yes; I used to think I should never be in love, but you knew
better."

Better!

In disconsolate silence, he thought rapidly: 'What's to be done?
What can I do?  Get her a divorce?'

Perhaps because of the ring in her voice, or the sheer seriousness
of the position, he did not feel resentment as when he lost her to
Fiorsen.  Love!  A passion such as had overtaken her mother and
himself!  And this young man?  A decent fellow, a good rider--
comprehensible!  Ah, if the course had only been clear!  He put his
hand on her shoulder and said:

"Well, Gyp, we must go for the divorce, then, after all."

She shook her head.

"It's too late.  Let HIM divorce me, if he only will!"

Winton needed all his self-control at that moment.  Too late?
Already!  Sudden recollection that he had not the right to say a
word alone kept him silent.  Gyp went on:

"I love him, with every bit of me.  I don't care what comes--
whether it's open or secret.  I don't care what anybody thinks."

She had turned round now, and if Winton had doubt of her feeling,
he lost it.  This was a Gyp he had never seen!  A glowing, soft,
quick-breathing creature, with just that lithe watchful look of the
mother cat or lioness whose whelps are threatened.  There flashed
through him a recollection of how, as a child, with face very
tense, she would ride at fences that were too big.  At last he
said:

"I'm sorry you didn't tell me sooner."

"I couldn't.  I didn't know.  Oh, Dad, I'm always hurting you!
Forgive me!"

She was pressing his hand to her cheek that felt burning hot.  And
he thought: "Forgive!  Of course I forgive.  That's not the point;
the point is--"

And a vision of his loved one talked about, besmirched, bandied
from mouth to mouth, or else--for her what there had been for him,
a hole-and-corner life, an underground existence of stealthy
meetings kept dark, above all from her own little daughter.  Ah,
not that!  And yet--was not even that better than the other, which
revolted to the soul his fastidious pride in her, roused in advance
his fury against tongues that would wag, and eyes that would wink
or be uplifted in righteousness?  Summerhay's world was more or
less his world; scandal, which--like all parasitic growths--
flourishes in enclosed spaces, would have every chance.  And, at
once, his brain began to search, steely and quick, for some way
out; and the expression as when a fox broke covert, came on his
face.

"Nobody knows, Gyp?"

"No; nobody."

That was something!  With an irritation that rose from his very
soul, he muttered:

"I can't stand it that you should suffer, and that fellow Fiorsen
go scot-free.  Can you give up seeing Summerhay while we get you a
divorce?  We might do it, if no one knows.  I think you owe it to
me, Gyp."

Gyp got up and stood by the window a long time without answering.
Winton watched her face.  At last she said:

"I couldn't.  We might stop seeing each other; it isn't that.  It's
what I should feel.  I shouldn't respect myself after; I should
feel so mean.  Oh, Dad, don't you see?  He really loved me in his
way.  And to pretend!  To make out a case for myself, tell about
Daphne Wing, about his drinking, and baby; pretend that I wanted
him to love me, when I got to hate it and didn't care really
whether he was faithful or not--and knowing all the while that I've
been everything to someone else!  I couldn't.  I'd much rather let
him know, and ask him to divorce me."

Winton replied:

"And suppose he won't?"

"Then my mind would be clear, anyway; and we would take what we
could."

"And little Gyp?"

Staring before her as if trying to see into the future, she said
slowly:

"Some day, she'll understand, as I do.  Or perhaps it will be all
over before she knows.  Does happiness ever last?"

And, going up to him, she bent over, kissed his forehead, and went
out.  The warmth from her lips, and the scent of her remained with
Winton like a sensation wafted from the past.

Was there then nothing to be done--nothing?  Men of his stamp do
not, as a general thing, see very deep even into those who are
nearest to them; but to-night he saw his daughter's nature more
fully perhaps than ever before.  No use to importune her to act
against her instincts--not a bit of use!  And yet--how to sit and
watch it all--watch his own passion with its ecstasy and its heart-
burnings re-enacted with her--perhaps for many years?  And the old
vulgar saying passed through his mind: "What's bred in the bone
will come out in the meat."  Now she had given, she would give with
both hands--beyond measure--beyond!--as he himself, as her mother
had given!  Ah, well, she was better off than his own loved one had
been.  One must not go ahead of trouble, or cry over spilled milk!


VIII


Gyp had a wakeful night.  The question she herself had raised, of
telling Fiorsen, kept her thoughts in turmoil.  Was he likely to
divorce her if she did?  His contempt for what he called 'these
bourgeois morals,' his instability, the very unpleasantness, and
offence to his vanity--all this would prevent him.  No; he would
not divorce her, she was sure, unless by any chance he wanted legal
freedom, and that was quite unlikely.  What then would be gained?
Ease for her conscience?  But had she any right to ease her
conscience if it brought harm to her lover?  And was it not
ridiculous to think of conscience in regard to one who, within a
year of marriage, had taken to himself a mistress, and not even
spared the home paid for and supported by his wife?  No; if she
told Fiorsen, it would only be to salve her pride, wounded by doing
what she did not avow.  Besides, where was he?  At the other end of
the world for all she knew.

She came down to breakfast, dark under the eyes and no whit
advanced toward decision.  Neither of them mentioned their last
night's talk, and Gyp went back to her room to busy herself with
dress, after those weeks away.  It was past noon when, at a muffled
knock, she found Markey outside her door.

"Mr. Fiorsen, m'm."

Gyp beckoned him in, and closed the door.

"In the hall, m'm--slipped in when I answered the bell; short of
shoving, I couldn't keep him out."

Gyp stood full half a minute before she said:

"Is my father in?"

"No, m'm; the major's gone to the fencin'-club."

"What did you say?"

"Said I would see.  So far as I was aware, nobody was in.  Shall I
have a try to shift him, m'm?"

With a faint smile Gyp shook her head.

"Say no one can see him."

Markey's woodcock eyes, under their thin, dark, twisting brows,
fastened on her dolefully; he opened the door to go.  Fiorsen was
standing there, and, with a quick movement, came in.  She saw
Markey raise his arms as if to catch him round the waist, and said
quietly:

"Markey--wait outside, please."

When the door was shut, she retreated against her dressing-table
and stood gazing at her husband, while her heart throbbed as if it
would leap through its coverings.

He had grown a short beard, his cheeks seemed a little fatter, and
his eyes surely more green; otherwise, he looked much as she
remembered him.  And the first thought that passed through her was:
'Why did I ever pity him?  He'll never fret or drink himself to
death--he's got enough vitality for twenty men.'

His face, which had worn a fixed, nervous smile, grew suddenly
grave as her own, and his eyes roved round the room in the old
half-fierce, half-furtive way.

"Well, Gyp," he said, and his voice shook a little: "At last!
Won't you kiss me?"

The question seemed to Gyp idiotic; and suddenly she felt quite
cool.

"If you want to speak to my father, you must come later; he's out."

Fiorsen gave one of his fierce shrugs.

"Is it likely?  Look, Gyp!  I returned from Russia yesterday.  I
was a great success, made a lot of money out there.  Come back to
me!  I will be good--I swear it!  Now I have seen you again, I
can't be without you.  Ah, Gyp, come back to me!  And see how good
I will be.  I will take you abroad, you and the bambina.  We will
go to Rome--anywhere you like--live how you like.  Only come back
to me!"

Gyp answered stonily:

"You are talking nonsense."

"Gyp, I swear to you I have not seen a woman--not one fit to put
beside you.  Oh, Gyp, be good to me once more.  This time I will
not fail.  Try me!  Try me, my Gyp!"

Only at this moment of his pleading, whose tragic tones seemed to
her both false and childish, did Gyp realize the strength of the
new feeling in her heart.  And the more that feeling throbbed
within her, the harder her face and her voice grew.  She said:

"If that is all you came to say--please go.  I will never come back
to you.  Once for all, understand, PLEASE."

The silence in which he received her words, and his expression,
impressed her far more than his appeal; with one of his stealthy
movements he came quite close, and, putting his face forward till
it almost touched her, said:

"You are my wife.  I want you back.  I must have you back.  If you
do not come, I will kill either you or myself."

And suddenly she felt his arms knotted behind her back, crushing
her to him.  She stilled a scream; then, very swiftly, took a
resolve, and, rigid in his arms, said:

"Let go; you hurt me.  Sit down quietly.  I will tell you
something."

The tone of her voice made him loosen his grasp and crane back to
see her face.  Gyp detached his arms from her completely, sat down
on an old oak chest, and motioned him to the window-seat.  Her
heart thumped pitifully; cold waves of almost physical sickness
passed through and through her.  She had smelt brandy in his breath
when he was close to her.  It was like being in the cage of a wild
beast; it was like being with a madman!  The remembrance of him
with his fingers stretched out like claws above her baby was so
vivid at that moment that she could scarcely see him as he was,
sitting there quietly, waiting for what she was going to say.  And
fixing her eyes on him, she said softly:

"You say you love me, Gustav.  I tried to love you, too, but I
never could--never from the first.  I tried very hard.  Surely you
care what a woman feels, even if she happens to be your wife."

She could see his face quiver; and she went on:

"When I found I couldn't love you, I felt I had no right over you.
I didn't stand on my rights.  Did I?"

Again his face quivered, and again she hurried on:

"But you wouldn't expect me to go all through my life without ever
feeling love--you who've felt it so many times?"  Then, clasping
her hands tight, with a sort of wonder at herself, she murmured: "I
AM in love.  I've given myself."

He made a queer, whining sound, covering his face.  And the
beggar's tag: "'Ave a feelin' 'eart, gentleman--'ave a feelin'
'eart!" passed idiotically through Gyp's mind.  Would he get up and
strangle her?  Should she dash to the door--escape?  For a long,
miserable moment, she watched him swaying on the window-seat, with
his face covered.  Then, without looking at her, he crammed a
clenched hand up against his mouth, and rushed out.

Through the open door, Gyp had a glimpse of Markey's motionless
figure, coming to life as Fiorsen passed.  She drew a long breath,
locked the door, and lay down on her bed.  Her heart beat
dreadfully.  For a moment, something had checked his jealous rage.
But if on this shock he began to drink, what might not happen?  He
had said something wild.  And she shuddered.  But what right had he
to feel jealousy and rage against her?  What right?  She got up and
went to the glass, trembling, mechanically tidying her hair.
Miraculous that she had come through unscathed!

Her thoughts flew to Summerhay.  They were to meet at three o'clock
by the seat in St. James's Park.  But all was different, now;
difficult and dangerous!  She must wait, take counsel with her
father.  And yet if she did not keep that tryst, how anxious he
would be--thinking that all sorts of things had happened to her;
thinking perhaps--oh, foolish!--that she had forgotten, or even
repented of her love.  What would she herself think, if he were to
fail her at their first tryst after those days of bliss?  Certainly
that he had changed his mind, seen she was not worth it, seen that
a woman who could give herself so soon, so easily, was one to whom
he could not sacrifice his life.

In this cruel uncertainty, she spent the next two hours, till it
was nearly three.  If she did not go out, he would come on to Bury
Street, and that would be still more dangerous.  She put on her hat
and walked swiftly towards St. James's Palace.  Once sure that she
was not being followed, her courage rose, and she passed rapidly
down toward the water.  She was ten minutes late, and seeing him
there, walking up and down, turning his head every few seconds so
as not to lose sight of the bench, she felt almost lightheaded from
joy.  When they had greeted with that pathetic casualness of lovers
which deceives so few, they walked on together past Buckingham
Palace, up into the Green Park, beneath the trees.  During this
progress, she told him about her father; but only when they were
seated in that comparative refuge, and his hand was holding hers
under cover of the sunshade that lay across her knee, did she speak
of Fiorsen.

He tightened his grasp of her hand; then, suddenly dropping it,
said:

"Did he touch you, Gyp?"

Gyp heard that question with a shock.  Touch her!  Yes!  But what
did it matter?

He made a little shuddering sound; and, wondering, mournful, she
looked at him.  His hands and teeth were clenched.  She said
softly:

"Bryan!  Don't!  I wouldn't let him kiss me."

He seemed to have to force his eyes to look at her.

"It's all right," he said, and, staring before him, bit his nails.

Gyp sat motionless, cut to the heart.  She was soiled, and spoiled
for him!  Of course!  And yet a sense of injustice burned in her.
Her heart had never been touched; it was his utterly.  But that was
not enough for a man--he wanted an untouched body, too.  That she
could not give; he should have thought of that sooner, instead of
only now.  And, miserably, she, too, stared before her, and her
face hardened.

A little boy came and stood still in front of them, regarding her
with round, unmoving eyes.  She was conscious of a slice of bread
and jam in his hand, and that his mouth and cheeks were smeared
with red.  A woman called out: "Jacky!  Come on, now!" and he was
hauled away, still looking back, and holding out his bread and jam
as though offering her a bite.  She felt Summerhay's arm slipping
round her.

"It's over, darling.  Never again--I promise you!"

Ah, he might promise--might even keep that promise.  But he would
suffer, always suffer, thinking of that other.  And she said:

"You can only have me as I am, Bryan.  I can't make myself new for
you; I wish I could--oh, I wish I could!"

"I ought to have cut my tongue out first!  Don't think of it!  Come
home to me and have tea--there's no one there.  Ah, do, Gyp--come!"

He took her hands and pulled her up.  And all else left Gyp but the
joy of being close to him, going to happiness.


IX


Fiorsen, passing Markey like a blind man, made his way out into the
street, but had not gone a hundred yards before he was hurrying
back.  He had left his hat.  The servant, still standing there,
handed him that wide-brimmed object and closed the door in his
face.  Once more he moved away, going towards Piccadilly.  If it
had not been for the expression on Gyp's face, what might he not
have done?  And, mixed with sickening jealousy, he felt a sort of
relief, as if he had been saved from something horrible.  So she
had never loved him!  Never at all?  Impossible!  Impossible that a
woman on whom he had lavished such passion should never have felt
passion for him--never any!  Innumerable images of her passed
before him--surrendering, always surrendering.  It could not all
have been pretence!  He was not a common man--she herself had said
so; he had charm--or, other women thought so!  She had lied; she
must have lied, to excuse herself!

He went into a cafe and asked for a fine champagne.  They brought
him a carafe, with the measures marked.  He sat there a long time.
When he rose, he had drunk nine, and he felt better, with a kind of
ferocity that was pleasant in his veins and a kind of nobility that
was pleasant in his soul.  Let her love, and be happy with her
lover!  But let him get his fingers on that fellow's throat!  Let
her be happy, if she could keep her lover from him!  And suddenly,
he stopped in his tracks, for there on a sandwich-board just in
front of him were the words: "Daphne Wing.  Pantheon.  Daphne Wing.
Plastic Danseuse.  Poetry of Motion.  To-day at three o'clock.
Pantheon.  Daphne Wing."

Ah, SHE had loved him--little Daphne!  It was past three.  Going
in, he took his place in the stalls, close to the stage, and stared
before him, with a sort of bitter amusement.  This was irony
indeed!  Ah--and here she came!  A Pierrette--in short, diaphanous
muslin, her face whitened to match it; a Pierrette who stood slowly
spinning on her toes, with arms raised and hands joined in an arch
above her glistening hair.

Idiotic pose!  Idiotic!  But there was the old expression on her
face, limpid, dovelike.  And that something of the divine about her
dancing smote Fiorsen through all the sheer imbecility of her
posturings.  Across and across she flitted, pirouetting, caught up
at intervals by a Pierrot in black tights with a face as whitened
as her own, held upside down, or right end up with one knee bent
sideways, and the toe of a foot pressed against the ankle of the
other, and arms arched above her.  Then, with Pierrot's hands
grasping her waist, she would stand upon one toe and slowly
twiddle, lifting her other leg toward the roof, while the trembling
of her form manifested cunningly to all how hard it was; then, off
the toe, she capered out to the wings, and capered back, wearing on
her face that divine, lost, dovelike look, while her perfect legs
gleamed white up to the very thigh-joint.  Yes; on the stage she
was adorable!  And raising his hands high, Fiorsen clapped and
called out: "Brava!"  He marked the sudden roundness of her eyes, a
tiny start--no more.  She had seen him.  'Ah!  Some don't forget
me!' he thought.

And now she came on for her second dance, assisted this time only
by her own image reflected in a little weedy pool about the middle
of the stage.  From the programme Fiorsen read, "Ophelia's last
dance," and again he grinned.  In a clinging sea-green gown, cut
here and there to show her inevitable legs, with marguerites and
corn-flowers in her unbound hair, she circled her own reflection,
languid, pale, desolate; then slowly gaining the abandon needful to
a full display, danced with frenzy till, in a gleam of limelight,
she sank into the apparent water and floated among paper water-
lilies on her back.  Lovely she looked there, with her eyes still
open, her lips parted, her hair trailing behind.  And again Fiorsen
raised his hands high to clap, and again called out: 'Brava!'  But
the curtain fell, and Ophelia did not reappear.  Was it the sight
of him, or was she preserving the illusion that she was drowned?
That "arty" touch would be just like her.

Averting his eyes from two comedians in calico, beating each other
about the body, he rose with an audible "Pish!" and made his way
out.  He stopped in the street to scribble on his card, "Will you
see me?--G. F." and took it round to the stage-door.  The answer
came back:

"Miss Wing will see you m a minute, sir."

And leaning against the distempered wall of the draughty corridor,
a queer smile on his face, Fiorsen wondered why the devil he was
there, and what the devil she would say.

When he was admitted, she was standing with her hat on, while her
"dresser" buttoned her patent-leather shoes.  Holding out her hand
above the woman's back, she said:

"Oh, Mr. Fiorsen, how do you do?"

Fiorsen took the little moist hand; and his eyes passed over her,
avoiding a direct meeting with her eyes.  He received an impression
of something harder, more self-possessed, than he remembered.  Her
face was the same, yet not the same; only her perfect, supple
little body was as it had been.  The dresser rose, murmured: "Good-
afternoon, miss," and went.

Daphne Wing smiled faintly.

"I haven't seen you for a long time, have I?"

"No; I've been abroad.  You dance as beautifully as ever."

"Oh, yes; it hasn't hurt my dancing."

With an effort, he looked her in the face.  Was this really the
same girl who had clung to him, cloyed him with her kisses, her
tears, her appeals for love--just a little love?  Ah, but she was
more desirable, much more desirable than he had remembered!  And he
said:

"Give me a kiss, little Daphne!"

Daphne Wing did not stir; her white teeth rested on her lower lip;
she said:

"Oh, no, thank you!  How is Mrs. Fiorsen?"

Fiorsen turned abruptly.

"There is none."

"Oh, has she divorced you?"

"No.  Stop talking of her; stop talking, I say!"

Daphne Wing, still motionless in the centre of her little crowded
dressing-room said, in a matter-of-fact voice:

"You are polite, aren't you?  It's funny; I can't tell whether I'm
glad to see you.  I had a bad time, you know; and Mrs. Fiorsen was
an angel.  Why do you come to see me now?"

Exactly!  Why had he come?  The thought flashed through him:
'She'll help me to forget.'  And he said:

"I was a great brute to you, Daphne.  I came to make up, if I can."

"Oh, no; you can't make up--thank you!"  A shudder ran through her,
and she began drawing on her gloves.  "You taught me a lot, you
know.  I ought to be quite grateful.  Oh, you've grown a little
beard!  D'you think that improves you?  It makes you look rather
like Mephistopheles, I think."

Fiorsen stared fixedly at that perfectly shaped face, where a
faint, underdone pink mingled with the fairness of the skin.  Was
she mocking him?  Impossible!  She looked too matter of fact.

"Where do you live now?" he said.

"I'm on my own, in a studio.  You can come and see it, if you
like."

"With pleasure."

"Only, you'd better understand.  I've had enough of love."

Fiorsen grinned.

"Even for another?" he said.

Daphne Wing answered calmly:

"I wish you would treat me like a lady."

Fiorsen bit his lip, and bowed.

"May I have the pleasure of giving you some tea?"

"Yes, thank you; I'm very hungry.  I don't eat lunch on matinee-
days; I find it better not.  Do you like my Ophelia dance?"

"It's artificial."

"Yes, it IS artificial--it's done with mirrors and wire netting,
you know.  But do I give you the illusion of being mad?"  Fiorsen
nodded.  "I'm so glad.  Shall we go?  I do want my tea."

She turned round, scrutinized herself in the glass, touched her hat
with both hands, revealing, for a second, all the poised beauty of
her figure, took a little bag from the back of a chair, and said:

"I think, if you don't mind going on, it's less conspicuous.  I'll
meet you at Ruffel's--they have lovely things there.  Au revoir."

In a state of bewilderment, irritation, and queer meekness, Fiorsen
passed down Coventry Street, and entering the empty Ruffel's, took
a table near the window.  There he sat staring before him, for the
sudden vision of Gyp sitting on that oaken chest, at the foot of
her bed, had blotted the girl clean out.  The attendant coming to
take his order, gazed at his pale, furious face, and said
mechanically:

"What can I get you, please?"

Looking up, Fiorsen saw Daphne Wing outside, gazing at the cakes in
the window.  She came in.

"Oh, here you are!  I should like iced coffee and walnut cake, and
some of those marzipan sweets--oh, and some whipped cream with my
cake.  Do you mind?"  And, sitting down, she fixed her eyes on his
face and asked:

"Where have you been abroad?"

"Stockholm, Budapest, Moscow, other places."

"How perfect!  Do you think I should make a success in Budapest or
Moscow?"

"You might; you are English enough."

"Oh!  Do you think I'm very English?"

"Utterly.  Your kind of--"  But even he was not quite capable of
finishing that sentence--"your kind of vulgarity could not be
produced anywhere else."  Daphne Wing finished it for him:

"My kind of beauty?"

Fiorsen grinned and nodded.

"Oh, I think that's the nicest thing you ever said to me!  Only, of
course, I should like to think I'm more of the Greek type--pagan,
you know."

She fell silent, casting her eyes down.  Her profile at that
moment, against the light, was very pure and soft in line.  And he
said:

"I suppose you hate me, little Daphne?  You ought to hate me."

Daphne Wing looked up; her round, blue-grey eyes passed over him
much as they had been passing over the marzipan.

"No; I don't hate you--now.  Of course, if I had any love left for
you, I should.  Oh, isn't that Irish?  But one can think anybody a
rotter without hating them, can't one?"

Fiorsen bit his lips.

"So you think me a 'rotter'?"

Daphne Wing's eyes grew rounder.

"But aren't you?  You couldn't be anything else--could you?--with
the sort of things you did."

"And yet you don't mind having tea with me?"

Daphne Wing, who had begun to eat and drink, said with her mouth
full:

"You see, I'm independent now, and I know life.  That makes you
harmless."

Fiorsen stretched out his hand and seized hers just where her
little warm pulse was beating very steadily.  She looked at it,
changed her fork over, and went on eating with the other hand.
Fiorsen drew his hand away as if he had been stung.

"Ah, you HAVE changed--that is certain!"

"Yes; you wouldn't expect anything else, would you?  You see, one
doesn't go through that for nothing.  I think I was a dreadful
little fool--"  She stopped, with her spoon on its way to her
mouth--"and yet--"

"I love you still, little Daphne."

She slowly turned her head toward him, and a faint sigh escaped
her.

"Once I would have given a lot to hear that."

And turning her head away again, she picked a large walnut out of
her cake and put it in her mouth.

"Are you coming to see my studio?  I've got it rather nice and new.
I'm making twenty-five a week; my next engagement, I'm going to get
thirty.  I should like Mrs. Fiorsen to know--  Oh, I forgot; you
don't like me to speak of her!  Why not?  I wish you'd tell me!"
Gazing, as the attendant had, at his furious face, she went on: "I
don't know how it is, but I'm not a bit afraid of you now.  I used
to be.  Oh, how is Count Rosek?  Is he as pale as ever?  Aren't you
going to have anything more?  You've had hardly anything.  D'you
know what I should like--a chocolate eclair and a raspberry ice-
cream soda with a slice of tangerine in it."

When she had slowly sucked up that beverage, prodding the slice of
tangerine with her straws, they went out and took a cab.  On that
journey to her studio, Fiorsen tried to possess himself of her
hand, but, folding her arms across her chest, she said quietly:

"It's very bad manners to take advantage of cabs."  And,
withdrawing sullenly into his corner, he watched her askance.  Was
she playing with him?  Or had she really ceased to care the snap of
a finger?  It seemed incredible.  The cab, which had been threading
the maze of the Soho streets, stopped.  Daphne Wing alighted,
proceeded down a narrow passage to a green door on the right, and,
opening it with a latch-key, paused to say:

"I like it's being in a little sordid street--it takes away all
amateurishness.  It wasn't a studio, of course; it was the back
part of a paper-maker's.  Any space conquered for art is something,
isn't it?"  She led the way up a few green-carpeted stairs, into a
large room with a skylight, whose walls were covered in Japanese
silk the colour of yellow azaleas.  Here she stood for a minute
without speaking, as though lost in the beauty of her home: then,
pointing to the walls, she said:

"It took me ages, I did it all myself.  And look at my little
Japanese trees; aren't they dickies?"  Six little dark abortions of
trees were arranged scrupulously on a lofty window-sill, whence the
skylight sloped.  She added suddenly: "I think Count Rosek would
like this room.  There's something bizarre about it, isn't there?
I wanted to surround myself with that, you know--to get the bizarre
note into my work.  It's so important nowadays.  But through there
I've got a bedroom and a bathroom and a little kitchen with
everything to hand, all quite domestic; and hot water always on.
My people are SO funny about this room.  They come sometimes, and
stand about.  But they can't get used to the neighbourhood; of
course it IS sordid, but I think an artist ought to be superior to
that."

Suddenly touched, Fiorsen answered gently:

"Yes, little Daphne."

She looked at him, and another tiny sigh escaped her.

"Why did you treat me like you did?" she said.  "It's such a pity,
because now I can't feel anything at all."  And turning, she
suddenly passed the back of her hand across her eyes.  Really moved
by that, Fiorsen went towards her, but she had turned round again,
and putting out her hand to keep him off, stood shaking her head,
with half a tear glistening on her eyelashes.

"Please sit down on the divan," she said.  "Will you smoke?  These
are Russians."  And she took a white box of pink-coloured
cigarettes from a little golden birchwood table.  "I have
everything Russian and Japanese so far as I can; I think they help
more than anything with atmosphere.  I've got a balalaika; you
can't play on it, can you?  What a pity!  If only I had a violin!
I SHOULD have liked to hear you play again."  She clasped her
hands: "Do you remember when I danced to you before the fire?"

Fiorsen remembered only too well.  The pink cigarette trembled in
his fingers, and he said rather hoarsely:

"Dance to me now, Daphne!"

She shook her head.

"I don't trust you a yard.  Nobody would--would they?"

Fiorsen started up.

"Then why did you ask me here?  What are you playing at, you
little--"  At sight of her round, unmoving eyes, he stopped.  She
said calmly:

"I thought you'd like to see that I'd mastered my fate--that's all.
But, of course, if you don't, you needn't stop."

Fiorsen sank back on the divan.  A conviction that everything she
said was literal had begun slowly to sink into him.  And taking a
long pull at that pink cigarette he puffed the smoke out with a
laugh.

"What are you laughing at?"

"I was thinking, little Daphne, that you are as great an egoist as I."

"I want to be.  It's the only thing, isn't it?"

Fiorsen laughed again.

"You needn't worry.  You always were."

She had seated herself on an Indian stool covered with a bit of
Turkish embroidery, and, joining her hands on her lap, answered
gravely:

"No; I think I wasn't, while I loved you.  But it didn't pay, did
it?"

Fiorsen stared at her.

"It has made a woman of you, Daphne.  Your face is different.  Your
mouth is prettier for my kisses--or the want of them.  All over,
you are prettier."  Pink came up in Daphne Wing's cheeks.  And,
encouraged by that flush, he went on warmly: "If you loved me now,
I should not tire of you.  Oh, you can believe me!  I--"

She shook her head.

"We won't talk about love, will we?  Did you have a big triumph in
Moscow and St. Petersburg?  It must be wonderful to have really
great triumphs!"

Fiorsen answered gloomily:

"Triumphs?  I made a lot of money."

Daphne Wing purred:

"Oh, I expect you're very happy."

Did she mean to be ironic?

"I'm miserable."

He got up and went towards her.  She looked up in his face.

"I'm sorry if you're miserable.  I know what it feels like."

"You can help me not to be.  Little Daphne, you can help me to
forget."  He had stopped, and put his hands on her shoulders.
Without moving Daphne Wing answered:

"I suppose it's Mrs. Fiorsen you want to forget, isn't it?"

"As if she were dead.  Ah, let it all be as it was, Daphne!  You
have grown up; you are a woman, an artist, and you--"

Daphne Wing had turned her head toward the stairs.

"That was the bell," she said.  "Suppose it's my people?  It's just
their time!  Oh, isn't that awkward?"

Fiorsen dropped his grasp of her and recoiled against the wall.
There with his head touching one of the little Japanese trees, he
stood biting his fingers.  She was already moving toward the door.

"My mother's got a key, and it's no good putting you anywhere,
because she always has a good look round.  But perhaps it isn't
them.  Besides, I'm not afraid now; it makes a wonderful difference
being on one's own."

She disappeared.  Fiorsen could hear a woman's acid voice, a man's,
rather hoarse and greasy, the sound of a smacking kiss.  And, with
a vicious shrug, he stood at bay.  Trapped!  The little devil!  The
little dovelike devil!  He saw a lady in a silk dress, green shot
with beetroot colour, a short, thick gentleman with a round,
greyish beard, in a grey suit, having a small dahlia in his
buttonhole, and, behind them, Daphne Wing, flushed, and very round-
eyed.  He took a step, intending to escape without more ado.  The
gentleman said:

"Introduce us, Daisy.  I didn't quite catch--Mr. Dawson?  How do
you do, sir?  One of my daughter's impresarios, I think.  'Appy to
meet you, I'm sure."

Fiorsen took a long breath, and bowed.  Mr. Wagge's small piggy
eyes had fixed themselves on the little trees.

"She's got a nice little place here for her work--quiet and
unconventional.  I hope you think well of her talent, sir?  You
might go further and fare worse, I believe."

Again Fiorsen bowed.

"You may be proud of her," he said; "she is the rising star."

Mr. Wagge cleared his throat.

"Ow," he said; "ye'es!  From a little thing, we thought she had
stuff in her.  I've come to take a great interest in her work.
It's not in my line, but I think she's a sticker; I like to see
perseverance.  Where you've got that, you've got half the battle of
success.  So many of these young people seem to think life's all
play.  You must see a lot of that in your profession, sir."

"Robert!"

A shiver ran down Fiorsen's spine.

"Ye-es?"

"The name was not DAWson!"

There followed a long moment.  On the one side was that vinegary
woman poking her head forward like an angry hen, on the other,
Daphne Wing, her eyes rounder and rounder, her cheeks redder and
redder, her lips opening, her hands clasped to her perfect breast,
and, in the centre, that broad, grey-bearded figure, with reddening
face and angry eyes and hoarsening voice:

"You scoundrel!  You infernal scoundrel!"  It lurched forward,
raising a pudgy fist.  Fiorsen sprang down the stairs and wrenched
open the door.  He walked away in a whirl of mortification.  Should
he go back and take that pug-faced vulgarian by the throat?  As for
that minx!  But his feelings about HER were too complicated for
expression.  And then--so dark and random are the ways of the mind--
his thoughts darted back to Gyp, sitting on the oaken chest,
making her confession; and the whips and stings of it scored him
worse than ever.


X


That same evening, standing at the corner of Bury Street, Summerhay
watched Gyp going swiftly to her father's house.  He could not
bring himself to move while there was still a chance to catch a
glimpse of her face, a sign from her hand.  Gone!  He walked away
with his head down.  The more blissful the hours just spent, the
greater the desolation when they are over.  Of such is the nature
of love, as he was now discerning.  The longing to have her always
with him was growing fast.  Since her husband knew--why wait?
There would be no rest for either of them in an existence of
meetings and partings like this, with the menace of that fellow.
She must come away with him at once--abroad--until things had
declared themselves; and then he must find a place where they could
live and she feel safe and happy.  He must show he was in dead
earnest, set his affairs in order.  And he thought: 'No good doing
things by halves.  Mother must know.  The sooner the better.  Get
it over--at once!'  And, with a grimace of discomfort, he set out
for his aunt's house in Cadogan Gardens, where his mother always
stayed when she was in town.

Lady Summerhay was in the boudoir, waiting for dinner and reading a
book on dreams.  A red-shaded lamp cast a mellow tinge over the
grey frock, over one reddish cheek and one white shoulder.  She was
a striking person, tall and well built, her very blonde hair only
just turning grey, for she had married young and been a widow
fifteen years--one of those women whose naturally free spirits have
been netted by association with people of public position.  Bubbles
were still rising from her submerged soul, but it was obvious that
it would not again set eyes on the horizon.  With views neither
narrow nor illiberal, as views in society go, she judged everything
now as people of public position must--discussion, of course, but
no alteration in one's way of living.  Speculation and ideas did
not affect social usage.  The countless movements in which she and
her friends were interested for the emancipation and benefit of
others were, in fact, only channels for letting off her superfluous
goodwill, conduit-pipes, for the directing spirit bred in her.  She
thought and acted in terms of the public good, regulated by what
people of position said at luncheon and dinner.  And it was surely
not her fault that such people must lunch and dine.  When her son
had bent and kissed her, she held up the book to him and said:

"Well, Bryan, I think this man's book disgraceful; he simply runs
his sex-idea to death.  Really, we aren't all quite so obsessed as
that.  I do think he ought to be put in his own lunatic asylum."

Summerhay, looking down at her gloomily, answered:

"I've got bad news for you, Mother."

Lady Summerhay closed the book and searched his face with
apprehension.  She knew that expression.  She knew that poise of
his head, as if butting at something.  He looked like that when he
came to her in gambling scrapes.  Was this another?  Bryan had
always been a pickle.  His next words took her breath away.

"The people at Mildenham, Major Winton and his daughter--you know.
Well, I'm in love with her--I'm--I'm her lover."

Lady Summerhay uttered a gasp.

"But--but--Bryan--"

"That fellow she married drinks.  He's impossible.  She had to
leave him a year ago, with her baby--other reasons, too.  Look
here, Mother: This is hateful, but you'd got to know.  I can't talk
of her.  There's no chance of a divorce."  His voice grew higher.
"Don't try to persuade me out of it.  It's no good."

Lady Summerhay, from whose comely face a frock, as it were, had
slipped, clasped her hands together on the book.

Such a swift descent of "life" on one to whom it had for so long
been a series of "cases" was cruel, and her son felt this without
quite realizing why.  In the grip of his new emotions, he still
retained enough balance to appreciate what an abominably desolate
piece of news this must be to her, what a disturbance and
disappointment.  And, taking her hand, he put it to his lips.

"Cheer up, Mother!  It's all right.  She's happy, and so am I."

Lady Summerhay could only press her hand against his kiss, and
murmur:

"Yes; that's not everything, Bryan.  Is there--is there going to be
a scandal?"

"I don't know.  I hope not; but, anyway, HE knows about it."

"Society doesn't forgive."

Summerhay shrugged his shoulders.

"Awfully sorry for YOU, Mother."

"Oh, Bryan!"

This repetition of her plaint jarred his nerves.

"Don't run ahead of things.  You needn't tell Edith or Flo.  You
needn't tell anybody.  We don't know what'll happen yet."

But in Lady Summerhay all was too sore and blank.  This woman she
had never seen, whose origin was doubtful, whose marriage must have
soiled her, who was some kind of a siren, no doubt.  It really was
too hard!  She believed in her son, had dreamed of public position
for him, or, rather, felt he would attain it as a matter of course.
And she said feebly:

"This Major Winton is a man of breeding, isn't he?"

"Rather!"  And, stopping before her, as if he read her thoughts, he
added: "You think she's not good enough for me?  She's good enough
for anyone on earth.  And she's the proudest woman I've ever met.
If you're bothering as to what to do about her--don't!  She won't
want anything of anybody--I can tell you that.  She won't accept
any crumbs."

"That's lucky!" hovered on Lady Summerhay's lips; but, gazing at
her son, she became aware that she stood on the brink of a downfall
in his heart.  Then the bitterness of her disappointment rising up
again, she said coldly:

"Are you going to live together openly?"

"Yes; if she will."

"You don't know yet?"

"I shall--soon."

Lady Summerhay got up, and the book on dreams slipped off her lap
with a thump.  She went to the fireplace, and stood there looking
at her son.  He had altered.  His merry look was gone; his face was
strange to her.  She remembered it like that, once in the park at
Widrington, when he lost his temper with a pony and came galloping
past her, sitting back, his curly hair stivered up like a little
demon's.  And she said sadly:

"You can hardly expect me to like it for you, Bryan, even if she is
what you say.  And isn't there some story about--"

"My dear mother, the more there is against her, the more I shall
love her--that's obvious."

Lady Summerhay sighed again.

"What is this man going to do?  I heard him play once."

"I don't know.  Nothing, I dare say.  Morally and legally, he's out
of court.  I only wish to God he WOULD bring a case, and I could
marry her; but Gyp says he won't."

Lady Summerhay murmured:

"Gyp?  Is that her name?"  And a sudden wish, almost a longing, not
a friendly one, to see this woman seized her.  "Will you bring her
to see me?  I'm alone here till Wednesday."

"I'll ask her, but I don't think she'll come."  He turned his head
away.  "Mother, she's wonderful!"

An unhappy smile twisted Lady Summerhay's lips.  No doubt!
Aphrodite herself had visited her boy.  Aphrodite!  And--afterward?
She asked desolately:

"Does Major Winton know?"

"Yes."

"What does he say to it?"

"Say?  What can anyone say?  From your point of view, or his, it's
rotten, of course.  But in her position, anything's rotten."

At that encouraging word, the flood-gates gave way in Lady
Summerhay, and she poured forth a stream of words.

"Oh, my dear, can't you pull up?  I've seen so many of these
affairs go wrong.  It really is not for nothing that law and
conventions are what they are--believe me!  Really, Bryan,
experience does show that the pressure's too great.  It's only once
in a way--very exceptional people, very exceptional circumstances.
You mayn't think now it'll hamper you, but you'll find it will--
most fearfully.  It's not as if you were a writer or an artist, who
can take his work where he likes and live in a desert if he wants.
You've got to do yours in London, your whole career is bound up
with society.  Do think, before you go butting up against it!  It's
all very well to say it's no affair of anyone's, but you'll find it
is, Bryan.  And then, can you--can you possibly make her happy in
the long-run?"

She stopped at the expression on his face.  It was as if he were
saying: "I have left your world.  Talk to your fellows; all this is
nothing to me."

"Look here, Mother: you don't seem to understand.  I'm devoted--
devoted so that there's nothing else for me."

"How long will that last, Bryan?  You mean bewitched."

Summerhay said, with passion:

"I don't.  I mean what I said.  Good-night!"  And he went to the
door.

"Won't you stay to dinner, dear?"

But he was gone, and the full of vexation, anxiety, and
wretchedness came on Lady Summerhay.  It was too hard!  She went
down to her lonely dinner, desolate and sore.  And to the book on
dreams, opened beside her plate, she turned eyes that took in
nothing.


Summerhay went straight home.  The lamps were brightening in the
early-autumn dusk, and a draughty, ruffling wind flicked a yellow
leaf here and there from off the plane trees.  It was just the
moment when evening blue comes into the colouring of the town--that
hour of fusion when day's hard and staring shapes are softening,
growing dark, mysterious, and all that broods behind the lives of
men and trees and houses comes down on the wings of illusion to
repossess the world--the hour when any poetry in a man wells up.
But Summerhay still heard his mother's, "Oh, Bryan!" and, for the
first time, knew the feeling that his hand was against everyone's.
There was a difference already, or so it seemed to him, in the
expression of each passer-by.  Nothing any more would be a matter
of course; and he was of a class to whom everything has always been
a matter of course.  Perhaps he did not realize this clearly yet;
but he had begun to take what the nurses call "notice," as do those
only who are forced on to the defensive against society.

Putting his latch-key into the lock, he recalled the sensation with
which, that afternoon, he had opened to Gyp for the first time--
half furtive, half defiant.  It would be all defiance now.  This
was the end of the old order!  And, lighting a fire in his sitting-
room, he began pulling out drawers, sorting and destroying.  He
worked for hours, burning, making lists, packing papers and
photographs.  Finishing at last, he drank a stiff whisky and soda,
and sat down to smoke.  Now that the room was quiet, Gyp seemed to
fill it again with her presence.  Closing his eyes, he could see
her there by the hearth, just as she stood before they left,
turning her face up to him, murmuring: "You won't stop loving me,
now you're so sure I love you?"  Stop loving her!  The more she
loved him, the more he would love her.  And he said aloud: "By God!
I won't!"  At that remark, so vehement for the time of night, the
old Scotch terrier, Ossian, came from his corner and shoved his
long black nose into his master's hand.

"Come along up, Ossy!  Good dog, Oss!"  And, comforted by the
warmth of that black body beside him in the chair, Summerhay fell
asleep in front of the fire smouldering with blackened fragments of
his past.


XI


Though Gyp had never seemed to look round she had been quite
conscious of Summerhay still standing where they had parted,
watching her into the house in Bury Street.  The strength of her
own feeling surprised her, as a bather in the sea is surprised,
finding her feet will not touch bottom, that she is carried away
helpless--only, these were the waters of ecstasy.

For the second night running, she hardly slept, hearing the clocks
of St. James's strike, and Big Ben boom, hour after hour.  At
breakfast, she told her father of Fiorsen's reappearance.  He
received the news with a frown and a shrewd glance.

"Well, Gyp?"

"I told him."

His feelings, at that moment, were perhaps as mixed as they had
ever been--curiosity, parental disapproval, to which he knew he was
not entitled, admiration of her pluck in letting that fellow know,
fears for the consequences of this confession, and, more than all,
his profound disturbance at knowing her at last launched into the
deep waters of love.  It was the least of these feelings that found
expression.

"How did he take it?"

"Rushed away.  The only thing I feel sure of is that he won't
divorce me."

"No, by George; I don't suppose even he would have that impudence!"
And Winton was silent, trying to penetrate the future.  "Well," he
said suddenly, "it's on the knees of the gods then.  But be
careful, Gyp."

About noon, Betty returned from the sea, with a solemn, dark-eyed,
cooing little Gyp, brown as a roasted coffee-berry.  When she had
been given all that she could wisely eat after the journey, Gyp
carried her off to her own room, undressed her for sheer delight of
kissing her from head to foot, and admiring her plump brown legs,
then cuddled her up in a shawl and lay down with her on the bed.  A
few sleepy coos and strokings, and little Gyp had left for the land
of Nod, while her mother lay gazing at her black lashes with a kind
of passion.  She was not a child-lover by nature; but this child of
her own, with her dark softness, plump delicacy, giving
disposition, her cooing voice, and constant adjurations to "dear
mum," was adorable.  There was something about her insidiously
seductive.  She had developed so quickly, with the graceful
roundness of a little animal, the perfection of a flower.  The
Italian blood of her great-great-grandmother was evidently
prepotent in her as yet; and, though she was not yet two years old,
her hair, which had lost its baby darkness, was already curving
round her neck and waving on her forehead.  One of her tiny brown
hands had escaped the shawl and grasped its edge with determined
softness.  And while Gyp gazed at the pinkish nails and their
absurdly wee half-moons, at the sleeping tranquillity stirred by
breathing no more than a rose-leaf on a windless day, her lips grew
fuller, trembled, reached toward the dark lashes, till she had to
rein her neck back with a jerk to stop such self-indulgence.
Soothed, hypnotized, almost in a dream, she lay there beside her
baby.

That evening, at dinner, Winton said calmly:

"Well, I've been to see Fiorsen, and warned him off.  Found him at
that fellow Rosek's."  Gyp received the news with a vague sensation
of alarm.  "And I met that girl, the dancer, coming out of the
house as I was going in--made it plain I'd seen her, so I don't
think he'll trouble you."

An irresistible impulse made her ask:

"How was she looking, Dad?"

Winton smiled grimly.  How to convey his impression of the figure
he had seen coming down the steps--of those eyes growing rounder
and rounder at sight of him, of that mouth opening in an: "Oh!"

"Much the same.  Rather flabbergasted at seeing me, I think.  A
white hat--very smart.  Attractive in her way, but common, of
course.  Those two were playing the piano and fiddle when I went
up.  They tried not to let me in, but I wasn't to be put off.
Queer place, that!"

Gyp smiled.  She could see it all so well.  The black walls, the
silver statuettes, Rops drawings, scent of dead rose-leaves and
pastilles and cigarettes--and those two by the piano--and her
father so cool and dry!

"One can't stand on ceremony with fellows like that.  I hadn't
forgotten that Polish chap's behaviour to you, my dear."

Through Gyp passed a quiver of dread, a vague return of the
feelings once inspired by Rosek.

"I'm almost sorry you went, Dad.  Did you say anything very--"

"Did I?  Let's see!  No; I think I was quite polite."  He added,
with a grim, little smile: "I won't swear I didn't call one of them
a ruffian.  I know they said something about my presuming on being
a cripple."

"Oh, darling!"

"Yes; it was that Polish chap--and so he is!"

Gyp murmured:

"I'd almost rather it had been--the other."  Rosek's pale, suave
face, with the eyes behind which there were such hidden things, and
the lips sweetish and restrained and sensual--he would never
forgive!  But Winton only smiled again, patting her arm.  He was
pleased with an encounter which had relieved his feelings.

Gyp spent all that evening writing her first real love-letter.  But
when, next afternoon at six, in fulfilment of its wording, she came
to Summerhay's little house, her heart sank; for the blinds were
down and it had a deserted look.  If he had been there, he would
have been at the window, waiting.  Had he, then, not got her
letter, not been home since yesterday?  And that chill fear which
besets lovers' hearts at failure of a tryst smote her for the first
time.  In the three-cornered garden stood a decayed statue of a
naked boy with a broken bow--a sparrow was perching on his greenish
shoulder; sooty, heart-shaped lilac leaves hung round his head, and
at his legs the old Scotch terrier was sniffing.  Gyp called:
"Ossian!  Ossy!" and the old dog came, wagging his tail feebly.

"Master!  Where is your master, dear?"

Ossian poked his long nose into her calf, and that gave her a
little comfort.  She passed, perforce, away from the deserted house
and returned home; but all manner of frightened thoughts beset her.
Where had he gone?  Why had he gone?  Why had he not let her know?
Doubts--those hasty attendants on passion--came thronging, and
scepticism ran riot.  What did she know of his life, of his
interests, of him, except that he said he loved her?  Where had he
gone?  To Widrington, to some smart house-party, or even back to
Scotland?  The jealous feelings that had so besieged her at the
bungalow when his letters ceased came again now with redoubled
force.  There must be some woman who, before their love began, had
claim on him, or some girl that he admired.  He never told her of
any such--of course, he would not!  She was amazed and hurt by her
capacity for jealousy.  She had always thought she would be too
proud to feel jealousy--a sensation so dark and wretched and
undignified, but--alas!--so horribly real and clinging.

She had said she was not dining at home; so Winton had gone to his
club, and she was obliged to partake of a little trumped-up lonely
meal.  She went up to her room after it, but there came on her such
restlessness that presently she put on her things and slipped out.
She went past St. James's Church into Piccadilly, to the further,
crowded side, and began to walk toward the park.  This was foolish;
but to do a foolish thing was some relief, and she went along with
a faint smile, mocking her own recklessness.  Several women of the
town--ships of night with sails set--came rounding out of side
streets or down the main stream, with their skilled, rapid-seeming
slowness.  And at the discomfited, half-hostile stares on their
rouged and powdered faces, Gyp felt a wicked glee.  She was
disturbing, hurting them--and she wanted to hurt.

Presently, a man, in evening dress, with overcoat thrown open,
gazed pointblank into her face, and, raising his hat, ranged up
beside her.  She walked straight on, still with that half-smile,
knowing him puzzled and fearfully attracted.  Then an insensate
wish to stab him to the heart made her turn her head and look at
him.  At the expression on her face, he wilted away from her, and
again she felt that wicked glee at having hurt him.

She crossed out into the traffic, to the park side, and turned back
toward St. James's; and now she was possessed by profound, black
sadness.  If only her lover were beside her that beautiful evening,
among the lights and shadows of the trees, in the warm air!  Why
was he not among these passers-by?  She who could bring any casual
man to her side by a smile could not conjure up the only one she
wanted from this great desert of a town!  She hurried along, to get
in and hide her longing.  But at the corner of St. James's Street,
she stopped.  That was his club, nearly opposite.  Perhaps he was
there, playing cards or billiards, a few yards away, and yet as in
another world.  Presently he would come out, go to some music-hall,
or stroll home thinking of her--perhaps not even thinking of her!
Another woman passed, giving her a furtive glance.  But Gyp felt no
glee now.  And, crossing over, close under the windows of the club,
she hurried home.  When she reached her room, she broke into a
storm of tears.  How could she have liked hurting those poor women,
hurting that man--who was only paying her a man's compliment, after
all?  And with these tears, her jealous, wild feelings passed,
leaving only her longing.

Next morning brought a letter.  Summerhay wrote from an inn on the
river, asking her to come down by the eleven o'clock train, and he
would meet her at the station.  He wanted to show her a house that
he had seen; and they could have the afternoon on the river!  Gyp
received this letter, which began: "My darling!" with an ecstasy
that she could not quite conceal.  And Winton, who had watched her
face, said presently:

"I think I shall go to Newmarket, Gyp.  Home to-morrow evening."

In the train on the way down, she sat with closed eyes, in a sort
of trance.  If her lover had been there holding her in his arms, he
could not have seemed nearer.

She saw him as the train ran in; but they met without a hand-clasp,
without a word, simply looking at each other and breaking into
smiles.

A little victoria "dug up"--as Summerhay said--"horse, driver and
all," carried them slowly upward.  Under cover of the light rugs
their hands were clasped, and they never ceased to look into each
other's faces, except for those formal glances of propriety which
deceive no one.

The day was beautiful, as only early September days can be--when
the sun is hot, yet not too hot, and its light falls in a silken
radiance on trees just losing the opulent monotony of summer, on
silvery-gold reaped fields, silvery-green uplands, golden mustard;
when shots ring out in the distance, and, as one gazes, a leaf
falls, without reason, as it would seem.  Presently they branched
off the main road by a lane past a clump of beeches and drew up at
the gate of a lonely house, built of very old red brick, and
covered by Virginia creeper just turning--a house with an ingle-
nook and low, broad chimneys.  Before it was a walled, neglected
lawn, with poplars and one large walnut-tree.  The sunlight seemed
to have collected in that garden, and there was a tremendous hum of
bees.  Above the trees, the downs could be seen where racehorses,
they said, were trained.  Summerhay had the keys of the house, and
they went in.  To Gyp, it was like a child's "pretending"--to
imagine they were going to live there together, to sort out the
rooms and consecrate each.  She would not spoil this perfect day by
argument or admission of the need for a decision.  And when he
asked:

"Well, darling, what do you think of it?" she only answered:

"Oh, lovely, in a way; but let's go back to the river and make the
most of it."

They took boat at 'The Bowl of Cream,' the river inn where
Summerhay was staying.  To him, who had been a rowing man at
Oxford, the river was known from Lechlade to Richmond; but Gyp had
never in her life been on it, and its placid magic, unlike that of
any other river in the world, almost overwhelmed her.  On this
glistening, windless day, to drift along past the bright, flat
water-lily leaves over the greenish depths, to listen to the
pigeons, watch the dragon-flies flitting past, and the fish leaping
lazily, not even steering, letting her hand dabble in the water,
then cooling her sun-warmed cheek with it, and all the time gazing
at Summerhay, who, dipping his sculls gently, gazed at her--all
this was like a voyage down some river of dreams, the very
fulfilment of felicity.  There is a degree of happiness known to
the human heart which seems to belong to some enchanted world--a
bright maze into which, for a moment now and then, we escape and
wander.  To-day, he was more than ever like her Botticelli "Young
Man," with his neck bare, and his face so clear-eyed and broad and
brown.  Had she really had a life with another man?  And only a
year ago?  It seemed inconceivable!

But when, in the last backwater, he tied the boat up and came to
sit with her once more, it was already getting late, and the vague
melancholy of the now shadowy river was stealing into her.  And,
with a sort of sinking in her heart, she heard him begin:

"Gyp, we MUST go away together.  We can never stand it going on
apart, snatching hours here and there."

Pressing his hand to her cheeks, she murmured:

"Why not, darling?  Hasn't this been perfect?  What could we ever
have more perfect?  It's been paradise itself!"

"Yes; but to be thrown out every day!  To be whole days and nights
without you! Gyp, you must--you must!  What is there against it?
Don't you love me enough?"

She looked at him, and then away into the shadows.

"Too much, I think.  It's tempting Providence to change.  Let's go
on as we are, Bryan.  No; don't look like that--don't be angry!"

"Why are you afraid?  Are you sorry for our love?"

"No; but let it be like this.  Don't let's risk anything."

"Risk?  Is it people--society--you're afraid of?  I thought YOU
wouldn't care."

Gyp smiled.

"Society?  No; I'm not afraid of that."

"What, then?  Of me?"

"I don't know.  Men soon get tired.  I'm a doubter, Bryan, I can't
help it."

"As if anyone could get tired of you!  Are you afraid of yourself?"

Again Gyp smiled.

"Not of loving too little, I told you."

"How can one love too much?"

She drew his head down to her.  But when that kiss was over, she
only said again:

"No, Bryan; let's go on as we are.  I'll make up to you when I'm
with you.  If you were to tire of me, I couldn't bear it."

For a long time more he pleaded--now with anger, now with kisses,
now with reasonings; but, to all, she opposed that same tender,
half-mournful "No," and, at last, he gave it up, and, in dogged
silence, rowed her to the village, whence she was to take train
back.  It was dusk when they left the boat, and dew was falling.
Just before they reached the station, she caught his hand and
pressed it to her breast.

"Darling, don't be angry with me!  Perhaps I will--some day."

And, in the train, she tried to think herself once more in the
boat, among the shadows and the whispering reeds and all the quiet
wonder of the river.


XII


On reaching home she let herself in stealthily, and, though she had
not had dinner, went up at once to her room.  She was just taking
off her blouse when Betty entered, her round face splotched with
red, and tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Betty!  What is it?"

"Oh, my dear, where HAVE you been?  Such a dreadful piece of news!
They've stolen her!  That wicked man--your husband--he took her
right out of her pram--and went off with her in a great car--he and
that other one!  I've been half out of my mind!"  Gyp stared
aghast.  "I hollered to a policeman.  'He's stolen her--her father!
Catch them!' I said.  'However shall I face my mistress?'"  She
stopped for breath, then burst out again.  "'He's a bad one,' I
said.  'A foreigner!  They're both foreigners!'  'Her father?' he
said.  'Well, why shouldn't he?  He's only givin' her a joy ride.
He'll bring her back, never you fear.'  And I ran home--I didn't
know where you were.  Oh dear!  The major away and all--what was I
to do?  I'd just turned round to shut the gate of the square
gardens, and I never saw him till he'd put his great long arm over
the pram and snatched her out."  And, sitting on the bed, she gave
way utterly.

Gyp stood still.  Nemesis for her happiness?  That vengeful wretch,
Rosek!  This was his doing.  And she said:

"Oh, Betty, she must be crying!"

A fresh outburst of moans was the only answer.  Gyp remembered
suddenly what the lawyer had said over a year ago--it had struck
her with terror at the time.  In law, Fiorsen owned and could claim
her child.  She could have got her back, then, by bringing a
horrible case against him, but now, perhaps, she had no chance.
Was it her return to Fiorsen that they aimed at--or the giving up
of her lover?  She went over to her mirror, saying:

"We'll go at once, Betty, and get her back somehow.  Wash your
face."

While she made ready, she fought down those two horrible fears--of
losing her child, of losing her lover; the less she feared, the
better she could act, the more subtly, the swifter.  She remembered
that she had somewhere a little stiletto, given her a long time
ago.  She hunted it out, slipped off its red-leather sheath, and,
stabbing the point into a tiny cork, slipped it beneath her blouse.
If they could steal her baby, they were capable of anything.  She
wrote a note to her father, telling him what had happened, and
saying where she had gone.  Then, in a taxi, they set forth.  Cold
water and the calmness of her mistress had removed from Betty the
main traces of emotion; but she clasped Gyp's hand hard and gave
vent to heavy sighs.

Gyp would not think.  If she thought of her little one crying, she
knew she would cry, too.  But her hatred for those who had dealt
this cowardly blow grew within her.  She took a resolution and said
quietly:

"Mr. Summerhay, Betty.  That's why they've stolen our darling.  I
suppose you know he and I care for each other.  They've stolen her
so as to make me do anything they like."

A profound sigh answered her.

Behind that moon-face with the troubled eyes, what conflict was in
progress--between unquestioning morality and unquestioning belief
in Gyp, between fears for her and wishes for her happiness, between
the loyal retainer's habit of accepting and the old nurse's feeling
of being in charge?  She said faintly:

"Oh dear!  He's a nice gentleman, too!"  And suddenly, wheezing it
out with unexpected force: "To say truth, I never did hold you was
rightly married to that foreigner in that horrible registry place--
no music, no flowers, no blessin' asked, nor nothing.  I cried me
eyes out at the time."

Gyp said quietly:

"No; Betty, I never was.  I only thought I was in love."  A
convulsive squeeze and creaking, whiffling sounds heralded a fresh
outburst.  "Don't cry; we're just there.  Think of our darling!"

The cab stopped.  Feeling for her little weapon, she got out, and
with her hand slipped firmly under Betty's arm, led the way
upstairs.  Chilly shudders ran down her spine--memories of Daphne
Wing and Rosek, of that large woman--what was her name?--of many
other faces, of unholy hours spent up there, in a queer state,
never quite present, never comfortable in soul; memories of late
returnings down these wide stairs out to their cab, of Fiorsen
beside her in the darkness, his dim, broad-cheekboned face moody in
the corner or pressed close to hers.  Once they had walked a long
way homeward in the dawn, Rosek with them, Fiorsen playing on his
muted violin, to the scandal of the policemen and the cats.  Dim,
unreal memories!  Grasping Betty's arm more firmly, she rang the
bell.  When the man servant, whom she remembered well, opened the
door, her lips were so dry that they could hardly form the words:

"Is Mr. Fiorsen in, Ford?"

"No, ma'am; Mr. Fiorsen and Count Rosek went into the country this
afternoon.  I haven't their address at present."  She must have
turned white, for she could hear the man saying: "Anything I can
get you, ma'am?"

"When did they start, please?"

"One o'clock, ma'am--by car.  Count Rosek was driving himself.  I
should say they won't be away long--they just had their bags with
them."  Gyp put out her hand helplessly; she heard the servant say
in a concerned voice: "I could let you know the moment they return,
ma'am, if you'd kindly leave me your address."

Giving her card, and murmuring:

"Thank you, Ford; thank you very much," she grasped Betty's arm
again and leaned heavily on her going down the stairs.

It was real, black fear now.  To lose helpless things--children--
dogs--and know for certain that one cannot get to them, no matter
what they may be suffering!  To be pinned down to ignorance and
have in her ears the crying of her child--this horror, Gyp suffered
now.  And nothing to be done!  Nothing but to go to bed and wait--
hardest of all tasks!  Mercifully--thanks to her long day in the
open--she fell at last into a dreamless sleep, and when she was
called, there was a letter from Fiorsen on the tray with her tea.


"Gyp:

"I am not a baby-stealer like your father.  The law gives me the
right to my own child.  But swear to give up your lover, and the
baby shall come back to you at once.  If you do not give him up, I
will take her away out of England.  Send me an answer to this post-
office, and do not let your father try any tricks upon me.

"GUSTAV FIORSEN."


Beneath was written the address of a West End post-office.

When Gyp had finished reading, she went through some moments of
such mental anguish as she had never known, but--just as when Betty
first told her of the stealing--her wits and wariness came quickly
back.  Had he been drinking when he wrote that letter?  She could
almost fancy that she smelled brandy, but it was so easy to fancy
what one wanted to.  She read it through again--this time, she felt
almost sure that it had been dictated to him.  If he had composed
the wording himself, he would never have resisted a gibe at the
law, or a gibe at himself for thus safeguarding her virtue.  It was
Rosek's doing.  Her anger flamed up anew.  Since they used such
mean, cruel ways, why need she herself be scrupulous?  She sprang
out of bed and wrote:


"How COULD you do such a brutal thing?  At all events, let the
darling have her nurse.  It's not like you to let a little child
suffer.  Betty will be ready to come the minute you send for her.
As for myself, you must give me time to decide.  I will let you
know within two days.

"GYP."


When she had sent this off, and a telegram to her father at
Newmarket, she read Fiorsen's letter once more, and was more than
ever certain that it was Rosek's wording.  And, suddenly, she
thought of Daphne Wing, whom her father had seen coming out of
Rosek's house.  Through her there might be a way of getting news.
She seemed to see again the girl lying so white and void of hope
when robbed by death of her own just-born babe.  Yes; surely it was
worth trying.

An hour later, her cab stopped before the Wagges' door in Frankland
Street.  But just as she was about to ring the bell, a voice from
behind her said:

"Allow me; I have a key.  What may I--  Oh, it's you!"  She turned.
Mr. Wagge, in professional habiliments, was standing there.  "Come
in; come in," he said.  "I was wondering whether perhaps we
shouldn't be seeing you after what's transpired."

Hanging his tall black hat, craped nearly to the crown, on a knob
of the mahogany stand, he said huskily:

"I DID think we'd seen the last of that," and opened the dining-
room door.  "Come in, ma'am.  We can put our heads together better
in here."

In that too well remembered room, the table was laid with a stained
white cloth, a cruet-stand, and bottle of Worcestershire sauce.
The little blue bowl was gone, so that nothing now marred the
harmony of red and green.  Gyp said quickly:

"Doesn't Daph--Daisy live at home, then, now?"

The expression on Mr. Wagge's face was singular; suspicion, relief,
and a sort of craftiness were blended with that furtive admiration
which Gyp seemed always to excite in him.

"Do I understand that you--er--"

"I came to ask if Daisy would do something for me."

Mr. Wagge blew his nose.

"You didn't know--" he began again.

"Yes; I dare say she sees my husband, if that's what you mean; and
I don't mind--he's nothing to me now."

Mr. Wagge's face became further complicated by the sensations of a
husband.

"Well," he said, "it's not to be wondered at, perhaps, in the
circumstances.  I'm sure I always thought--"

Gyp interrupted swiftly.

"Please, Mr. Wagge--please!  Will you give me Daisy's address?"

Mr. Wagge remained a moment in deep thought; then he said, in a
gruff, jerky voice:

"Seventy-three Comrade Street, So'o.  Up to seeing him there on
Tuesday, I must say I cherished every hope.  Now I'm sorry I didn't
strike him--he was too quick for me--"  He had raised one of his
gloved hands and was sawing it up and down.  The sight of that
black object cleaving the air nearly made Gyp scream, her nerves
were so on edge.  "It's her blasted independence--I beg pardon--but
who wouldn't?" he ended suddenly.

Gyp passed him.

"Who wouldn't?" she heard his voice behind her.  "I did think she'd
have run straight this time--"  And while she was fumbling at the
outer door, his red, pudgy face, with its round grey beard,
protruded almost over her shoulder.  "If you're going to see her, I
hope you'll--"

Gyp was gone.  In her cab she shivered.  Once she had lunched with
her father at a restaurant in the Strand.  It had been full of Mr.
Wagges.  But, suddenly, she thought: 'It's hard on him, poor man!'


XIII


Seventy-three Comrade Street, Soho, was difficult to find; but,
with the aid of a milk-boy, Gyp discovered the alley at last, and
the right door.  There her pride took sudden alarm, and but for the
milk-boy's eyes fixed on her while he let out his professional
howl, she might have fled.  A plump white hand and wrist emerging
took the can, and Daphne Wing's voice said:

"Oh, where's the cream?"

"Ain't got none."

"Oh!  I told you always--two pennyworth at twelve o'clock."

"Two penn'orth."  The boy's eyes goggled.

"Didn't you want to speak to her, miss?"  He beat the closing door.
"Lidy wants to speak to you!  Good-mornin', miss."

The figure of Daphne Wing in a blue kimono was revealed.  Her eyes
peered round at Gyp.

"Oh!" she said.

"May I come in?"

"Oh, yes!  Oh, do!  I've been practising.  Oh, I am glad to see
you!"

In the middle of the studio, a little table was laid for two.
Daphne Wing went up to it, holding in one hand the milk-can and in
the other a short knife, with which she had evidently been opening
oysters.  Placing the knife on the table, she turned round to Gyp.
Her face was deep pink, and so was her neck, which ran V-shaped
down into the folds of her kimono.  Her eyes, round as saucers, met
Gyp's, fell, met them again.  She said:

"Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen, I am glad!  I really am.  I wanted you so much
to see my room--do you like it?  How DID you know where I was?"
She looked down and added: "I think I'd better tell you.  Mr.
Fiorsen came here, and, since then, I've seen him at Count Rosek's--
and--and--"

"Yes; but don't trouble to tell me, please."

Daphne Wing hurried on.

"Of course, I'm quite mistress of myself now."  Then, all at once,
the uneasy woman-of-the-world mask dropped from her face and she
seized Gyp's hand.  "Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen, I shall never be like you!"

With a little shiver, Gyp said:

"I hope not."  Her pride rushed up in her.  How could she ask this
girl anything?  She choked back that feeling, and said stonily: "Do
you remember my baby?  No, of course; you never saw her.  HE and
Count Rosek have just taken her away from me."

Daphne Wing convulsively squeezed the hand of which she had
possessed herself.

"Oh, what a wicked thing!  When?"

"Yesterday afternoon."

"Oh, I AM glad I haven't seen him since!  Oh, I DO think that was
wicked!  Aren't you dreadfully distressed?"  The least of smiles
played on Gyp's mouth.  Daphne Wing burst forth: "D'you know--I
think--I think your self-control is something awful.  It frightens
me.  If my baby had lived and been stolen like that, I should have
been half dead by now."

Gyp answered stonily as ever:

"Yes; I want her back, and I wondered--"

Daphne Wing clasped her hands.

"Oh, I expect I can make him--"  She stopped, confused, then added
hastily: "Are you sure you don't mind?"

"I shouldn't mind if he had fifty loves.  Perhaps he has."

Daphne Wing uttered a little gasp; then her teeth came down rather
viciously on her lower lip.

"I mean him to do what I want now, not what he wants me.  That's
the only way when you love.  Oh, don't smile like that, please; you
do make me feel so--uncertain."

"When are you going to see him next?"

Daphne Wing grew very pink.

"I don't know.  He might be coming in to lunch.  You see, it's not
as if he were a stranger, is it?"  Casting up her eyes a little,
she added: "He won't even let me speak your name; it makes him mad.
That's why I'm sure he still loves you; only, his love is so
funny."  And, seizing Gyp's hand: "I shall never forget how good
you were to me.  I do hope you--you love somebody else."  Gyp
pressed those damp, clinging fingers, and Daphne Wing hurried on:
"I'm sure your baby's a darling.  How you must be suffering!  You
look quite pale.  But it isn't any good suffering.  I learned that."

Her eyes lighted on the table, and a faint ruefulness came into
them, as if she were going to ask Gyp to eat the oysters.

Gyp bent forward and put her lips to the girl's forehead.

"Good-bye.  My baby would thank you if she knew."

And she turned to go.  She heard a sob.  Daphne Wing was crying;
then, before Gyp could speak, she struck herself on the throat, and
said, in a strangled voice:

"Tha--that's idiotic!  I--I haven't cried since--since, you know.
I--I'm perfect mistress of myself; only, I--only--I suppose you
reminded me--I NEVER cry!"

Those words and the sound of a hiccough accompanied Gyp down the
alley to her cab.

When she got back to Bury Street, she found Betty sitting in the
hall with her bonnet on.  She had not been sent for, nor had any
reply come from Newmarket.  Gyp could not eat, could settle to
nothing.  She went up to her bedroom to get away from the servants'
eyes, and went on mechanically with a frock of little Gyp's she had
begun on the fatal morning Fiorsen had come back.  Every other
minute she stopped to listen to sounds that never meant anything,
went a hundred times to the window to look at nothing.  Betty, too,
had come upstairs, and was in the nursery opposite; Gyp could hear
her moving about restlessly among her household gods.  Presently,
those sounds ceased, and, peering into the room, she saw the stout
woman still in her bonnet, sitting on a trunk, with her back
turned, uttering heavy sighs.  Gyp stole back into her own room
with a sick, trembling sensation.  If--if her baby really could not
be recovered except by that sacrifice!  If that cruel letter were
the last word, and she forced to decide between them!  Which would
she give up?  Which follow--her lover or her child?

She went to the window for air--the pain about her heart was
dreadful.  And, leaning there against the shutter, she felt quite
dizzy from the violence of a struggle that refused coherent thought
or feeling, and was just a dumb pull of instincts, both so terribly
strong--how terribly strong she had not till then perceived.

Her eyes fell on the picture that reminded her of Bryan; it seemed
now to have no resemblance--none.  He was much too real, and loved,
and wanted.  Less than twenty-four hours ago, she had turned a deaf
ear to his pleading that she should go to him for ever.  How funny!
Would she not rush to him now--go when and where he liked?  Ah, if
only she were back in his arms!  Never could she give him up--
never!  But then in her ears sounded the cooing words, "Dear mum!"
Her baby--that tiny thing--how could she give her up, and never
again hold close and kiss that round, perfect little body, that
grave little dark-eyed face?

The roar of London came in through the open window.  So much life,
so many people--and not a soul could help!  She left the window and
went to the cottage-piano she had there, out of Winton's way.  But
she only sat with arms folded, looking at the keys.  The song that
girl had sung at Fiorsen's concert--song of the broken heart--came
back to her.

No, no; she couldn't--couldn't!  It was to her lover she would
cling.  And tears ran down her cheeks.

A cab had stopped below, but not till Betty came rushing in did she
look up.


XIV


When, trembling all over, she entered the dining-room, Fiorsen was
standing by the sideboard, holding the child.

He came straight up and put her into Gyp's arms.

"Take her," he said, "and do what you will.  Be happy."

Hugging her baby, close to the door as she could get, Gyp answered
nothing.  Her heart was in such a tumult that she could not have
spoken a word to save her life; relieved, as one dying of thirst by
unexpected water; grateful, bewildered, abashed, yet instinctively
aware of something evanescent and unreal in his altruism.  Daphne
Wing!  What bargain did this represent?

Fiorsen must have felt the chill of this instinctive vision, for he
cried out:

"Yes!  You never believed in me; you never thought me capable of
good!  Why didn't you?"

Gyp bent her face over her baby to hide the quivering of her lips.

"I am sorry--very, very sorry."

Fiorsen came closer and looked into her face.

"By God, I am afraid I shall never forget you--never!"

Tears had come into his eyes, and Gyp watched them, moved,
troubled, but still deeply mistrusting.

He brushed his hand across his face; and the thought flashed
through her: 'He means me to see them!  Ah, what a cynical wretch I
am!'

Fiorsen saw that thought pass, and muttering suddenly:

"Good-bye, Gyp!  I am not all bad.  I AM NOT!"  He tore the door
open and was gone.

That passionate "I am not!" saved Gyp from a breakdown.  No; even
at his highest pitch of abnegation, he could not forget himself.

Relief, if overwhelming, is slowly realized; but when, at last,
what she had escaped and what lay before her were staring full in
each other's face, it seemed to her that she must cry out, and tell
the whole world of her intoxicating happiness.  And the moment
little Gyp was in Betty's arms, she sat down and wrote to
Summerhay:


"DARLING,

"I've had a fearful time.  My baby was stolen by him while I was
with you.  He wrote me a letter saying that he would give her back
to me if I gave you up.  But I found I couldn't give you up, not
even for my baby.  And then, a few minutes ago, he brought her--
none the worse.  Tomorrow we shall all go down to Mildenham; but
very soon, if you still want me, I'll come with you wherever you
like.  My father and Betty will take care of my treasure till we
come back; and then, perhaps, the old red house we saw--after all.
Only--now is the time for you to draw back.  Look into the future--
look far!  Don't let any foolish pity--or honour--weigh with you;
be utterly sure, I do beseech you.  I can just bear it now if I
know it's for your good.  But afterward it'll be too late.  It
would be the worst misery of all if I made you unhappy.  Oh, make
sure--make sure!  I shall understand.  I mean this with every bit
of me.  And now, good-night, and perhaps--good-bye.

"Your

"GYP."


She read it over and shivered.  Did she really mean that she could
bear it if he drew back--if he did look far, far into the future,
and decided that she was not worth the candle?  Ah, but better now--
than later.

She closed and sealed the letter, and sat down to wait for her
father.  And she thought: 'Why does one have a heart?  Why is there
in one something so much too soft?'


Ten days later, at Mildenham station, holding her father's hand,
Gyp could scarcely see him for the mist before her eyes.  How good
he had been to her all those last days, since she told him that she
was going to take the plunge!  Not a word of remonstrance or
complaint.

"Good-bye, my love!  Take care of yourself; wire from London, and
again from Paris."  And, smiling up at her, he added: "He has luck;
I had none."

The mist became tears, rolled down, fell on his glove.

"Not too long out there, Gyp!"

She pressed her wet cheek passionately to his.  The train moved,
but, so long as she could see, she watched him standing on the
platform, waving his grey hat, then, in her corner, sat down,
blinded with tears behind her veil.  She had not cried when she
left him the day of her fatal marriage; she cried now that she was
leaving him to go to her incredible happiness.

Strange!  But her heart had grown since then.



PART IV


I


Little Gyp, aged nearly four and a half that first of May, stood at
the edge of the tulip border, bowing to two hen turkeys who were
poking their heads elegantly here and there among the flowers.  She
was absurdly like her mother, the same oval-shaped face, dark
arched brows, large and clear brown eyes; but she had the modern
child's open-air look; her hair, that curled over at the ends, was
not allowed to be long, and her polished brown legs were bare to
the knees.

"Turkeys!  You aren't good, are you?  Come ON!"  And, stretching
out her hands with the palms held up, she backed away from the
tulip-bed.  The turkeys, trailing delicately their long-toed feet
and uttering soft, liquid interrogations, moved after her in hopes
of what she was not holding in her little brown hands.  The sun,
down in the west, for it was past tea-time, slanted from over the
roof of the red house, and painted up that small procession--the
deep blue frock of little Gyp, the glint of gold in the chestnut of
her hair; the daisy-starred grass; the dark birds with translucent
red dewlaps, and checkered tails and the tulip background, puce and
red and yellow.  When she had lured them to the open gate, little
Gyp raised herself, and said:

"Aren't you duffies, dears?  Shoo!"  And on the tails of the
turkeys she shut the gate.  Then she went to where, under the
walnut-tree--the one large tree of that walled garden--a very old
Scotch terrier was lying, and sitting down beside him, began
stroking his white muzzle, saying:

"Ossy, Ossy, do you love me?"

Presently, seeing her mother in the porch, she jumped up, and
crying out: "Ossy--Ossy!  Walk!" rushed to Gyp and embraced her
legs, while the old Scotch terrier slowly followed.

Thus held prisoner, Gyp watched the dog's approach.  Nearly three
years had changed her a little.  Her face was softer, and rather
more grave, her form a little fuller, her hair, if anything,
darker, and done differently--instead of waving in wings and being
coiled up behind, it was smoothly gathered round in a soft and
lustrous helmet, by which fashion the shape of her head was better
revealed.

"Darling, go and ask Pettance to put a fresh piece of sulphur in
Ossy's water-bowl, and to cut up his meat finer.  You can give
Hotspur and Brownie two lumps of sugar each; and then we'll go
out."  Going down on her knees in the porch, she parted the old
dog's hair, and examined his eczema, thinking: "I must rub some
more of that stuff in to-night.  Oh, ducky, you're not smelling
your best!  Yes; only--not my face!"

A telegraph-boy was coming from the gate.  Gyp opened the missive
with the faint tremor she always felt when Summerhay was not with
her.


Detained; shall be down by last train; need not come up to-morrow.--
BRYAN."


When the boy was gone, she stooped down and stroked the old dog's
head.

"Master home all day to-morrow, Ossy--master home!"

A voice from the path said, "Beautiful evenin', ma'am."

The "old scoundrel," Pettance, stiffer in the ankle-joints, with
more lines in his gargoyle's face, fewer stumps in his gargoyle's
mouth, more film over his dark, burning little eyes, was standing
before her, and, behind him, little Gyp, one foot rather before the
other, as Gyp had been wont to stand, waited gravely.

"Oh, Pettance, Mr. Summerhay will be at home all to-morrow, and
we'll go a long ride: and when you exercise, will you call at the
inn, in case I don't go that way, and tell Major Winton I expect
him to dinner to-night?"

"Yes, ma'am; and I've seen the pony for little Miss Gyp this
morning, ma'am.  It's a mouse pony, five year old, sound, good
temper, pretty little paces.  I says to the man: 'Don't you come it
over me,' I says; 'I was born on an 'orse.  Talk of twenty pounds,
for that pony!  Ten, and lucky to get it!'  'Well,' he says,
'Pettance, it's no good to talk round an' round with you.
Fifteen!' he says.  'I'll throw you one in,' I says, 'Eleven!  Take
it or leave it.'  'Ah!' he says, 'Pettance, YOU know 'ow to buy an
'orse.  All right,' he says; 'twelve!'  She's worth all of fifteen,
ma'am, and the major's passed her.  So if you likes to have 'er,
there she is!"

Gyp looked at her little daughter, who had given one excited hop,
but now stood still, her eyes flying up at her mother and her lips
parted; and she thought: "The darling!  She never begs for
anything!"

"Very well, Pettance; buy her."

The "old scoundrel" touched his forelock:

"Yes, ma'am--very good, ma'am.  Beautiful evenin', ma'am."  And,
withdrawing at his gait of one whose feet are at permanent right
angles to the legs, he mused: 'And that'll be two in my pocket.'

Ten minutes later Gyp, little Gyp, and Ossian emerged from the
garden gate for their evening walk.  They went, not as usual, up to
the downs, but toward the river, making for what they called "the
wild."  This was an outlying plot of neglected ground belonging to
their farm, two sedgy meadows, hedged by banks on which grew oaks
and ashes.  An old stone linhay, covered to its broken thatch by a
huge ivy bush, stood at the angle where the meadows met.  The spot
had a strange life to itself in that smooth, kempt countryside of
cornfields, grass, and beech-clumps; it was favoured by beasts and
birds, and little Gyp had recently seen two baby hares there.  From
an oak-tree, where the crinkled leaves were not yet large enough to
hide him, a cuckoo was calling and they stopped to look at the grey
bird till he flew off.  The singing and serenity, the green and
golden oaks and ashes, the flowers--marsh-orchis, ladies' smocks,
and cuckoo-buds, starring the rushy grass--all brought to Gyp that
feeling of the uncapturable spirit which lies behind the forms of
nature, the shadowy, hovering smile of life that is ever vanishing
and ever springing again out of death.  While they stood there
close to the old linhay a bird came flying round them in wide
circles, uttering shrill cries.  It had a long beak and long,
pointed wings, and seemed distressed by their presence.  Little Gyp
squeezed her mother's hand.

"Poor bird!  Isn't it a poor bird, mum?"

"Yes, dear, it's a curlew--I wonder what's the matter with it.
Perhaps its mate is hurt."

"What is its mate?"

"The bird it lives with."

"It's afraid of us.  It's not like other birds.  Is it a real bird,
mum?  Or one out of the sky?"

"I think it's real.  Shall we go on and see if we can find out
what's the matter?"

"Yes."

They went on into the sedgy grass and the curlew continued to
circle, vanishing and reappearing from behind the trees, always
uttering those shrill cries.  Little Gyp said:

"Mum, could we speak to it?  Because we're not going to hurt
nothing, are we?"

"Of course not, darling!  But I'm afraid the poor bird's too wild.
Try, if you like.  Call to it: 'Courlie!  Courlie!"'

Little Gyp's piping joined the curlew's cries and other bird-songs
in the bright shadowy quiet of the evening till Gyp said:

"Oh, look; it's dipping close to the ground, over there in that
corner--it's got a nest!  We won't go near, will we?"

Little Gyp echoed in a hushed voice:

"It's got a nest."

They stole back out of the gate close to the linhay, the curlew
still fighting and crying behind them.

"Aren't we glad the mate isn't hurt, mum?"

Gyp answered with a shiver:

"Yes, darling, fearfully glad.  Now then, shall we go down and ask
Grandy to come up to dinner?"

Little Gyp hopped.  And they went toward the river.

At "The Bowl of Cream," Winton had for two years had rooms, which
he occupied as often as his pursuits permitted.  He had refused to
make his home with Gyp, desiring to be on hand only when she wanted
him; and a simple life of it he led in those simple quarters,
riding with her when Summerhay was in town, visiting the cottagers,
smoking cigars, laying plans for the defence of his daughter's
position, and devoting himself to the whims of little Gyp.  This
moment, when his grandchild was to begin to ride, was in a manner
sacred to one for whom life had scant meaning apart from horses.
Looking at them, hand in hand, Gyp thought: 'Dad loves her as much
as he loves me now--more, I think.'

Lonely dinner at the inn was an infliction which he studiously
concealed from Gyp, so he accepted their invitation without
alacrity, and they walked on up the hill, with little Gyp in the
middle, supported by a hand on each side.

The Red House contained nothing that had been in Gyp's married home
except the piano.  It had white walls, furniture of old oak, and
for pictures reproductions of her favourites.  "The Death of
Procris" hung in the dining-room.  Winton never failed to
scrutinize it when he came in to a meal--that "deuced rum affair"
appeared to have a fascination for him.  He approved of the dining-
room altogether; its narrow oak "last supper" table made gay by a
strip of blue linen, old brick hearth, casement windows hung with
flowered curtains--all had a pleasing austerity, uncannily redeemed
to softness.  He got on well enough with Summerhay, but he enjoyed
himself much more when he was there alone with his daughter.  And
this evening he was especially glad to have her to himself, for she
had seemed of late rather grave and absent-minded.  When dinner was
over and they were undisturbed, he said:

"It must be pretty dull for you, my dear, sometimes.  I wish you
saw more people."

"Oh no, Dad."

Watching her smile, he thought: 'That's not sour grapes"--What is
the trouble, then?'

"I suppose you've not heard anything of that fellow Fiorsen
lately?"

"Not a word.  But he's playing again in London this season, I see."

"Is he?  Ah, that'll cheer them."  And he thought: 'It's not that,
then.  But there's something--I'll swear!'

"I hear that Bryan's going ahead.  I met a man in town last week
who spoke of him as about the most promising junior at the bar."

"Yes; he's doing awfully well."  And a sound like a faint sigh
caught his ears.  "Would you say he's changed much since you knew
him, Dad?"

"I don't know--perhaps a little less jokey."

"Yes; he's lost his laugh."

It was very evenly and softly said, yet it affected Winton.

"Can't expect him to keep that," he answered, "turning people
inside out, day after day--and most of them rotten.  By George,
what a life!"

But when he had left her, strolling back in the bright moonlight,
he reverted to his suspicions and wished he had said more directly:
"Look here, Gyp, are you worrying about Bryan--or have people been
making themselves unpleasant?"

He had, in these last three years, become unconsciously inimical to
his own class and their imitators, and more than ever friendly to
the poor--visiting the labourers, small farmers, and small
tradesmen, doing them little turns when he could, giving their
children sixpences, and so forth.  The fact that they could not
afford to put on airs of virtue escaped him; he perceived only that
they were respectful and friendly to Gyp and this warmed his heart
toward them in proportion as he grew exasperated with the two or
three landed families, and that parvenu lot in the riverside
villas.

When he first came down, the chief landowner--a man he had known
for years--had invited him to lunch.  He had accepted with the
deliberate intention of finding out where he was, and had taken the
first natural opportunity of mentioning his daughter.  She was, he
said, devoted to her flowers; the Red House had quite a good
garden.  His friend's wife, slightly lifting her brows, had
answered with a nervous smile: "Oh! yes; of course--yes."  A
silence had, not unnaturally, fallen.  Since then, Winton had
saluted his friend and his friend's wife with such frigid
politeness as froze the very marrow in their bones.  He had not
gone there fishing for Gyp to be called on, but to show these
people that his daughter could not be slighted with impunity.
Foolish of him, for, man of the world to his fingertips, he knew
perfectly well that a woman living with a man to whom she was not
married could not be recognized by people with any pretensions to
orthodoxy; Gyp was beyond even the debatable ground on which stood
those who have been divorced and are married again.  But even a man
of the world is not proof against the warping of devotion, and
Winton was ready to charge any windmill at any moment on her
behalf.

Outside the inn door, exhaling the last puffs of his good-night
cigarette, he thought: 'What wouldn't I give for the old days, and
a chance to wing some of these moral upstarts!'


II


The last train was not due till eleven-thirty, and having seen that
the evening tray had sandwiches, Gyp went to Summerhay's study, the
room at right angles to the body of the house, over which was their
bedroom.  Here, if she had nothing to do, she always came when he
was away, feeling nearer to him.  She would have been horrified if
she had known of her father's sentiments on her behalf.  Her
instant denial of the wish to see more people had been quite
genuine.  The conditions of her life, in that respect, often seemed
to her ideal.  It was such a joy to be free of people one did not
care two straws about, and of all empty social functions.
Everything she had now was real--love, and nature, riding, music,
animals, and poor people.  What else was worth having?  She would
not have changed for anything.  It often seemed to her that books
and plays about the unhappiness of women in her position were all
false.  If one loved, what could one want better?  Such women, if
unhappy, could have no pride; or else could not really love!  She
had recently been reading "Anna Karenina," and had often said to
herself: "There's something not true about it--as if Tolstoy wanted
to make us believe that Anna was secretly feeling remorse.  If one
loves, one doesn't feel remorse.  Even if my baby had been taken
away, I shouldn't have felt remorse.  One gives oneself to love--or
one does not."

She even derived a positive joy from the feeling that her love
imposed a sort of isolation; she liked to be apart--for him.
Besides, by her very birth she was outside the fold of society, her
love beyond the love of those within it--just as her father's love
had been.  And her pride was greater than theirs, too.  How could
women mope and moan because they were cast out, and try to scratch
their way back where they were not welcome?  How could any woman do
that?  Sometimes, she wondered whether, if Fiorsen died, she would
marry her lover.  What difference would it make?  She could not
love him more.  It would only make him feel, perhaps, too sure of
her, make it all a matter of course.  For herself, she would rather
go on as she was.  But for him, she was not certain, of late had
been less and less certain.  He was not bound now, could leave her
when he tired!  And yet--did he perhaps feel himself more bound
than if they were married--unfairly bound?  It was this thought--
barely more than the shadow of a thought--which had given her, of
late, the extra gravity noticed by her father.

In that unlighted room with the moonbeams drifting in, she sat down
at Summerhay's bureau, where he often worked too late at his cases,
depriving her of himself.  She sat there resting her elbows on the
bare wood, crossing her finger-tips, gazing out into the moonlight,
her mind drifting on a stream of memories that seemed to have
beginning only from the year when he came into her life.  A smile
crept out on her face, and now and then she uttered a little sigh
of contentment.

So many memories, nearly all happy!  Surely, the most adroit work
of the jeweller who put the human soul together was his provision
of its power to forget the dark and remember sunshine.  The year
and a half of her life with Fiorsen, the empty months that followed
it were gone, dispersed like mist by the radiance of the last three
years in whose sky had hung just one cloud, no bigger than a hand,
of doubt whether Summerhay really loved her as much as she loved
him, whether from her company he got as much as the all she got
from his.  She would not have been her distrustful self if she
could have settled down in complacent security; and her mind was
ever at stretch on that point, comparing past days and nights with
the days and nights of the present.  Her prevision that, when she
loved, it would be desperately, had been fulfilled.  He had become
her life.  When this befalls one whose besetting strength and
weakness alike is pride--no wonder that she doubts.

For their Odyssey they had gone to Spain--that brown un-European
land of "lyrio" flowers, and cries of "Agua!" in the streets, where
the men seem cleft to the waist when they are astride of horses,
under their wide black hats, and the black-clothed women with
wonderful eyes still look as if they missed their Eastern veils.
It had been a month of gaiety and glamour, last days of September
and early days of October, a revel of enchanted wanderings in the
streets of Seville, of embraces and laughter, of strange scents and
stranger sounds, of orange light and velvety shadows, and all the
warmth and deep gravity of Spain.  The Alcazar, the cigarette-
girls, the Gipsy dancers of Triana, the old brown ruins to which
they rode, the streets, and the square with its grave talkers
sitting on benches in the sun, the water-sellers and the melons;
the mules, and the dark ragged man out of a dream, picking up the
ends of cigarettes, the wine of Malaga, burnt fire and honey!
Seville had bewitched them--they got no further.  They had come
back across the brown uplands of Castile to Madrid and Goya and
Velasquez, till it was time for Paris, before the law-term began.
There, in a queer little French hotel--all bedrooms, and a lift,
coffee and carved beds, wood fires, and a chambermaid who seemed
all France, and down below a restaurant, to which such as knew
about eating came, with waiters who looked like monks, both fat and
lean--they had spent a week.  Three special memories of that week
started up in the moonlight before Gyp's eyes:  The long drive in
the Bois among the falling leaves of trees flashing with colour in
the crisp air under a brilliant sky.  A moment in the Louvre before
the Leonardo "Bacchus," when--his "restored" pink skin forgotten--
all the world seemed to drop away while she listened, with the
listening figure before her, to some mysterious music of growing
flowers and secret life.  And that last most disconcerting memory,
of the night before they returned.  They were having supper after
the theatre in their restaurant, when, in a mirror she saw three
people come in and take seats at a table a little way behind--
Fiorsen, Rosek, and Daphne Wing!  How she managed to show no sign
she never knew!  While they were ordering, she was safe, for Rosek
was a gourmet, and the girl would certainly be hungry; but after
that, she knew that nothing could save her being seen--Rosek would
mark down every woman in the room!  Should she pretend to feel
faint and slip out into the hotel?  Or let Bryan know?  Or sit
there laughing and talking, eating and drinking, as if nothing were
behind her?

Her own face in the mirror had a flush, and her eyes were bright.
When they saw her, they would see that she was happy, safe in her
love.  Her foot sought Summerhay's beneath the table.  How splendid
and brown and fit he looked, compared with those two pale, towny
creatures!  And he was gazing at her as though just discovering her
beauty.  How could she ever--that man with his little beard and his
white face and those eyes--how could she ever!  Ugh!  And then, in
the mirror, she saw Rosek's dark-circled eyes fasten on her and
betray their recognition by a sudden gleam, saw his lips
compressed, and a faint red come up in his cheeks.  What would he
do?  The girl's back was turned--her perfect back--and she was
eating.  And Fiorsen was staring straight before him in that moody
way she knew so well.  All depended on that deadly little man, who
had once kissed her throat.  A sick feeling seized on Gyp.  If her
lover knew that within five yards of him were those two men!  But
she still smiled and talked, and touched his foot.  Rosek had seen
that she was conscious--was getting from it a kind of satisfaction.
She saw him lean over and whisper to the girl, and Daphne Wing
turning to look, and her mouth opening for a smothered "Oh!"  Gyp
saw her give an uneasy glance at Fiorsen, and then begin again to
eat.  Surely she would want to get away before he saw.  Yes; very
soon she rose.  What little airs of the world she had now--quite
mistress of the situation!  The wrap must be placed exactly on her
shoulders; and how she walked, giving just one startled look back
from the door.  Gone!  The ordeal over!  And Gyp said:

"Let's go up, darling."

She felt as if they had both escaped a deadly peril--not from
anything those two could do to him or her, but from the cruel ache
and jealousy of the past, which the sight of that man would have
brought him.

Women, for their age, are surely older than men--married women, at
all events, than men who have not had that experience.  And all
through those first weeks of their life together, there was a kind
of wise watchfulness in Gyp.  He was only a boy in knowledge of
life as she saw it, and though his character was so much more
decided, active, and insistent than her own, she felt it lay with
her to shape the course and avoid the shallows and sunken rocks.
The house they had seen together near the river, under the
Berkshire downs, was still empty; and while it was being got ready,
they lived at a London hotel.  She had insisted that he should tell
no one of their life together.  If that must come, she wanted to be
firmly settled in, with little Gyp and Betty and the horses, so
that it should all be for him as much like respectable married life
as possible.  But, one day, in the first week after their return,
while in her room, just back from a long day's shopping, a card was
brought up to her: "Lady Summerhay."  Her first impulse was to be
"not at home"; her second, "I'd better face it.  Bryan would wish
me to see her!"  When the page-boy was gone, she turned to the
mirror and looked at herself doubtfully.  She seemed to know
exactly what that tall woman whom she had seen on the platform
would think of her--too soft, not capable, not right for him!--not
even if she were legally his wife.  And touching her hair, laying a
dab of scent on her eyebrows, she turned and went downstairs
fluttering, but outwardly calm enough.

In the little low-roofed inner lounge of that old hotel, whose
rooms were all "entirely renovated," Gyp saw her visitor standing
at a table, rapidly turning the pages of an illustrated magazine,
as people will when their minds are set upon a coming operation.
And she thought: 'I believe she's more frightened than I am!'

Lady Summerhay held out a gloved hand.

"How do you do?" she said.  "I hope you'll forgive my coming."

Gyp took the hand.

"Thank you.  It was very good of you.  I'm sorry Bryan isn't in
yet.  Will you have some tea?"

"I've had tea; but do let's sit down.  How do you find the hotel?"

"Very nice."

On a velvet lounge that had survived the renovation, they sat side
by side, screwed round toward each other.

"Bryan's told me what a pleasant time you had abroad.  He's looking
very well, I think.  I'm devoted to him, you know."

Gyp answered softly:

"Yes, you must be."  And her heart felt suddenly as hard as flint.

Lady Summerhay gave her a quick look.

"I--I hope you won't mind my being frank--I've been so worried.
It's an unhappy position, isn't it?"  Gyp did not answer, and she
hurried on.  "If there's anything I can do to help, I should be so
glad--it must be horrid for you."

Gyp said very quietly:

"Oh! no.  I'm perfectly happy--couldn't be happier."  And she
thought: 'I suppose she doesn't believe that.'

Lady Summerhay was looking at her fixedly.

"One doesn't realize these things at first--neither of you will,
till you see how dreadfully Society can cold-shoulder."

Gyp made an effort to control a smile.

"One can only be cold-shouldered if one puts oneself in the way of
it.  I should never wish to see or speak to anyone who couldn't
take me just for what I am.  And I don't really see what difference
it will make to Bryan; most men of his age have someone,
somewhere."  She felt malicious pleasure watching her visitor jib
and frown at the cynicism of that soft speech; a kind of hatred had
come on her of this society woman, who--disguise it as she would--
was at heart her enemy, who regarded her, must regard her, as an
enslaver, as a despoiler of her son's worldly chances, a Delilah
dragging him down.  She said still more quietly: "He need tell no
one of my existence; and you can be quite sure that if ever he
feels he's had enough of me, he'll never be troubled by the sight
of me again."

And she got up.  Lady Summerhay also rose.

"I hope you don't think--I really am only too anxious to--"

"I think it's better to be quite frank.  You will never like me, or
forgive me for ensnaring Bryan.  And so it had better be, please,
as it would be if I were just his common mistress.  That will be
perfectly all right for both of us.  It was very good of you to
come, though.  Thank you--and good-bye."

Lady Summerhay literally faltered with speech and hand.

With a malicious smile, Gyp watched her retirement among the little
tables and elaborately modern chairs till her tall figure had
disappeared behind a column.  Then she sat down again on the
lounge, pressing her hands to her burning ears.  She had never till
then known the strength of the pride-demon within her; at the
moment, it was almost stronger than her love.  She was still
sitting there, when the page-boy brought her another card--her
father's.  She sprang up saying:

"Yes, here, please."

Winton came in all brisk and elated at sight of her after this long
absence; and, throwing her arms round his neck, she hugged him
tight.  He was doubly precious to her after the encounter she had
just gone though.  When he had given her news of Mildenham and
little Gyp, he looked at her steadily, and said:

"The coast'll be clear for you both down there, and at Bury Street,
whenever you like to come, Gyp.  I shall regard this as your real
marriage.  I shall have the servants in and make that plain."

A row like family prayers--and Dad standing up very straight,
saying in his dry way: "You will be so good in future as to
remember--"  "I shall be obliged if you will," and so on; Betty's
round face pouting at being brought in with all the others;
Markey's soft, inscrutable; Mrs. Markey's demure and goggling; the
maids' rabbit-faces; old Pettance's carved grin the film lifting
from his little burning eyes: "Ha! Mr. Bryn Summer'ay; he bought
her orse, and so she's gone to 'im!"  And she said:

"Darling, I don't know!  It's awfully sweet of you.  We'll see
later."

Winton patted her hand.  "We must stand up to 'em, you know, Gyp.
You mustn't get your tail down."

Gyp laughed.

"No, Dad; never!"

That same night, across the strip of blackness between their beds,
she said:

"Bryan, promise me something!"

"It depends.  I know you too well."

"No; it's quite reasonable, and possible.  Promise!"

"All right; if it is."

"I want you to let me take the lease of the Red House--let it be
mine, the whole thing--let me pay for everything there."

"Reasonable!  What's the point?"

"Only that I shall have a proper home of my own.  I can't explain,
but your mother's coming to-day made me feel I must."

"My child, how could I possibly live on YOU there?  It's absurd!"

"You can pay for everything else; London--travelling--clothes, if
you like.  We can make it square up.  It's not a question of money,
of course.  I only want to feel that if, at any moment, you don't
need me any more, you can simply stop coming."

"I think that's brutal, Gyp."

"No, no; so many women lose men's love because they seem to claim
things of them.  I don't want to lose yours that way--that's all."

"That's silly, darling!"

"It's not.  Men--and women, too--always tug at chains.  And when
there is no chain--"

"Well then; let me take the house, and you can go away when you're
tired of me."  His voice sounded smothered, resentful; she could
hear him turning and turning, as if angry with his pillows.  And
she murmured:

"No; I can't explain.  But I really mean it."

"We're just beginning life together, and you talk as if you want to
split it up.  It hurts, Gyp, and that's all about it."

She said gently:

"Don't be angry, dear."

"Well!  Why don't you trust me more?"

"I do.  Only I must make as sure as I can."

The sound came again of his turning and turning.

"I can't!"

Gyp said slowly:

"Oh!  Very well!"

A dead silence followed, both lying quiet in the darkness, trying
to get the better of each other by sheer listening.  An hour
perhaps passed before he sighed, and, feeling his lips on hers, she
knew that she had won.


III


There, in the study, the moonlight had reached her face; an owl was
hooting not far away, and still more memories came--the happiest of
all, perhaps--of first days in this old house together.

Summerhay damaged himself out hunting that first winter.  The
memory of nursing him was strangely pleasant, now that it was two
years old.  For convalescence they had gone to the Pyrenees--
Argeles in March, all almond-blossom and snows against the blue--a
wonderful fortnight.  In London on the way back they had their
first awkward encounter.  Coming out of a theatre one evening, Gyp
heard a woman's voice, close behind, say: "Why, it's Bryan!  What
ages!"  And his answer defensively drawled out:

"Halo!  How are you, Diana?"

"Oh, awfully fit.  Where are you, nowadays?  Why don't you come and
see us?"

Again the drawl:

"Down in the country.  I will, some time.  Good-bye."

A tall woman or girl--red-haired, with one of those wonderful white
skins that go therewith; and brown--yes, brown eyes; Gyp could see
those eyes sweeping her up and down with a sort of burning-live
curiosity.  Bryan's hand was thrust under her arm at once.

"Come on, let's walk and get a cab."

As soon as they were clear of the crowd, she pressed his hand to
her breast, and said:

"Did you mind?"

"Mind?  Of course not.  It's for you to mind."

"Who was it?"

"A second cousin.  Diana Leyton."

"Do you know her very well?"

"Oh yes--used to."

"And do you like her very much?"

"Rather!"

He looked round into her face, with laughter bubbling up behind his
gravity.  Ah, but could one tease on such a subject as their love?
And to this day the figure of that tall girl with the burning-white
skin, the burning-brown eyes, the burning-red hair was not quite a
pleasant memory to Gyp.  After that night, they gave up all attempt
to hide their union, going to whatever they wished, whether they
were likely to meet people or not.  Gyp found that nothing was so
easily ignored as Society when the heart was set on other things.
Besides, they were seldom in London, and in the country did not
wish to know anyone, in any case.  But she never lost the feeling
that what was ideal for her might not be ideal for him.  He ought
to go into the world, ought to meet people.  It would not do for
him to be cut off from social pleasures and duties, and then some
day feel that he owed his starvation to her.  To go up to London,
too, every day was tiring, and she persuaded him to take a set of
residential chambers in the Temple, and sleep there three nights a
week.  In spite of all his entreaties, she herself never went to
those chambers, staying always at Bury Street when she came up.  A
kind of superstition prevented her; she would not risk making him
feel that she was hanging round his neck.  Besides, she wanted to
keep herself desirable--so little a matter of course that he would
hanker after her when he was away.  And she never asked him where
he went or whom he saw.  But, sometimes, she wondered whether he
could still be quite faithful to her in thought, love her as he
used to; and joy would go down behind a heavy bank of clouds, till,
at his return, the sun came out again.  Love such as hers--
passionate, adoring, protective, longing to sacrifice itself, to
give all that it had to him, yet secretly demanding all his love in
return--for how could a proud woman love one who did not love her?--
such love as this is always longing for a union more complete than
it is likely to get in a world where all things move and change.
But against the grip of this love she never dreamed of fighting
now.  From the moment when she knew she must cling to him rather
than to her baby, she had made no reservations; all her eggs were
in one basket, as her father's had been before her--all!

The moonlight was shining full on the old bureau and a vase of
tulips standing there, giving those flowers colour that was not
colour, and an unnamed look, as if they came from a world which no
human enters.  It glinted on a bronze bust of old Voltaire, which
she had bought him for a Christmas present, so that the great
writer seemed to be smiling from the hollows of his eyes.  Gyp
turned the bust a little, to catch the light on its far cheek; a
letter was disclosed between it and the oak.  She drew it out
thinking: 'Bless him!  He uses everything for paper-weights'; and,
in the strange light, its first words caught her eyes:


"DEAR BRYAN,

"But I say--you ARE wasting yourself--"


She laid it down, methodically pushing it back under the bust.
Perhaps he had put it there on purpose!  She got up and went to the
window, to check the temptation to read the rest of that letter and
see from whom it was.  No!  She did not admit that she was tempted.
One did not read letters.  Then the full import of those few words
struck into her: "Dear Bryan.  But I say--you ARE wasting
yourself."  A letter in a chain of correspondence, then!  A woman's
hand; but not his mother's, nor his sisters'--she knew their
writings.  Who had dared to say he was wasting himself?  A letter
in a chain of letters!  An intimate correspondent, whose name she
did not know, because--he had not told her!  Wasting himself--on
what?--on his life with her down here?  And was he?  Had she
herself not said that very night that he had lost his laugh?  She
began searching her memory.  Yes, last Christmas vacation--that
clear, cold, wonderful fortnight in Florence, he had been full of
fun.  It was May now.  Was there no memory since--of his old
infectious gaiety?  She could not think of any.  "But I say--you
ARE wasting yourself."  A sudden hatred flared up in her against
the unknown woman who had said that thing--and fever, running
through her veins, made her ears burn.  She longed to snatch forth
and tear to pieces the letter, with its guardianship of which that
bust seemed mocking her; and she turned away with the thought:
'I'll go and meet him; I can't wait here.'

Throwing on a cloak she walked out into the moonlit garden, and
went slowly down the whitened road toward the station.  A magical,
dewless night!  The moonbeams had stolen in to the beech clump,
frosting the boles and boughs, casting a fine ghostly grey over the
shadow-patterned beech-mast.  Gyp took the short cut through it.
Not a leaf moved in there, no living thing stirred; so might an
earth be where only trees inhabited!  She thought: 'I'll bring him
back through here.'  And she waited at the far corner of the clump,
where he must pass, some little distance from the station.  She
never gave people unnecessary food for gossip--any slighting of her
irritated him, she was careful to spare him that.  The train came
in; a car went whizzing by, a cyclist, then the first foot-
passenger, at a great pace, breaking into a run.  She saw that it
was he, and, calling out his name, ran back into the shadow of the
trees.  He stopped dead in his tracks, then came rushing after her.
That pursuit did not last long, and, in his arms, Gyp said:

"If you aren't too hungry, darling, let's stay here a little--it's
so wonderful!"

They sat down on a great root, and leaning against him, looking up
at the dark branches, she said:

"Have you had a hard day?"

"Yes; got hung up by a late consultation; and old Leyton asked me
to come and dine."

Gyp felt a sensation as when feet happen on ground that gives a
little.

"The Leytons--that's Eaton Square, isn't it?  A big dinner?"

"No.  Only the old people, and Bertie and Diana."

"Diana?  That's the girl we met coming out of the theatre, isn't
it?"

"When?  Oh--ah--what a memory, Gyp!"

"Yes; it's good for things that interest me."

"Why?  Did she interest you?"

Gyp turned and looked into his face.

"Yes.  Is she clever?"

"H'm!  I suppose you might call her so."

"And in love with you?"

"Great Scott!  Why?"

"Is it very unlikely?  I am."

He began kissing her lips and hair.  And, closing her eyes, Gyp
thought: 'If only that's not because he doesn't want to answer!'
Then, for some minutes, they were silent as the moonlit beech
clump.

"Answer me truly, Bryan.  Do you never--never--feel as if you were
wasting yourself on me?"

She was certain of a quiver in his grasp; but his face was open and
serene, his voice as usual when he was teasing.

"Well, hardly ever!  Aren't you funny, dear?"

"Promise me faithfully to let me know when you've had enough of me.
Promise!"

"All right!  But don't look for fulfilment in this life."

"I'm not so sure."

"I am."

Gyp put up her lips, and tried to drown for ever in a kiss the
memory of those words: "But I say--you ARE wasting yourself."


IV


Summerhay, coming down next morning, went straight to his bureau;
his mind was not at ease.  "Wasting yourself!"  What had he done
with that letter of Diana's?  He remembered Gyp's coming in just as
he finished reading it.  Searching the pigeonholes and drawers,
moving everything that lay about, he twitched the bust--and the
letter lay disclosed.  He took it up with a sigh of relief:


"DEAR BRYAN,

"But I say--you ARE wasting yourself.  Why, my dear, of course!
'Il faut se faire valoir!'  You have only one foot to put forward;
the other is planted in I don't know what mysterious hole.  One
foot in the grave--at thirty!  Really, Bryan!  Pull it out.
There's such a lot waiting for you.  It's no good your being hoity-
toity, and telling me to mind my business.  I'm speaking for
everyone who knows you.  We all feel the blight on the rose.
Besides, you always were my favourite cousin, ever since I was five
and you a horrid little bully of ten; and I simply hate to think of
you going slowly down instead of quickly up.  Oh!  I know 'D--n the
world!'  But--are you?  I should have thought it was 'd--ning' you!
Enough!  When are you coming to see us?  I've read that book.  The
man seems to think love is nothing but passion, and passion always
fatal.  I wonder!  Perhaps you know.

"Don't be angry with me for being such a grandmother.

"Au revoir.

"Your very good cousin,

"DIANA LEYTON."


He crammed the letter into his pocket, and sat there, appalled.  It
must have lain two days under that bust!  Had Gyp seen it?  He
looked at the bronze face; and the philosopher looked back from the
hollows of his eyes, as if to say: "What do you know of the human
heart, my boy--your own, your mistress's, that girl's, or anyone's?
A pretty dance the heart will lead you yet!  Put it in a packet,
tie it round with string, seal it up, drop it in a drawer, lock the
drawer!  And to-morrow it will be out and skipping on its
wrappings.  Ho!  Ho!"  And Summerhay thought: 'You old goat.  You
never had one!'  In the room above, Gyp would still be standing as
he had left her, putting the last touch to her hair--a man would be
a scoundrel who, even in thought, could--  "Hallo!" the eyes of the
bust seemed to say.  "Pity!  That's queer, isn't it?  Why not pity
that red-haired girl, with the skin so white that it burns you, and
the eyes so brown that they burn you--don't they?"  Old Satan!  Gyp
had his heart; no one in the world would ever take it from her!

And in the chair where she had sat last night conjuring up
memories, he too now conjured.  How he had loved her, did love her!
She would always be what she was and had been to him.  And the
sage's mouth seemed to twist before him with the words: "Quite so,
my dear!  But the heart's very funny--very--capacious!"  A tiny
sound made him turn.

Little Gyp was standing in the doorway.

"Hallo!" he said.

"Hallo, Baryn!"  She came flying to him, and he caught her up so
that she stood on his knees with the sunlight shining on her
fluffed out hair.

"Well, Gipsy!  Who's getting a tall girl?"

"I'm goin' to ride."

"Ho, ho!"

"Baryn, let's do Humpty-Dumpty!"

"All right; come on!"  He rose and carried her upstairs.

Gyp was still doing one of those hundred things which occupy women
for a quarter of an hour after they are "quite ready," and at
little Gyp's shout of, "Humpty!" she suspended her needle to watch
the sacred rite.

Summerhay had seated himself on the foot-rail of the bed, rounding
his arms, sinking his neck, blowing out his cheeks to simulate an
egg; then, with an unexpectedness that even little Gyp could always
see through, he rolled backward on to the bed.

And she, simulating "all the king's horses," tried in vain to put
him up again.  This immemorial game, watched by Gyp a hundred
times, had to-day a special preciousness.  If he could be so
ridiculously young, what became of her doubts?  Looking at his face
pulled this way and that, lazily imperturbable under the pommelings
of those small fingers, she thought: 'And that girl dared to say he
was WASTING HIMSELF!'  For in the night conviction had come to her
that those words were written by the tall girl with the white skin,
the girl of the theatre--the Diana of his last night's dinner.
Humpty-Dumpty was up on the bed-rail again for the finale; all the
king's horses were clasped to him, making the egg more round, and
over they both went with shrieks and gurgles.  What a boy he was!
She would not--no, she would not brood and spoil her day with him.

But that afternoon, at the end of a long gallop on the downs, she
turned her head away and said suddenly:

"Is she a huntress?"

"Who?"

"Your cousin--Diana."

In his laziest voice, he answered:

"I suppose you mean--does she hunt me?"

She knew that tone, that expression on his face, knew he was angry;
but could not stop herself.

"I did."

"So you're going to become jealous, Gyp?"

It was one of those cold, naked sayings that should never be spoken
between lovers--one of those sayings at which the heart of the one
who speaks sinks with a kind of dismay, and the heart of the one
who hears quivers.  She cantered on.  And he, perforce, after her.
When she reined in again, he glanced into her face and was afraid.
It was all closed up against him.  And he said softly:

"I didn't mean that, Gyp."

But she only shook her head.  He HAD meant it--had wanted to hurt
her!  It didn't matter--she wouldn't give him the chance again.
And she said:

"Look at that long white cloud, and the apple-green in the sky--
rain to-morrow.  One ought to enjoy any fine day as if it were the
last."

Uneasy, ashamed, yet still a little angry, Summerhay rode on beside
her.

That night, she cried in her sleep; and, when he awakened her,
clung to him and sobbed out:

"Oh! such a dreadful dream!  I thought you'd left off loving me!"

For a long time he held and soothed her.  Never, never!  He would
never leave off loving her!

But a cloud no broader than your hand can spread and cover the
whole day.


V


The summer passed, and always there was that little patch of
silence in her heart, and in his.  The tall, bright days grew
taller, slowly passed their zenith, slowly shortened.  On Saturdays
and Sundays, sometimes with Winton and little Gyp, but more often
alone, they went on the river.  For Gyp, it had never lost the
magic of their first afternoon upon it--never lost its glamour as
of an enchanted world.  All the week she looked forward to these
hours of isolation with him, as if the surrounding water secured
her not only against a world that would take him from her, if it
could, but against that side of his nature, which, so long ago she
had named "old Georgian."  She had once adventured to the law
courts by herself, to see him in his wig and gown.  Under that
stiff grey crescent on his broad forehead, he seemed so hard and
clever--so of a world to which she never could belong, so of a
piece with the brilliant bullying of the whole proceeding.  She had
come away feeling that she only possessed and knew one side of him.
On the river, she had that side utterly--her lovable, lazy,
impudently loving boy, lying with his head in her lap, plunging in
for a swim, splashing round her; or with his sleeves rolled up, his
neck bare, and a smile on his face, plying his slow sculls down-
stream, singing, "Away, my rolling river," or puffing home like a
demon in want of his dinner.  It was such a blessing to lose for a
few hours each week this growing consciousness that she could never
have the whole of him.  But all the time the patch of silence grew,
for doubt in the heart of one lover reacts on the heart of the
other.

When the long vacation came, she made an heroic resolve.  He must
go to Scotland, must have a month away from her, a good long rest.
And while Betty was at the sea with little Gyp, she would take her
father to his cure.  She held so inflexibly to this resolve, that,
after many protests, he said with a shrug:

"Very well, I will then--if you're so keen to get rid of me."

"Keen to get rid!"  When she could not bear to be away from him!
But she forced her feeling back, and said, smiling:

"At last!  There's a good boy!"  Anything!  If only it would bring
him back to her exactly as he had been.  She asked no questions as
to where, or to whom, he would go.


Tunbridge Wells, that charming purgatory where the retired prepare
their souls for a more permanent retirement, was dreaming on its
hills in long rows of adequate villas.  Its commons and woods had
remained unscorched, so that the retired had not to any extent
deserted it, that August, for the sea.  They still shopped in the
Pantiles, strolled the uplands, or flourished their golf-clubs in
the grassy parks; they still drank tea in each other's houses and
frequented the many churches.  One could see their faces, as it
were, goldened by their coming glory, like the chins of children by
reflection from buttercups.  From every kind of life they had
retired, and, waiting now for a more perfect day, were doing their
utmost to postpone it.  They lived very long.

Gyp and her father had rooms in a hotel where he could bathe and
drink the waters without having to climb three hills.  This was the
first cure she had attended since the long-past time at Wiesbaden.
Was it possible that was only six years ago?  She felt so utterly,
so strangely different!  Then life had been sparkling sips of every
drink, and of none too much; now it was one long still draft, to
quench a thirst that would not be quenched.

During these weeks she held herself absolutely at her father's
disposal, but she lived for the post, and if, by any chance, she
did not get her daily letter, her heart sank to the depths.  She
wrote every day, sometimes twice, then tore up that second letter,
remembering for what reason she had set herself to undergo this
separation.  During the first week, his letters had a certain
equanimity; in the second week they became ardent; in the third,
they were fitful--now beginning to look forward, now moody and
dejected; and they were shorter.  During this third week Aunt
Rosamund joined them.  The good lady had become a staunch supporter
of Gyp's new existence, which, in her view, served Fiorsen right.
Why should the poor child's life be loveless?  She had a definitely
low opinion of men, and a lower of the state of the marriage-laws;
in her view, any woman who struck a blow in that direction was
something of a heroine.  And she was oblivious of the fact that Gyp
was quite guiltless of the desire to strike a blow against the
marriage-laws, or anything else.  Aunt Rosamund's aristocratic and
rebellious blood boiled with hatred of what she called the "stuffy
people" who still held that women were men's property.  It had made
her specially careful never to put herself in that position.

She had brought Gyp a piece of news.

"I was walking down Bond Street past that tea-and-tart shop, my
dear--you know, where they have those special coffee-creams, and
who should come out of it but Miss Daphne Wing and our friend
Fiorsen; and pretty hangdog he looked.  He came up to me, with his
little lady watching him like a lynx.  Really, my dear, I was
rather sorry for him; he'd got that hungry look of his; she'd been
doing all the eating, I'm sure.  He asked me how you were.  I told
him, 'Very well.'

"'When you see her,' he said, 'tell her I haven't forgotten her,
and never shall.  But she was quite right; this is the sort of lady
that I'm fit for.'  And the way he looked at that girl made me feel
quite uncomfortable.  Then he gave me one of his little bows; and
off they went, she as pleased as Punch.  I really was sorry for
him."

Gyp said quietly:

"Ah!  you needn't have been, Auntie; he'll always be able to be
sorry for himself."

A little shocked at her niece's cynicism, Aunt Rosamund was silent.
The poor lady had not lived with Fiorsen!

That same afternoon, Gyp was sitting in a shelter on the common, a
book on her knee--thinking her one long thought: 'To-day is
Thursday--Monday week!  Eleven days--still!'--when three figures
came slowly toward her, a man, a woman, and what should have been a
dog.  English love of beauty and the rights of man had forced its
nose back, deprived it of half its ears, and all but three inches
or so of tail.  It had asthma--and waddled in disillusionment.  A
voice said:

"This'll do, Maria.  We can take the sun 'ere."

But for that voice, with the permanent cold hoarseness caught
beside innumerable graves, Gyp might not have recognized Mr. Wagge,
for he had taken off his beard, leaving nothing but side-whiskers,
and Mrs. Wagge had filled out wonderfully.  They were some time
settling down beside her.

"You sit here, Maria; you won't get the sun in your eyes."

"No, Robert; I'll sit here.  You sit there."

"No, YOU sit there."

"No, I will.  Come, Duckie!"

But the dog, standing stockily on the pathway was gazing at Gyp,
while what was left of its broad nose moved from side to side.  Mr.
Wagge followed the direction of its glance.

"Oh!" he said, "oh, this is a surprise!"  And fumbling at his straw
hat, he passed his other hand over his sleeve and held it out to
Gyp.  It felt almost dry, and fatter than it had been.  While she
was shaking it, the dog moved forward and sat down on her feet.
Mrs. Wagge also extended her hand, clad in a shiny glove.

"This is a--a--pleasure," she murmured.  "Who WOULD have thought of
meeting you!  Oh, don't let Duckie sit against your pretty frock!
Come, Duckie!"

But Duckie did not move, resting his back against Gyp's shin-bones.
Mr. Wagge, whose tongue had been passing over a mouth which she saw
to its full advantage for the first time, said abruptly:

"You 'aven't come to live here, 'ave you?"

"Oh no!  I'm only with my father for the baths."

"Ah, I thought not, never havin' seen you.  We've been retired here
ourselves a matter of twelve months.  A pretty spot."

"Yes; lovely, isn't it?"

"We wanted nature.  The air suits us, though a bit--er--too irony,
as you might say.  But it's a long-lived place.  We were quite a
time lookin' round."

Mrs. Wagge added in her thin voice:

"Yes--we'd thought of Wimbledon, you see, but Mr. Wagge liked this
better; he can get his walk, here; and it's more--select, perhaps.
We have several friends.  The church is very nice."

Mr. Wagge's face assumed an uncertain expression.  He said bluffly:

"I was always a chapel man; but--I don't know how it is--there's
something in a place like this that makes church seem more--more
suitable; my wife always had a leaning that way.  I never conceal
my actions."

Gyp murmured:

"It's a question of atmosphere, isn't it?"

Mr. Wagge shook his head.

"No; I don't hold with incense--we're not 'Igh Church.  But how are
YOU, ma'am?  We often speak of you.  You're looking well."

His face had become a dusky orange, and Mrs. Wagge's the colour of
a doubtful beetroot.  The dog on Gyp's feet stirred, snuffled,
turned round, and fell heavily against her legs again.  She said
quietly:

"I was hearing of Daisy only to-day.  She's quite a star now, isn't
she?"

Mrs. Wagge sighed.  Mr. Wagge looked away and answered:

"It's a sore subject.  There she is, making her forty and fifty
pound a week, and run after in all the papers.  She's a success--no
doubt about it.  And she works.  Saving a matter of fifteen 'undred
a year, I shouldn't be surprised.  Why, at my best, the years the
influenza was so bad, I never cleared a thousand net.  No, she's a
success."

Mrs. Wagge added:

"Have you seen her last photograph--the one where she's standing
between two hydrangea-tubs?  It was her own idea."

Mr. Wagge mumbled suddenly:

"I'm always glad to see her when she takes a run down in a car.
But I've come here for quiet after the life I've led, and I don't
want to think about it, especially before you, ma'am.  I don't--
that's a fact."

A silence followed, during which Mr. and Mrs. Wagge looked at their
feet, and Gyp looked at the dog.

"Ah!--here you are!"  It was Winton, who had come up from behind
the shelter, and stood, with eyebrows slightly raised.  Gyp could
not help a smile.  Her father's weathered, narrow face, half-veiled
eyes, thin nose, little crisp, grey moustache that did not hide his
firm lips, his lean, erect figure, the very way he stood, his thin,
dry, clipped voice were the absolute antithesis of Mr. Wagge's
thickset, stoutly planted form, thick-skinned, thick-featured face,
thick, rather hoarse yet oily voice.  It was as if Providence had
arranged a demonstration of the extremes of social type.  And she
said:

"Mr. and Mrs. Wagge--my father."

Winton raised his hat.  Gyp remained seated, the dog Duckie being
still on her feet.

"'Appy to meet you, sir.  I hope you have benefit from the waters.
They're supposed to be most powerful, I believe."

"Thank you--not more deadly than most.  Are you drinking them?"

Mr. Wagge smiled.

"Nao!" he said, "we live here."

"Indeed!  Do you find anything to do?"

"Well, as a fact, I've come here for rest.  But I take a Turkish
bath once a fortnight--find it refreshing; keeps the pores of the
skin acting."

Mrs. Wagge added gently:

"It seems to suit my husband wonderfully."

Winton murmured:

"Yes.  Is this your dog?  Bit of a philosopher, isn't he?"

Mrs. Wagge answered:

"Oh, he's a naughty dog, aren't you, Duckie?"

The dog Duckie, feeling himself the cynosure of every eye, rose and
stood panting into Gyp's face.  She took the occasion to get up.

"We must go, I'm afraid.  Good-bye.  It's been very nice to meet
you again.  When you see Daisy, will you please give her my love?"

Mrs. Wagge unexpectedly took a handkerchief from her reticule.  Mr.
Wagge cleared his throat heavily.  Gyp was conscious of the dog
Duckie waddling after them, and of Mrs. Wagge calling, "Duckie,
Duckie!" from behind her handkerchief.

Winton said softly:

"So those two got that pretty filly!  Well, she didn't show much
quality, when you come to think of it.  She's still with our
friend, according to your aunt."

Gyp nodded.

"Yes; and I do hope she's happy."

"HE isn't, apparently.  Serves him right."

Gyp shook her head.

"Oh no, Dad!"

"Well, one oughtn't to wish any man worse than he's likely to get.
But when I see people daring to look down their noses at you--by
Jove!  I get--"

"Darling, what does that matter?"

Winton answered testily:

"It matters very much to me--the impudence of it!"  His mouth
relaxed in a grim little smile: "Ah, well--there's not much to
choose between us so far as condemning our neighbours goes.
'Charity Stakes--also ran, Charles Clare Winton, the Church, and
Mrs. Grundy.'"

They opened out to each other more in those few days at Tunbridge
Wells than they had for years.  Whether the process of bathing
softened his crust, or the air that Mr. Wagge found "a bit--er--too
irony, as you might say," had upon Winton the opposite effect, he
certainly relaxed that first duty of man, the concealment of his
spirit, and disclosed his activities as he never had before--how
such and such a person had been set on his feet, so and so sent out
to Canada, this man's wife helped over her confinement, that man's
daughter started again after a slip.  And Gyp's child-worship of
him bloomed anew.

On the last afternoon of their stay, she strolled out with him
through one of the long woods that stretched away behind their
hotel.  Excited by the coming end of her self-inflicted penance,
moved by the beauty among those sunlit trees, she found it
difficult to talk.  But Winton, about to lose her, was quite
loquacious.  Starting from the sinister change in the racing-world--
so plutocratic now, with the American seat, the increase of
bookmaking owners, and other tragic occurrences--he launched forth
into a jeremiad on the condition of things in general.  Parliament,
he thought, especially now that members were paid, had lost its
self-respect; the towns had eaten up the country; hunting was
threatened; the power and vulgarity of the press were appalling;
women had lost their heads; and everybody seemed afraid of having
any "breeding."  By the time little Gyp was Gyp's age, they would
all be under the thumb of Watch Committees, live in Garden Cities,
and have to account for every half-crown they spent, and every
half-hour of their time; the horse, too, would be an extinct
animal, brought out once a year at the lord-mayor's show.  He
hoped--the deuce--he might not be alive to see it.  And suddenly he
added: "What do you think happens after death, Gyp?"

They were sitting on one of those benches that crop up suddenly in
the heart of nature.  All around them briars and bracken were just
on the turn; and the hum of flies, the vague stir of leaves and
life formed but a single sound.  Gyp, gazing into the wood,
answered:

"Nothing, Dad.  I think we just go back."

"Ah--  My idea, too!"

Neither of them had ever known what the other thought about it
before!

Gyp murmured:


     "La vie est vaine--
      Un peu d'amour,
      Un peu de haine,
        Et puis bonjour!"


Not quite a grunt or quite a laugh emerged from the depths of
Winton, and, looking up at the sky, he said:

"And what they call 'God,' after all, what is it?  Just the very
best you can get out of yourself--nothing more, so far as I can
see.  Dash it, you can't imagine anything more than you can
imagine.  One would like to die in the open, though, like Whyte-
Melville.  But there's one thing that's always puzzled me, Gyp.
All one's life one's tried to have a single heart.  Death comes,
and out you go!  Then why did one love, if there's to be no meeting
after?"

"Yes; except for that, who would care?  But does the wanting to
meet make it any more likely, Dad?  The world couldn't go on
without love; perhaps loving somebody or something with all your
heart is all in itself."

Winton stared; the remark was a little deep.

"Ye-es," he said at last.  "I often think the religious johnnies
are saving their money to put on a horse that'll never run after
all.  I remember those Yogi chaps in India.  There they sat, and
this jolly world might rot round them for all they cared--they
thought they were going to be all right themselves, in Kingdom
Come.  But suppose it doesn't come?"

Gyp murmured with a little smile:

"Perhaps they were trying to love everything at once."

"Rum way of showing it.  And, hang it, there are such a lot of
things one can't love!  Look at that!"  He pointed upwards.
Against the grey bole of a beech-tree hung a board, on which were
the freshly painted words:


                   PRIVATE

        TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED


"That board is stuck up all over this life and the next.  Well, WE
won't give them the chance to warn us off, Gyp."

Slipping her hand through his arm, she pressed close up to him.

"No, Dad; you and I will go off with the wind and the sun, and the
trees and the waters, like Procris in my picture."


VI


The curious and complicated nature of man in matters of the heart
is not sufficiently conceded by women, professors, clergymen,
judges, and other critics of his conduct.  And naturally so, since
they all have vested interests in his simplicity.  Even journalists
are in the conspiracy to make him out less wayward than he is, and
dip their pens in epithets, if his heart diverges inch or ell.

Bryan Summerhay was neither more curious nor more complicated than
those of his own sex who would condemn him for getting into the
midnight express from Edinburgh with two distinct emotions in his
heart--a regretful aching for the girl, his cousin, whom he was
leaving behind, and a rapturous anticipation of the woman whom he
was going to rejoin.  How was it possible that he could feel both
at once?  "Against all the rules," women and other moralists would
say.  Well, the fact is, a man's heart knows no rules.  And he
found it perfectly easy, lying in his bunk, to dwell on memories of
Diana handing him tea, or glancing up at him, while he turned the
leaves of her songs, with that enticing mockery in her eyes and
about her lips; and yet the next moment to be swept from head to
heel by the longing to feel Gyp's arms around him, to hear her
voice, look in her eyes, and press his lips on hers.  If, instead
of being on his way to rejoin a mistress, he had been going home to
a wife, he would not have felt a particle more of spiritual
satisfaction, perhaps not so much.  He was returning to the
feelings and companionship that he knew were the most deeply
satisfying spiritually and bodily he would ever have.  And yet he
could ache a little for that red-haired girl, and this without any
difficulty.  How disconcerting!  But, then, truth is.

From that queer seesawing of his feelings, he fell asleep, dreamed
of all things under the sun as men only can in a train, was
awakened by the hollow silence in some station, slept again for
hours, it seemed, and woke still at the same station, fell into a
sound sleep at last that ended at Willesden in broad daylight.
Dressing hurriedly, he found he had but one emotion now, one
longing--to get to Gyp.  Sitting back in his cab, hands deep-thrust
into the pockets of his ulster, he smiled, enjoying even the smell
of the misty London morning.  Where would she be--in the hall of
the hotel waiting, or upstairs still?

Not in the hall!  And asking for her room, he made his way to its
door.

She was standing in the far corner motionless, deadly pale,
quivering from head to foot; and when he flung his arms round her,
she gave a long sigh, closing her eyes.  With his lips on hers, he
could feel her almost fainting; and he too had no consciousness of
anything but that long kiss.

Next day, they went abroad to a little place not far from Fecamp,
in that Normandy countryside where all things are large--the
people, the beasts, the unhedged fields, the courtyards of the
farms guarded so squarely by tall trees, the skies, the sea, even
the blackberries large.  And Gyp was happy.  But twice there came
letters, in that too-well-remembered handwriting, which bore a
Scottish postmark.  A phantom increases in darkness, solidifies
when seen in mist.  Jealousy is rooted not in reason, but in the
nature that feels it--in her nature that loved desperately, felt
proudly.  And jealousy flourishes on scepticism.  Even if pride
would have let her ask, what good?  She would not have believed the
answers.  Of course he would say--if only out of pity--that he
never let his thoughts rest on another woman.  But, after all, it
was only a phantom.  There were many hours in those three weeks
when she felt he really loved her, and so--was happy.

They went back to the Red House at the end of the first week in
October.  Little Gyp, home from the sea, was now an almost
accomplished horsewoman.  Under the tutelage of old Pettance, she
had been riding steadily round and round those rough fields by the
linhay which they called "the wild," her firm brown legs astride of
the mouse-coloured pony, her little brown face, with excited, dark
eyes, very erect, her auburn crop of short curls flopping up and
down on her little straight back.  She wanted to be able to "go out
riding" with Grandy and Mum and Baryn.  And the first days were
spent by them all more or less in fulfilling her new desires.  Then
term began, and Gyp sat down again to the long sharing of Summerhay
with his other life.


VII


One afternoon at the beginning of November, the old Scotch terrier,
Ossian, lay on the path in the pale sunshine.  He had lain there
all the morning since his master went up by the early train.
Nearly sixteen years old, he was deaf now and disillusioned, and
every time that Summerhay left him, his eyes seemed to say: "You
will leave me once too often!"  The blandishments of the other nice
people about the house were becoming to him daily less and less a
substitute for that which he felt he had not much time left to
enjoy; nor could he any longer bear a stranger within the gate.
From her window, Gyp saw him get up and stand with his back ridged,
growling at the postman, and, fearing for the man's calves, she
hastened out.

Among the letters was one in that dreaded hand writing marked
"Immediate," and forwarded from his chambers.  She took it up, and
put it to her nose.  A scent--of what?  Too faint to say.  Her
thumb nails sought the edge of the flap on either side.  She laid
the letter down.  Any other letter, but not that--she wanted to
open it too much.  Readdressing it, she took it out to put with the
other letters.  And instantly the thought went through her: 'What a
pity!  If I read it, and there was nothing!'  All her restless,
jealous misgivings of months past would then be set at rest!  She
stood, uncertain, with the letter in her hand.  Ah--but if there
WERE something!  She would lose at one stroke her faith in him, and
her faith in herself--not only his love but her own self-respect.
She dropped the letter on the table.  Could she not take it up to
him herself?  By the three o'clock slow train, she could get to him
soon after five.  She looked at her watch.  She would just have
time to walk down.  And she ran upstairs.  Little Gyp was sitting
on the top stair--her favourite seat--looking at a picture-book.

"I'm going up to London, darling.  Tell Betty I may be back to-
night, or perhaps I may not.  Give me a good kiss."

Little Gyp gave the good kiss, and said:

"Let me see you put your hat on, Mum."

While Gyp was putting on hat and furs, she thought: "I shan't take
a bag; I can always make shift at Bury Street if--"  She did not
finish the thought, but the blood came up in her cheeks.  "Take
care of Ossy, darling!"  She ran down, caught up the letter, and
hastened away to the station.  In the train, her cheeks still
burned.  Might not this first visit to his chambers be like her old
first visit to the little house in Chelsea?  She took the letter
out.  How she hated that large, scrawly writing for all the
thoughts and fears it had given her these past months!  If that
girl knew how much anxiety and suffering she had caused, would she
stop writing, stop seeing him?  And Gyp tried to conjure up her
face, that face seen only for a minute, and the sound of that
clipped, clear voice but once heard--the face and voice of one
accustomed to have her own way.  No!  It would only make her go on
all the more.  Fair game, against a woman with no claim--but that
of love.  Thank heaven she had not taken him away from any woman--
unless--that girl perhaps thought she had!  Ah!  Why, in all these
years, had she never got to know his secrets, so that she might
fight against what threatened her?  But would she have fought?  To
fight for love was degrading, horrible!  And yet--if one did not?
She got up and stood at the window of her empty carriage.  There
was the river--and there--yes, the very backwater where he had
begged her to come to him for good.  It looked so different, bare
and shorn, under the light grey sky; the willows were all polled,
the reeds cut down.  And a line from one of his favourite sonnets
came into her mind:


     "Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang."


Ah, well!  Time enough to face things when they came.  She would
only think of seeing him!  And she put the letter back to burn what
hole it liked in the pocket of her fur coat.

The train was late; it was past five, already growing dark, when
she reached Paddington and took a cab to the Temple.  Strange to be
going there for the first time--not even to know exactly where
Harcourt Buildings were.  At Temple Lane, she stopped the cab and
walked down that narrow, ill-lighted, busy channel into the heart
of the Great Law.

"Up those stone steps, miss; along the railin', second doorway."
Gyp came to the second doorway and in the doubtful light
scrutinized the names.  "Summerhay--second floor."  She began to
climb the stairs.  Her heart beat fast.  What would he say?  How
greet her?  Was it not absurd, dangerous, to have come?  He would
be having a consultation perhaps.  There would be a clerk or
someone to beard, and what name could she give?  On the first floor
she paused, took out a blank card, and pencilled on it:


     "Can I see you a minute?--G."


Then, taking a long breath to quiet her heart, she went on up.
There was the name, and there the door.  She rang--no one came;
listened--could hear no sound.  All looked so massive and bleak and
dim--the iron railings, stone stairs, bare walls, oak door.  She
rang again.  What should she do?  Leave the letter?  Not see him
after all--her little romance all come to naught--just a chilly
visit to Bury Street, where perhaps there would be no one but Mrs.
Markey, for her father, she knew, was at Mildenham, hunting, and
would not be up till Sunday!  And she thought: 'I'll leave the
letter, go back to the Strand, have some tea, and try again.'

She took out the letter, with a sort of prayer pushed it through
the slit of the door, heard it fall into its wire cage; then slowly
descended the stairs to the outer passage into Temple Lane.  It was
thronged with men and boys, at the end of the day's work.  But when
she had nearly reached the Strand, a woman's figure caught her eye.
She was walking with a man on the far side; their faces were turned
toward each other.  Gyp heard their voices, and, faint, dizzy,
stood looking back after them.  They passed under a lamp; the light
glinted on the woman's hair, on a trick of Summerhay's, the lift of
one shoulder, when he was denying something; she heard his voice,
high-pitched.  She watched them cross, mount the stone steps she
had just come down, pass along the railed stone passage, enter the
doorway, disappear.  And such horror seized on her that she could
hardly walk away.

"Oh no!  Oh no!  Oh no!"  So it went in her mind--a kind of
moaning, like that of a cold, rainy wind through dripping trees.
What did it mean?  Oh, what did it mean?  In this miserable tumult,
the only thought that did not come to her was that of going back to
his chambers.  She hurried away.  It was a wonder she was not run
over, for she had no notion what she was doing, where going, and
crossed the streets without the least attention to traffic.  She
came to Trafalgar Square, and stood leaning against its parapet in
front of the National Gallery.  Here she had her first coherent
thought:  So that was why his chambers had been empty!  No clerk--
no one!  That they might be alone.  Alone, where she had dreamed of
being alone with him!  And only that morning he had kissed her and
said, "Good-bye, treasure!"  A dreadful little laugh got caught in
her throat, confused with a sob.  Why--why had she a heart?  Down
there, against the plinth of one of the lions, a young man leaned,
with his arms round a girl, pressing her to him.  Gyp turned away
from the sight and resumed her miserable wandering.  She went up
Bury Street.  No light; not any sign of life!  It did not matter;
she could not have gone in, could not stay still, must walk!  She
put up her veil to get more air, feeling choked.

The trees of the Green Park, under which she was passing now, had
still a few leaves, and they gleamed in the lamplight copper-
coloured as that girl's hair.  All sorts of torturing visions came
to her.  Those empty chambers!  She had seen one little minute of
their intimacy.  A hundred kisses might have passed between them--a
thousand words of love!  And he would lie to her.  Already he had
acted a lie!  She had not deserved that.  And this sense of the
injustice done her was the first relief she felt--this definite
emotion of a mind clouded by sheer misery.  She had not deserved
that he should conceal things from her.  She had not had one
thought or look for any man but him since that night down by the
sea, when he came to her across the garden in the moonlight--not
one thought--and never would!  Poor relief enough!  She was in Hyde
Park now, wandering along a pathway which cut diagonally across the
grass.  And with more resolution, more purpose, she began searching
her memory for signs, proofs of WHEN he had changed to her.  She
could not find them.  He had not changed in his ways to her; not at
all.  Could one act love, then?  Act passion, or--horrible
thought!--when he kissed her nowadays, was he thinking of that
girl?

She heard the rustling of leaves behind.  A youth was following her
along the path, some ravening youth, whose ungoverned breathing had
a kind of pathos in it.  Heaven!  What irony!  She was too
miserable to care, hardly even knew when, in the main path again,
she was free from his pursuit.  Love!  Why had it such possession
of her, that a little thing--yes, a little thing--only the sight of
him with another, should make her suffer so?  She came out on the
other side of the park.  What should she do?  Crawl home, creep
into her hole, and lie there stricken!  At Paddington she found a
train just starting and got in.  There were other people in the
carriage, business men from the city, lawyers, from that--place
where she had been.  And she was glad of their company, glad of the
crackle of evening papers and stolid faces giving her looks of
stolid interest from behind them, glad to have to keep her mask on,
afraid of the violence of her emotion.  But one by one they got
out, to their cars or their constitutionals, and she was left alone
to gaze at darkness and the deserted river just visible in the
light of a moon smothered behind the sou'westerly sky.  And for one
wild moment she thought: 'Shall I open the door and step out--one
step--peace!'

She hurried away from the station.  It was raining, and she drew up
her veil to feel its freshness on her hot face.  There was just
light enough for her to see the pathway through the beech clump.
The wind in there was sighing, soughing, driving the dark boughs,
tearing off the leaves, little black wet shapes that came whirling
at her face.  The wild melancholy in that swaying wood was too much
for Gyp; she ran, thrusting her feet through the deep rustling
drifts of leaves not yet quite drenched.  They clung all wet round
her thin stockings, and the rainy wind beat her forehead.  At the
edge, she paused for breath, leaning against the bole of a beech,
peering back, where the wild whirling wind was moaning and tearing
off the leaves.  Then, bending her head to the rain, she went on in
the open, trying to prepare herself to show nothing when she
reached home.

She got in and upstairs to her room, without being seen.  If she
had possessed any sedative drug she would have taken it.  Anything
to secure oblivion from this aching misery!  Huddling before the
freshly lighted fire, she listened to the wind driving through the
poplars; and once more there came back to her the words of that
song sung by the Scottish girl at Fiorsen's concert:


     "And my heart reft of its own sun,
      Deep lies in death-torpor cold and grey."


Presently she crept into bed, and at last fell asleep.

She woke next morning with the joyful thought: 'It's Saturday;
he'll be down soon after lunch!'  And then she remembered.  Ah, no!
It was too much!  At the pang of that remembrance, it was as if a
devil entered into her--a devil of stubborn pride, which grew
blacker with every hour of that morning.  After lunch, that she
might not be in when he came, she ordered her mare, and rode up on
the downs alone.  The rain had ceased, but the wind still blew
strong from the sou'west, and the sky was torn and driven in
swathes of white and grey to north, south, east, and west, and
puffs of what looked like smoke scurried across the cloud banks and
the glacier-blue rifts between.  The mare had not been out the day
before, and on the springy turf stretched herself in that
thoroughbred gallop which bears a rider up, as it were, on air,
till nothing but the thud of hoofs, the grass flying by, the
beating of the wind in her face betrayed to Gyp that she was
moving.  For full two miles they went without a pull, only stopped
at last by the finish of the level.  From there, one could see far--
away over to Wittenham Clumps across the Valley, and to the high
woods above the river in the east--away, in the south and west,
under that strange, torn sky, to a whole autumn land, of whitish
grass, bare fields, woods of grey and gold and brown, fast being
pillaged.  But all that sweep of wind, and sky, freshness of rain,
and distant colour could not drive out of Gyp's heart the hopeless
aching and the devil begotten of it.


VIII


There are men who, however well-off--either in money or love--must
gamble.  Their affections may be deeply rooted, but they cannot
repulse fate when it tantalizes them with a risk.

Summerhay, who loved Gyp, was not tired of her either physically or
mentally, and even felt sure he would never tire, had yet dallied
for months with this risk which yesterday had come to a head.  And
now, taking his seat in the train to return to her, he felt
unquiet; and since he resented disquietude, he tried defiantly to
think of other things, but he was very unsuccessful.  Looking back,
it was difficult for him to tell when the snapping of his defences
had begun.  A preference shown by one accustomed to exact
preference is so insidious.  The girl, his cousin, was herself a
gambler.  He did not respect her as he respected Gyp; she did not
touch him as Gyp touched him, was not--no, not half--so deeply
attractive; but she had--confound her! the power of turning his
head at moments, a queer burning, skin-deep fascination, and, above
all, that most dangerous quality in a woman--the lure of an
imperious vitality.  In love with life, she made him feel that he
was letting things slip by.  And since to drink deep of life was
his nature, too--what chance had he of escape?  Far-off cousinhood
is a dangerous relationship.  Its familiarity is not great enough
to breed contempt, but sufficient to remove those outer defences to
intimacy, the conquest of which, in other circumstances, demands
the conscious effort which warns people whither they are going.

Summerhay had not realized the extent of the danger, but he had
known that it existed, especially since Scotland.  It would be
interesting--as the historians say--to speculate on what he would
have done, if he could have foretold what would happen.  But he had
certainly not foretold the crisis of yesterday evening.  He had
received a telegram from her at lunch-time, suggesting the
fulfilment of a jesting promise, made in Scotland, that she should
have tea with him and see his chambers--a small and harmless
matter.  Only, why had he dismissed his clerk so early?  That is
the worst of gamblers--they will put a polish on the risks they
run.  He had not reckoned, perhaps, that she would look so pretty,
lying back in his big Oxford chair, with furs thrown open so that
her white throat showed, her hair gleaming, a smile coming and
going on her lips; her white hand, with polished nails, holding
that cigarette; her brown eyes, so unlike Gyp's, fixed on him; her
slim foot with high instep thrust forward in transparent stocking.
Not reckoned that, when he bent to take her cup, she would put out
her hands, draw his head down, press her lips to his, and say: "Now
you know!"  His head had gone round, still went round, thinking of
it!  That was all.  A little matter--except that, in an hour, he
would be meeting the eyes of one he loved much more.  And yet--the
poison was in his blood; a kiss so cut short--by what--what counter
impulse?--leaving him gazing at her without a sound, inhaling that
scent of hers--something like a pine wood's scent, only sweeter,
while she gathered up her gloves, fastened her furs, as if it had
been he, not she, who had snatched that kiss.  But her hand had
pressed his arm against her as they went down the stairs.  And
getting into her cab at the Temple Station, she had looked back at
him with a little half-mocking smile of challenge and comradeship
and promise.  The link would be hard to break--even if he wanted
to.  And yet nothing would come of it!  Heavens, no!  He had never
thought!  Marriage!  Impossible!  Anything else--even more
impossible!  When he got back to his chambers, he had found in the
box the letter, which her telegram had repeated, readdressed by Gyp
from the Red House.  And a faint uneasiness at its having gone down
there passed through him.  He spent a restless evening at the club,
playing cards and losing; sat up late in his chambers over a case;
had a hard morning's work, and only now that he was nearing Gyp,
realized how utterly he had lost the straightforward simplicity of
things.

When he reached the house and found that she had gone out riding
alone, his uneasiness increased.  Why had she not waited as usual
for him to ride with her?  And he paced up and down the garden,
where the wind was melancholy in the boughs of the walnut-tree that
had lost all its leaves.  Little Gyp was out for her walk, and only
poor old Ossy kept him company.  Had she not expected him by the
usual train?  He would go and try to find out.  He changed and went
to the stables.  Old Pettance was sitting on a corn-bin, examining
an aged Ruff's Guide, which contained records of his long-past
glory, scored under by a pencil: "June Stakes:  Agility.  E.
Pettance 3rd."  "Tidport Selling H'Cap:  Dorothea, E. Pettance, o."
"Salisbury Cup:  Also ran Plum Pudding, E. Pettance," with other
triumphs.  He got up, saying:

"Good-afternoon, sir; windy afternoon, sir.  The mistress 'as been
gone out over two hours, sir.  She wouldn't take me with 'er."

"Hurry up, then, and saddle Hotspur."

"Yes, sir; very good, sir."

Over two hours!  He went up on to the downs, by the way they
generally came home, and for an hour he rode, keeping a sharp
lookout for any sign of her.  No use; and he turned home, hot and
uneasy.  On the hall table were her riding-whip and gloves.  His
heart cleared, and he ran upstairs.  She was doing her hair and
turned her head sharply as he entered.  Hurrying across the room he
had the absurd feeling that she was standing at bay.  She drew
back, bent her face away from him, and said:

"No!  Don't pretend!  Anything's better than pretence!"

He had never seen her look or speak like that--her face so hard,
her eyes so stabbing!  And he recoiled dumbfounded.

"What's the matter, Gyp?"

"Nothing.  Only--don't pretend!"  And, turning to the glass, she
went on twisting and coiling up her hair.

She looked lovely, flushed from her ride in the wind, and he had a
longing to seize her in his arms.  But her face stopped him.  With
fear and a sort of anger, he said:

"You might explain, I think."

An evil little smile crossed her face.

"YOU can do that.  I am in the dark."

"I don't in the least understand what you mean."

"Don't you?"  There was something deadly in her utter disregard of
him, while her fingers moved swiftly about her dark, shining hair--
something so appallingly sudden in this hostility that Summerhay
felt a peculiar sensation in his head, as if he must knock it
against something.  He sat down on the side of the bed.  Was it
that letter?  But how?  It had not been opened.  He said:

"What on earth has happened, Gyp, since I went up yesterday?  Speak
out, and don't keep me like this!"

She turned and looked at him.

"Don't pretend that you're upset because you can't kiss me!  Don't
be false, Bryan!  You know it's been pretence for months."

Summerhay's voice grew high.

"I think you've gone mad.  I don't know what you mean."

"Oh, yes, you do.  Did you get a letter yesterday marked
'Immediate'?"

Ah!  So it WAS that!  To meet the definite, he hardened, and said
stubbornly:

"Yes; from Diana Leyton.  Do you object?"

"No; only, how do you think it got back to you from here so
quickly?"

He said dully:

"I don't know.  By post, I suppose."

"No; I put it in your letter-box myself--at half-past five."

Summerhay's mind was trained to quickness, and the full
significance of those words came home to him at once.  He stared at
her fixedly.

"I suppose you saw us, then."

"Yes."

He got up, made a helpless movement, and said:

"Oh, Gyp, don't!  Don't be so hard!  I swear by--"

Gyp gave a little laugh, turned her back, and went on coiling at
her hair.  And again that horrid feeling that he must knock his
head against something rose in Summerhay.  He said helplessly:

"I only gave her tea.  Why not?  She's my cousin.  It's nothing!
Why should you think the worst of me?  She asked to see my
chambers.  Why not?  I couldn't refuse."

"Your EMPTY chambers?  Don't, Bryan--it's pitiful!  I can't bear to
hear you."

At that lash of the whip, Summerhay turned and said:

"It pleases you to think the worst, then?"

Gyp stopped the movement of her fingers and looked round at him.

"I've always told you you were perfectly free.  Do you think I
haven't felt it going on for months?  There comes a moment when
pride revolts--that's all.  Don't lie to me, PLEASE!"

"I am not in the habit of lying."  But still he did not go.  That
awful feeling of encirclement, of a net round him, through which he
could not break--a net which he dimly perceived even in his
resentment to have been spun by himself, by that cursed intimacy,
kept from her all to no purpose--beset him more closely every
minute.  Could he not make her see the truth, that it was only her
he REALLY loved?  And he said:

"Gyp, I swear to you there's nothing but one kiss, and that was
not--"

A shudder went through her from head to foot; she cried out:

"Oh, please go away!"

He went up to her, put his hands on her shoulders, and said:

"It's only you I really love.  I swear it!  Why don't you believe
me?  You must believe me.  You can't be so wicked as not to.  It's
foolish--foolish!  Think of our life--think of our love--think of
all--"  Her face was frozen; he loosened his grasp of her, and
muttered: "Oh, your pride is awful!"

"Yes, it's all I've got.  Lucky for you I have it.  You can go to
her when you like."

"Go to her!  It's absurd--I couldn't--  If you wish, I'll never see
her again."

She turned away to the glass.

"Oh, don't!  What IS the use?"

Nothing is harder for one whom life has always spoiled than to find
his best and deepest feelings disbelieved in.  At that moment,
Summerhay meant absolutely what he said.  The girl was nothing to
him!  If she was pursuing him, how could he help it?  And he could
not make Gyp believe it!  How awful!  How truly terrible!  How
unjust and unreasonable of her!  And why?  What had he done that
she should be so unbelieving--should think him such a shallow
scoundrel?  Could he help the girl's kissing him?  Help her being
fond of him?  Help having a man's nature?  Unreasonable, unjust,
ungenerous!  And giving her a furious look, he went out.

He went down to his study, flung himself on the sofa and turned his
face to the wall.  Devilish!  But he had not been there five
minutes before his anger seemed childish and evaporated into the
chill of deadly and insistent fear.  He was perceiving himself up
against much more than a mere incident, up against her nature--its
pride and scepticism--yes--and the very depth and singleness of her
love.  While she wanted nothing but him, he wanted and took so much
else.  He perceived this but dimly, as part of that feeling that he
could not break through, of the irritable longing to put his head
down and butt his way out, no matter what the obstacles.  What was
coming?  How long was this state of things to last?  He got up and
began to pace the room, his hands clasped behind him, his head
thrown back; and every now and then he shook that head, trying to
free it from this feeling of being held in chancery.  And then
Diana!  He had said he would not see her again.  But was that
possible?  After that kiss--after that last look back at him!  How?
What could he say--do?  How break so suddenly?  Then, at memory of
Gyp's face, he shivered.  Ah, how wretched it all was!  There must
be some way out--some way!  Surely some way out!  For when first,
in the wood of life, fatality halts, turns her dim dark form among
the trees, shows her pale cheek and those black eyes of hers, shows
with awful swiftness her strange reality--men would be fools indeed
who admitted that they saw her!


IX


Gyp stayed in her room doing little things--as a woman will when
she is particularly wretched--sewing pale ribbons into her
garments, polishing her rings.  And the devil that had entered into
her when she woke that morning, having had his fling, slunk away,
leaving the old bewildered misery.  She had stabbed her lover with
words and looks, felt pleasure in stabbing, and now was bitterly
sad.  What use--what satisfaction?  How by vengeful prickings cure
the deep wound, disperse the canker in her life?  How heal herself
by hurting him whom she loved so?  If he came up again now and made
but a sign, she would throw herself into his arms.  But hours
passed, and he did not come, and she did not go down--too truly
miserable.  It grew dark, but she did not draw the curtains; the
sight of the windy moonlit garden and the leaves driving across
brought a melancholy distraction.  Little Gyp came in and prattled.
There was a tree blown down, and she had climbed on it; they had
picked up two baskets of acorns, and the pigs had been so greedy;
and she had been blown away, so that Betty had had to run after
her.  And Baryn was walking in the study; he was so busy he had
only given her one kiss.

When she was gone, Gyp opened the window and let the wind full into
her face.  If only it would blow out of her heart this sickening
sense that all was over, no matter how he might pretend to love her
out of pity!  In a nature like hers, so doubting and self-
distrustful, confidence, once shaken to the roots, could never be
restored.  A proud nature that went all lengths in love could never
be content with a half-love.  She had been born too doubting,
proud, and jealous, yet made to love too utterly.  She--who had
been afraid of love, and when it came had fought till it swept her
away; who, since then, had lived for love and nothing else, who
gave all, and wanted all--knew for certain and for ever that she
could not have all.

It was "nothing" he had said!  Nothing!  That for months he had
been thinking at least a little of another woman besides herself.
She believed what he had told her, that there had been no more than
a kiss--but was it nothing that they had reached that kiss?  This
girl--this cousin--who held all the cards, had everything on her
side--the world, family influence, security of life; yes, and more,
so terribly much more--a man's longing for the young and
unawakened.  This girl he could marry!  It was this thought which
haunted her.  A mere momentary outbreak of man's natural wildness
she could forgive and forget--oh, yes!  It was the feeling that it
was a girl, his own cousin, besieging him, dragging him away, that
was so dreadful.  Ah, how horrible it was--how horrible!  How, in
decent pride, keep him from her, fetter him?

She heard him come up to his dressing-room, and while he was still
there, stole out and down.  Life must go on, the servants be
hoodwinked, and so forth.  She went to the piano and played,
turning the dagger in her heart, or hoping forlornly that music
might work some miracle.  He came in presently and stood by the
fire, silent.

Dinner, with the talk needful to blinding the household--for what
is more revolting than giving away the sufferings of the heart?--
was almost unendurable and directly it was over, they went, he to
his study, she back to the piano.  There she sat, ready to strike
the notes if anyone came in; and tears fell on the hands that
rested in her lap.  With all her soul she longed to go and clasp
him in her arms and cry: "I don't care--I don't care!  Do what you
like--go to her--if only you'll love me a little!"  And yet to
love--a LITTLE!  Was it possible?  Not to her!

In sheer misery she went upstairs and to bed.  She heard him come
up and go into his dressing-room--and, at last, in the firelight
saw him kneeling by her.

"Gyp!"

She raised herself and threw her arms round him.  Such an embrace a
drowning woman might have given.  Pride and all were abandoned in
an effort to feel him close once more, to recover the irrecoverable
past.  For a long time she listened to his pleading, explanations,
justifications, his protestations of undying love--strange to her
and painful, yet so boyish and pathetic.  She soothed him, clasping
his head to her breast, gazing out at the flickering fire.  In that
hour, she rose to a height above herself.  What happened to her own
heart did not matter so long as he was happy, and had all that he
wanted with her and away from her--if need be, always away from her.

But, when he had gone to sleep, a terrible time began; for in the
small hours, when things are at their worst, she could not keep
back her weeping, though she smothered it into the pillow.  It woke
him, and all began again; the burden of her cry: "It's gone!" the
burden of his: "It's NOT--can't you see it isn't?"  Till, at last,
that awful feeling that he must knock his head against the wall
made him leap up and tramp up and down like a beast in a cage--the
cage of the impossible.  For, as in all human tragedies, both were
right according to their natures.  She gave him all herself, wanted
all in return, and could not have it.  He wanted her, the rest
besides, and no complaining, and could not have it.  He did not
admit impossibility; she did.

At last came another of those pitying lulls till he went to sleep
in her arms.  Long she lay awake, staring at the darkness,
admitting despair, trying to find how to bear it, not succeeding.
Impossible to cut his other life away from him--impossible that,
while he lived it, this girl should not be tugging him away from
her.  Impossible to watch and question him.  Impossible to live
dumb and blind, accepting the crumbs left over, showing nothing.
Would it have been better if they had been married?  But then it
might have been the same--reversed; perhaps worse!  The roots were
so much deeper than that.  He was not single-hearted and she was.
In spite of all that he said, she knew he didn't really want to
give up that girl.  How could he?  Even if the girl would let him
go!  And slowly there formed within her a gruesome little plan to
test him.  Then, ever so gently withdrawing her arms, she turned
over and slept, exhausted.

Next morning, remorselessly carrying out that plan, she forced
herself to smile and talk as if nothing had happened, watching the
relief in his face, his obvious delight at the change, with a
fearful aching in her heart.  She waited till he was ready to go
down, and then, still smiling, said:

"Forget all about yesterday, darling.  Promise me you won't let it
make any difference.  You must keep up your friendship; you mustn't
lose anything.  I shan't mind; I shall be quite happy."  He knelt
down and leaned his forehead against her waist.  And, stroking his
hair, she repeated: "I shall only be happy if you take everything
that comes your way.  I shan't mind a bit."  And she watched his
face that had lost its trouble.

"Do you really mean that?"

"Yes; really!"

"Then you do see that it's nothing, never has been anything--
compared with you--never!"

He had accepted her crucifixion.  A black wave surged into her
heart.

"It would be so difficult and awkward for you to give up that
intimacy.  It would hurt your cousin so."

She saw the relief deepen in his face and suddenly laughed.  He got
up from his knees and stared at her.

"Oh, Gyp, for God's sake don't begin again!"

But she went on laughing; then, with a sob, turned away and buried
her face in her hands.  To all his prayers and kisses she answered
nothing, and breaking away from him, she rushed toward the door.  A
wild thought possessed her.  Why go on?  If she were dead, it would
be all right for him, quiet--peaceful, quiet--for them all!  But he
had thrown himself in the way.

"Gyp, for heaven's sake!  I'll give her up--of course I'll give her
up.  Do--do--be reasonable!  I don't care a finger-snap for her
compared with you!"

And presently there came another of those lulls that both were
beginning to know were mere pauses of exhaustion.  They were
priceless all the same, for the heart cannot go on feeling at that
rate.

It was Sunday morning, the church-bells ringing, no wind, a lull in
the sou'westerly gale--one of those calms that fall in the night
and last, as a rule, twelve or fifteen hours, and the garden all
strewn with leaves of every hue, from green spotted with yellow to
deep copper.

Summerhay was afraid; he kept with her all the morning, making all
sorts of little things to do in her company.  But he gradually lost
his fear, she seemed so calm now, and his was a nature that bore
trouble badly, ever impatient to shake it off.  And then, after
lunch, the spirit-storm beat up again, with a swiftness that showed
once more how deceptive were those lulls, how fearfully deep and
lasting the wound.  He had simply asked her whether he should try
to match something for her when he went up, to-morrow.  She was
silent a moment, then answered:

"Oh, no, thanks; you'll have other things to do; people to see!"

The tone of her voice, the expression on her face showed him, with
a fresh force of revelation, what paralysis had fallen on his life.
If he could not reconvince her of his love, he would be in
perpetual fear--that he might come back and find her gone, fear
that she might even do something terrible to herself.  He looked at
her with a sort of horror, and, without a word, went out of the
room.  The feeling that he must hit his head against something was
on him once more, and once more he sought to get rid of it by
tramping up and down.  Great God!  Such a little thing, such
fearful consequences!  All her balance, her sanity almost,
destroyed.  Was what he had done so very dreadful?  He could not
help Diana loving him!

In the night, Gyp had said: "You are cruel.  Do you think there is
any man in the world that I wouldn't hate the sight of if I knew
that to see him gave you a moment's pain?"  It was true--he felt it
was true.  But one couldn't hate a girl simply because she loved
you; at least he couldn't--not even to save Gyp pain.  That was not
reasonable, not possible.  But did that difference between a man
and a woman necessarily mean that Gyp loved him so much more than
he loved her?  Could she not see things in proportion?  See that a
man might want, did want, other friendships, even passing moments
of passion, and yet could love her just the same?  She thought him
cruel, called him cruel--what for?  Because he had kissed a girl
who had kissed him; because he liked talking to her, and--yes,
might even lose his head with her.  But cruel!  He was not!  Gyp
would always be first with him.  He must MAKE her see--but how?
Give up everything?  Give up--Diana?  (Truth is so funny--it will
out even in a man's thoughts!)  Well, and he could!  His feeling
was not deep--that was God's truth!  But it would be difficult,
awkward, brutal to give her up completely!  It could be done,
though, sooner than that Gyp should think him cruel to her.  It
could be--should be done!

Only, would it be any use?  Would she believe?  Would she not
always now be suspecting him when he was away from her, whatever he
did?  Must he then sit down here in inactivity?  And a gust of
anger with her swept him.  Why should she treat him as if he were
utterly unreliable?  Or--was he?  He stood still.  When Diana had
put her arms round his neck, he could no more have resisted
answering her kiss than he could now fly through the window and
over those poplar trees.  But he was not a blackguard, not cruel,
not a liar!  How could he have helped it all?  The only way would
have been never to have answered the girl's first letter, nearly a
year ago.  How could he foresee?  And, since then, all so gradual,
and nothing, really, or almost nothing.  Again the surge of anger
swelled his heart.  She must have read the letter which had been
under that cursed bust of old Voltaire all those months ago.  The
poison had been working ever since!  And in sudden fury at that
miserable mischance, he drove his fist into the bronze face.  The
bust fell over, and Summerhay looked stupidly at his bruised hand.
A silly thing to do!  But it had quenched his anger.  He only saw
Gyp's face now--so pitifully unhappy.  Poor darling!  What could he
do?  If only she would believe!  And again he had the sickening
conviction that whatever he did would be of no avail.  He could
never get back, was only at the beginning, of a trouble that had no
end.  And, like a rat in a cage, his mind tried to rush out of this
entanglement now at one end, now at the other.  Ah, well!  Why
bruise your head against walls?  If it was hopeless--let it go!
And, shrugging his shoulders, he went out to the stables, and told
old Pettance to saddle Hotspur.  While he stood there waiting, he
thought: 'Shall I ask her to come?'  But he could not stand another
bout of misery--must have rest!  And mounting, he rode up towards
the downs.

Hotspur, the sixteen-hand brown horse, with not a speck of white,
that Gyp had ridden hunting the day she first saw Summerhay, was
nine years old now.  His master's two faults as a horseman--a habit
of thrusting, and not too light hands--had encouraged his rather
hard mouth, and something had happened in the stables to-day to put
him into a queer temper; or perhaps he felt--as horses will--the
disturbance raging within his rider.  At any rate, he gave an
exhibition of his worst qualities, and Summerhay derived perverse
pleasure from that waywardness.  He rode a good hour up there;
then, hot, with aching arms--for the brute was pulling like the
devil!--he made his way back toward home and entered what little
Gyp called "the wild," those two rough sedgy fields with the linhay
in the corner where they joined.  There was a gap in the hedge-
growth of the bank between them, and at this he put Hotspur at
speed.  The horse went over like a bird; and for the first time
since Diana's kiss Summerhay felt a moment's joy.  He turned him
round and sent him at it again, and again Hotspur cleared it
beautifully.  But the animal's blood was up now.  Summerhay could
hardly hold him.  Muttering: "Oh, you BRUTE, don't pull!" he jagged
the horse's mouth.  There darted into his mind Gyp's word: "Cruel!"
And, viciously, in one of those queer nerve-crises that beset us
all, he struck the pulling horse.

They were cantering toward the corner where the fields joined, and
suddenly he was aware that he could no more hold the beast than if
a steam-engine had been under him.  Straight at the linhay Hotspur
dashed, and Summerhay thought: "My God!  He'll kill himself!"
Straight at the old stone linhay, covered by the great ivy bush.
Right at it--into it!  Summerhay ducked his head.  Not low enough--
the ivy concealed a beam!  A sickening crash!  Torn backward out of
the saddle, he fell on his back in a pool of leaves and mud.  And
the horse, slithering round the linhay walls, checked in his own
length, unhurt, snorting, frightened, came out, turning his wild
eyes on his master, who never stirred, then trotted back into the
field, throwing up his head.


X


When, at her words, Summerhay went out of the room, Gyp's heart
sank.  All the morning she had tried so hard to keep back her
despairing jealousy, and now at the first reminder had broken down
again.  It was beyond her strength!  To live day after day knowing
that he, up in London, was either seeing that girl or painfully
abstaining from seeing her!  And then, when he returned, to be to
him just what she had been, to show nothing--would it ever be
possible?  Hardest to bear was what seemed to her the falsity of
his words, maintaining that he still really loved her.  If he did,
how could he hesitate one second?  Would not the very thought of
the girl be abhorrent to him?  He would have shown that, not merely
said it among other wild things.  Words were no use when they
contradicted action.  She, who loved with every bit of her, could
not grasp that a man can really love and want one woman and yet, at
the same time, be attracted by another.

That sudden fearful impulse of the morning to make away with
herself and end it for them both recurred so vaguely that it hardly
counted in her struggles; the conflict centred now round the
question whether life would be less utterly miserable if she
withdrew from him and went back to Mildenham.  Life without him?
That was impossible!  Life with him?  Just as impossible, it
seemed!  There comes a point of mental anguish when the
alternatives between which one swings, equally hopeless, become
each so monstrous that the mind does not really work at all, but
rushes helplessly from one to the other, no longer trying to
decide, waiting on fate.  So in Gyp that Sunday afternoon, doing
little things all the time--mending a hole in one of his gloves,
brushing and applying ointment to old Ossy, sorting bills and
letters.

At five o'clock, knowing little Gyp must soon be back from her
walk, and feeling unable to take part in gaiety, she went up and
put on her hat.  She turned from contemplation of her face with
disgust.  Since it was no longer the only face for him, what was
the use of beauty?  She slipped out by the side gate and went down
toward the river.  The lull was over; the south-west wind had begun
sighing through the trees again, and gorgeous clouds were piled up
from the horizon into the pale blue.  She stood by the river
watching its grey stream, edged by a scum of torn-off twigs and
floating leaves, watched the wind shivering through the spoiled
plume-branches of the willows.  And, standing there, she had a
sudden longing for her father; he alone could help her--just a
little--by his quietness, and his love, by his mere presence.

She turned away and went up the lane again, avoiding the inn and
the riverside houses, walking slowly, her head down.  And a thought
came, her first hopeful thought.  Could they not travel--go round
the world?  Would he give up his work for that--that chance to
break the spell?  Dared she propose it?  But would even that be
anything more than a putting-off?  If she was not enough for him
now, would she not be still less, if his work were cut away?
Still, it was a gleam, a gleam in the blackness.  She came in at
the far end of the fields they called "the wild."  A rose-leaf hue
tinged the white cloud-banks, which towered away to the east beyond
the river; and peeping over that mountain-top was the moon, fleecy
and unsubstantial in the flax-blue sky.  It was one of nature's
moments of wild colour.  The oak-trees above the hedgerows had not
lost their leaves, and in the darting, rain-washed light from the
setting sun, had a sheen of old gold with heart of ivy-green; the
hail-stripped beeches flamed with copper; the russet tufts of the
ash-trees glowed.  And past Gyp, a single leaf blown off, went
soaring, turning over and over, going up on the rising wind, up--
up, higher--higher into the sky, till it was lost--away.

The rain had drenched the long grass, and she turned back.  At the
gate beside the linhay, a horse was standing.  It whinnied.
Hotspur, saddled, bridled, with no rider!  Why?  Where--then?
Hastily she undid the latch, ran through, and saw Summerhay lying
in the mud--on his back, with eyes wide-open, his forehead and hair
all blood.  Some leaves had dropped on him.  God!  O God!  His eyes
had no sight, his lips no breath; his heart did not beat; the
leaves had dropped even on his face--in the blood on his poor head.
Gyp raised him--stiffened, cold as ice!  She gave one cry, and
fell, embracing his dead, stiffened body with all her strength,
kissing his lips, his eyes, his broken forehead; clasping, warming
him, trying to pass life into him; till, at last, she, too, lay
still, her lips on his cold lips, her body on his cold body in the
mud and the fallen leaves, while the wind crept and rustled in the
ivy, and went over with the scent of rain.  Close by, the horse,
uneasy, put his head down and sniffed at her, then, backing away,
neighed, and broke into a wild gallop round the field. . . .

Old Pettance, waiting for Summerhay's return to stable-up for the
night, heard that distant neigh and went to the garden gate,
screwing up his little eyes against the sunset.  He could see a
loose horse galloping down there in "the wild," where no horse
should be, and thinking: "There now; that artful devil's broke away
from the guv'nor!  Now I'll 'ave to ketch 'im!' he went back, got
some oats, and set forth at the best gait of his stiff-jointed
feet.  The old horseman characteristically did not think of
accidents.  The guv'nor had got off, no doubt, to unhitch that
heavy gate--the one you had to lift.  That 'orse--he was a
masterpiece of mischief!  His difference with the animal still
rankled in a mind that did not easily forgive.

Half an hour later, he entered the lighted kitchen shaking and
gasping, tears rolling down his furrowed cheeks into the corners of
his gargoyle's mouth, and panted out:

"O, my Gord!  Fetch the farmer--fetch an 'urdle!  O my Gord!
Betty, you and cook--I can't get 'er off him.  She don't speak.  I
felt her--all cold.  Come on, you sluts--quick!  O my Gord!  The
poor guv'nor!  That 'orse must 'a' galloped into the linhay and
killed him.  I've see'd the marks on the devil's shoulder where he
rubbed it scrapin' round the wall.  Come on--come on!  Fetch an
'urdle or she'll die there on him in the mud.  Put the child to bed
and get the doctor, and send a wire to London, to the major, to
come sharp.  Oh, blarst you all--keep your 'eads!  What's the good
o' howlin' and blubberin'!"

In the whispering corner of those fields, light from a lantern and
the moon fell on the old stone linhay, on the ivy and the broken
gate, on the mud, the golden leaves, and the two quiet bodies
clasped together.  Gyp's consciousness had flown; there seemed no
difference between them.  And presently, over the rushy grass, a
procession moved back in the wind and the moonlight--two hurdles,
two men carrying one, two women and a man the other, and, behind,
old Pettance and the horse.


XI


When Gyp recovered a consciousness, whose flight had been
mercifully renewed with morphia, she was in her bed, and her first
drowsy movement was toward her mate.  With eyes still closed, she
turned, as she was wont, and put out her hand to touch him before
she dozed off again.  There was no warmth, no substance; through
her mind, still away in the mists of morphia, the thoughts passed
vague and lonely: 'Ah, yes, in London!'  And she turned on her
back.  London!  Something--something up there!  She opened her
eyes.  So the fire had kept in all night!  Someone was in a chair
there, or--was she dreaming!  And suddenly, without knowing why,
she began breathing hurriedly in little half-sobbing gasps.  The
figure moved, turned her face in the firelight.  Betty!  Gyp closed
her eyes.  An icy sweat had broken out all over her.  A dream!  In
a whisper, she said:

"Betty!"

The muffled answer came.

"Yes, my darlin'."

"What is it?"

No answer; then a half-choked, "Don't 'ee think--don't 'ee think!
Your Daddy'll be here directly, my sweetie!"

Gyp's eyes, wide open, passed from the firelight and that rocking
figure to the little chink of light that was hardly light as yet,
coming in at one corner of the curtain.  She was remembering.  Her
tongue stole out and passed over her lips; beneath the bedclothes
she folded both her hands tight across her heart.  Then she was not
dead with him--not dead!  Not gone back with him into the ground--
not--  And suddenly there flickered in her a flame of maniacal
hatred.  They were keeping her alive!  A writhing smile forced its
way up on to her parched lips.

"Betty, I'm so thirsty--so thirsty.  Get me a cup of tea."

The stout form heaved itself from the chair and came toward the
bed.

"Yes, my lovey, at once.  It'll do you good.  That's a brave girl."

"Yes."

The moment the door clicked to, Gyp sprang up.  Her veins throbbed;
her whole soul was alive with cunning.  She ran to the wardrobe,
seized her long fur coat, slipped her bare feet into her slippers,
wound a piece of lace round her head, and opened the door.  All
dark and quiet!  Holding her breath, stifling the sound of her
feet, she glided down the stairs, slipped back the chain of the
front door, opened it, and fled.  Like a shadow she passed across
the grass, out of the garden gate, down the road under the black
dripping trees.  The beginning of light was mixing its grey hue
into the darkness; she could just see her feet among the puddles on
the road.  She heard the grinding and whirring of a motor-car on
its top gear approaching up the hill, and cowered away against the
hedge.  Its light came searching along, picking out with a
mysterious momentary brightness the bushes and tree-trunks, making
the wet road gleam.  Gyp saw the chauffeur turn his head back at
her, then the car's body passed up into darkness, and its tail-
light was all that was left to see.  Perhaps that car was going to
the Red House with her father, the doctor, somebody, helping to
keep her alive!  The maniacal hate flared up in her again; she flew
on.  The light grew; a man with a dog came out of a gate she had
passed, and called "Hallo!"  She did not turn her head.  She had
lost her slippers, and ran with bare feet, unconscious of stones,
or the torn-off branches strewing the road, making for the lane
that ran right down to the river, a little to the left of the inn,
the lane of yesterday, where the bank was free.

She turned into the lane; dimly, a hundred or more yards away, she
could see the willows, the width of lighter grey that was the
river.  The river--"Away, my rolling river!"--the river--and the
happiest hours of all her life!  If he were anywhere, she would
find him there, where he had sung, and lain with his head on her
breast, and swum and splashed about her; where she had dreamed, and
seen beauty, and loved him so!  She reached the bank.  Cold and
grey and silent, swifter than yesterday, the stream was flowing by,
its dim far shore brightening slowly in the first break of dawn.
And Gyp stood motionless, drawing her breath in gasps after her
long run; her knees trembled; gave way.  She sat down on the wet
grass, clasping her arms round her drawn-up legs, rocking herself
to and fro, and her loosened hair fell over her face.  The blood
beat in her ears; her heart felt suffocated; all her body seemed on
fire, yet numb.  She sat, moving her head up and down--as the head
of one moves that is gasping her last--waiting for breath--breath
and strength to let go life, to slip down into the grey water.  And
that queer apartness from self, which is the property of fever,
came on her, so that she seemed to see herself sitting there,
waiting, and thought: 'I shall see myself dead, floating among the
reeds.  I shall see the birds wondering above me!'  And, suddenly,
she broke into a storm of dry sobbing, and all things vanished from
her, save just the rocking of her body, the gasping of her breath,
and the sound of it in her ears.  Her boy--her boy--and his poor
hair!  "Away, my rolling river!"  Swaying over, she lay face down,
clasping at the wet grass and the earth.

The sun rose, laid a pale bright streak along the water, and hid
himself again.  A robin twittered in the willows; a leaf fell on
her bare ankle.


Winton, who had been hunting on Saturday, had returned to town on
Sunday by the evening tram, and gone straight to his club for some
supper.  There falling asleep over his cigar, he had to be awakened
when they desired to close the club for the night.  It was past two
when he reached Bury Street and found a telegram.


"Something dreadful happened to Mr. Summerhay.  Come quick.--
BETTY."


Never had he so cursed the loss of his hand as during the time that
followed, when Markey had to dress, help his master, pack bags, and
fetch a taxi equipped for so long a journey.  At half-past three
they started.  The whole way down, Winton, wrapped in his fur coat,
sat a little forward on his seat, ready to put his head through the
window and direct the driver.  It was a wild night, and he would
not let Markey, whose chest was not strong, go outside to act as
guide.  Twice that silent one, impelled by feelings too strong even
for his respectful taciturnity, had spoken.

"That'll be bad for Miss Gyp, sir."

"Bad, yes--terrible."

And later:

"D'you think it means he's dead, sir?"

Winton answered sombrely:

"God knows, Markey!  We must hope for the best."

Dead!  Could Fate be cruel enough to deal one so soft and loving
such a blow?  And he kept saying to himself: "Courage.  Be ready
for the worst.  Be ready."

But the figures of Betty and a maid at the open garden gate, in the
breaking darkness, standing there wringing their hands, were too
much for his stoicism.  Leaping out, he cried:

"What is it, woman?  Quick!"

"Oh, sir!  My dear's gone.  I left her a moment to get her a cup of
tea.  And she's run out in the cold!"

Winton stood for two seconds as if turned to stone.  Then, taking
Betty by the shoulder, he asked quietly:

"What happened to HIM?"

Betty could not answer, but the maid said:

"The horse killed him at that linhay, sir, down in 'the wild.'  And
the mistress was unconscious till quarter of an hour ago."

"Which way did she go?"

"Out here, sir; the door and the gate was open--can't tell which
way."

Through Winton flashed one dreadful thought:  The river!

"Turn the cab round!  Stay in, Markey!  Betty and you, girl, go
down to 'the wild,' and search there at once.  Yes?  What is it?"

The driver was leaning out.

"As we came up the hill, sir, I see a lady or something in a long
dark coat with white on her head, against the hedge."

"Right!  Drive down again sharp, and use your eyes."

At such moments, thought is impossible, and a feverish use of every
sense takes its place.  But of thought there was no need, for the
gardens of villas and the inn blocked the river at all but one
spot.  Winton stopped the car where the narrow lane branched down
to the bank, and jumping out, ran.  By instinct he ran silently on
the grass edge, and Markey, imitating, ran behind.  When he came in
sight of a black shape lying on the bank, he suffered a moment of
intense agony, for he thought it was just a dark garment thrown
away.  Then he saw it move, and, holding up his hand for Markey to
stand still, walked on alone, tiptoeing in the grass, his heart
swelling with a sort of rapture.  Stealthily moving round between
that prostrate figure and the water, he knelt down and said, as
best he could, for the husk in his throat:

"My darling!"

Gyp raised her head and stared at him.  Her white face, with eyes
unnaturally dark and large, and hair falling all over it, was
strange to him--the face of grief itself, stripped of the wrappings
of form.  And he knew not what to do, how to help or comfort, how
to save.  He could see so clearly in her eyes the look of a wild
animal at the moment of its capture, and instinct made him say:

"I lost her just as cruelly, Gyp."

He saw the words reach her brain, and that wild look waver.
Stretching out his arm, he drew her close to him till her cheek was
against his, her shaking body against him, and kept murmuring:

"For my sake, Gyp; for my sake!"

When, with Markey's aid, he had got her to the cab, they took her,
not back to the house, but to the inn.  She was in high fever, and
soon delirious.  By noon, Aunt Rosamund and Mrs. Markey, summoned
by telegram, had arrived; and the whole inn was taken lest there
should be any noise to disturb her.

At five o'clock, Winton was summoned downstairs to the little so-
called reading-room.  A tall woman was standing at the window,
shading her eyes with the back of a gloved hand.  Though they had
lived so long within ten miles of each other he only knew Lady
Summerhay by sight, and he waited for the poor woman to speak
first.  She said in a low voice:

"There is nothing to say; only, I thought I must see you.  How is
she?"

"Delirious."

They stood in silence a full minute, before she whispered:

"My poor boy!  Did you see him--his forehead?"  Her lips quivered.
"I will take him back home."  And tears rolled, one after the
other, slowly down her flushed face under her veil.  Poor woman!
Poor woman!  She had turned to the window, passing her handkerchief
up under the veil, staring out at the little strip of darkening
lawn, and Winton, too, stared out into that mournful daylight.  At
last, he said:

"I will send you all his things, except--except anything that might
help my poor girl."

She turned quickly.

"And so it's ended like this!  Major Winton, is there anything
behind--were they really happy?"

Winton looked straight at her and answered:

"Ah, too happy!"

Without a quiver, he met those tear-darkened, dilated eyes
straining at his; with a heavy sigh, she once more turned away,
and, brushing her handkerchief across her face, drew down her veil.

It was not true--he knew from the mutterings of Gyp's fever--but no
one, not even Summerhay's mother, should hear a whisper if he could
help it.  At the door, he murmured:

"I don't know whether my girl will get through, or what she will do
after.  When Fate hits, she hits too hard.  And you! Good-bye."

Lady Summerhay pressed his outstretched hand.

"Good-bye," she said, in a strangled voice.  "I wish you--good-
bye."  Then, turning abruptly, she hastened away.

Winton went back to his guardianship upstairs.

In the days that followed, when Gyp, robbed of memory, hung between
life and death, Winton hardly left her room, that low room with
creepered windows whence the river could be seen, gliding down
under the pale November sunshine or black beneath the stars.  He
would watch it, fascinated, as one sometimes watches the relentless
sea.  He had snatched her as by a miracle from that snaky river.

He had refused to have a nurse.  Aunt Rosamund and Mrs. Markey were
skilled in sickness, and he could not bear that a strange person
should listen to those delirious mutterings.  His own part of the
nursing was just to sit there and keep her secrets from the others--
if he could.  And he grudged every minute away from his post.  He
would stay for hours, with eyes fixed on her face.  No one could
supply so well as he just that coherent thread of the familiar, by
which the fevered, without knowing it, perhaps find their way a
little in the dark mazes where they wander.  And he would think of
her as she used to be--well and happy--adopting unconsciously the
methods of those mental and other scientists whom he looked upon as
quacks.

He was astonished by the number of inquiries, even people whom he
had considered enemies left cards or sent their servants, forcing
him to the conclusion that people of position are obliged to
reserve their human kindness for those as good as dead.  But the
small folk touched him daily by their genuine concern for her whose
grace and softness had won their hearts.  One morning he received a
letter forwarded from Bury Street.


"DEAR MAJOR WINTON,

"I have read a paragraph in the paper about poor Mr. Summerhay's
death.  And, oh, I feel so sorry for her!  She was so good to me; I
do feel it most dreadfully.  If you think she would like to know
how we all feel for her, you would tell her, wouldn't you?  I do
think it's cruel.

"Very faithfully yours,

"DAPHNE WING."


So they knew Summerhay's name--he had not somehow expected that.
He did not answer, not knowing what to say.

During those days of fever, the hardest thing to bear was the sound
of her rapid whisperings and mutterings--incoherent phrases that
said so little and told so much.  Sometimes he would cover his
ears, to avoid hearing of that long stress of mind at which he had
now and then glimpsed.  Of the actual tragedy, her wandering spirit
did not seem conscious; her lips were always telling the depth of
her love, always repeating the dread of losing his; except when
they would give a whispering laugh, uncanny and enchanting, as at
some gleam of perfect happiness.  Those little laughs were worst of
all to hear; they never failed to bring tears into his eyes.  But
he drew a certain gruesome comfort from the conclusion slowly
forced on him, that Summerhay's tragic death had cut short a
situation which might have had an even more tragic issue.  One
night in the big chair at the side of her bed, he woke from a doze
to see her eyes fixed on him.  They were different; they saw, were
her own eyes again.  Her lips moved.

"Dad."

"Yes, my pet."

"I remember everything."

At that dreadful little saying, Winton leaned forward and put his
lips to her hand, that lay outside the clothes.

"Where is he buried?"

"At Widrington."

"Yes."

It was rather a sigh than a word and, raising his head, Winton saw
her eyes closed again.  Now that the fever had gone, the white
transparency of her cheeks and forehead against the dark lashes and
hair was too startling.  Was it a living face, or was its beauty
that of death?

He bent over.  She was breathing--asleep.


XII


The return to Mildenham was made by easy stages nearly two months
after Summerhay's death, on New Year's day--Mildenham, dark,
smelling the same, full of ghosts of the days before love began.
For little Gyp, more than five years old now, and beginning to
understand life, this was the pleasantest home yet.  In watching
her becoming the spirit of the place, as she herself had been when
a child, Gyp found rest at times, a little rest.  She had not
picked up much strength, was shadowy as yet, and if her face was
taken unawares, it was the saddest face one could see.  Her chief
preoccupation was not being taken unawares.  Alas!  To Winton, her
smile was even sadder.  He was at his wits' end about her that
winter and spring.  She obviously made the utmost effort to keep
up, and there was nothing to do but watch and wait.  No use to
force the pace.  Time alone could heal--perhaps.  Meanwhile, he
turned to little Gyp, so that they became more or less inseparable.

Spring came and passed.  Physically, Gyp grew strong again, but
since their return to Mildenham, she had never once gone outside
the garden, never once spoken of The Red House, never once of
Summerhay.  Winton had hoped that warmth and sunlight would bring
some life to her spirit, but it did not seem to.  Not that she
cherished her grief, appeared, rather, to do all in her power to
forget and mask it.  She only had what used to be called a broken
heart.  Nothing to be done.  Little Gyp, who had been told that
"Baryn" had gone away for ever, and that she must "never speak of
him for fear of making Mum sad," would sometimes stand and watch
her mother with puzzled gravity.  She once remarked uncannily to
Winton:

"Mum doesn't live with us, Grandy; she lives away somewhere, I
think.  Is it with Baryn?"

Winton stared, and answered:

"Perhaps it is, sweetheart; but don't say that to anybody but me.
Don't ever talk of Baryn to anyone else."

"Yes, I know; but where is he, Grandy?"

What could Winton answer?  Some imbecility with the words "very
far" in it; for he had not courage to broach the question of death,
that mystery so hopelessly beyond the grasp of children, and of
himself--and others.

He rode a great deal with the child, who, like her mother before
her, was never so happy as in the saddle; but to Gyp he did not
dare suggest it.  She never spoke of horses, never went to the
stables, passed all the days doing little things about the house,
gardening, and sitting at her piano, sometimes playing a little,
sometimes merely looking at the keys, her hands clasped in her lap.
This was early in the fateful summer, before any as yet felt the
world-tremors, or saw the Veil of the Temple rending and the
darkness beginning to gather.  Winton had no vision of the coif
above the dark eyes of his loved one, nor of himself in a strange
brown garb, calling out old familiar words over barrack-squares.
He often thought: 'If only she had something to take her out of
herself!'

In June he took his courage in both hands and proposed a visit to
London.  To his surprise, she acquiesced without hesitation.  They
went up in Whit-week.  While they were passing Widrington, he
forced himself to an unnatural spurt of talk; and it was not till
fully quarter of an hour later that, glancing stealthily round his
paper, he saw her sitting motionless, her face turned to the fields
and tears rolling down it.  And he dared not speak, dared not try
to comfort her.  She made no sound, the muscles of her face no
movement; only, those tears kept rolling down.  And, behind his
paper, Winton's eyes narrowed and retreated; his face hardened till
the skin seemed tight drawn over the bones, and every inch of him
quivered.

The usual route from the station to Bury Street was "up," and the
cab went by narrow by-streets, town lanes where the misery of the
world is on show, where ill-looking men, draggled and over-driven
women, and the jaunty ghosts of little children in gutters and on
doorsteps proclaim, by every feature of their clay-coloured faces
and every movement of their unfed bodies, the post-datement of the
millennium; where the lean and smutted houses have a look of
dissolution indefinitely put off, and there is no more trace of
beauty than in a sewer.  Gyp, leaning forward, looked out, as one
does after a long sea voyage; Winton felt her hand slip into his
and squeeze it hard.

That evening after dinner--in the room he had furnished for her
mother, where the satinwood chairs, the little Jacobean bureau, the
old brass candelabra were still much as they had been just on
thirty years ago--she said:

"Dad, I've been thinking.  Would you mind if I could make a sort of
home at Mildenham where poor children could come to stay and get
good air and food?  There are such thousands of them."

Strangely moved by this, the first wish he had heard her express
since the tragedy, Winton took her hand, and, looking at it as if
for answer to his question, said:

"My dear, are, you strong enough?"

"Quite.  There's nothing wrong with me now except here."  She drew
his hand to her and pressed it against her heart.  "What's given,
one can't get back.  I can't help it; I would if I could.  It's
been so dreadful for you.  I'm so sorry."  Winton made an
unintelligible sound, and she went on: "If I had them to see after,
I shouldn't be able to think so much; the more I had to do the
better.  Good for our gipsy-bird, too, to have them there.  I
should like to begin it at once."

Winton nodded.  Anything that she felt could do her good--anything!

"Yes, yes," he said; "I quite see--you could use the two old
cottages to start with, and we can easily run up anything you
want."

"Only let me do it all, won't you?"

At that touch of her old self, Winton smiled.  She should do
everything, pay for everything, bring a whole street of children
down, if it would give her any comfort!

"Rosamund'll help you find 'em," he muttered.  "She's first-rate at
all that sort of thing."  Then, looking at her fixedly, he added:
"Courage, my soul; it'll all come back some day."

Gyp forced herself to smile.  Watching her, he understood only too
well the child's saying: "Mum lives away somewhere, I think."

Suddenly, she said, very low:

"And yet I wouldn't have been without it."

She was sitting, her hands clasped in her lap, two red spots high
in her cheeks, her eyes shining strangely, the faint smile still on
her lips.  And Winton, staring with narrowed eyes, thought: 'Love!
Beyond measure--beyond death--it nearly kills.  But one wouldn't
have been without it.  Why?'


Three days later, leaving Gyp with his sister, he went back to
Mildenham to start the necessary alterations in the cottages.  He
had told no one he was coming, and walked up from the station on a
perfect June day, bright and hot.  When he turned through the drive
gate, into the beech-tree avenue, the leaf-shadows were thick on
the ground, with golden gleams of the invincible sunlight thrusting
their way through.  The grey boles, the vivid green leaves, those
glistening sun-shafts through the shade entranced him, coming from
the dusty road.  Down in the very middle of the avenue, a small,
white figure was standing, as if looking out for him.  He heard a
shrill shout.

"Oh, Grandy, you've come back--you've come back!  What FUN!"

Winton took her curls in his hand, and, looking into her face,
said:

"Well, my gipsy-bird, will you give me one of these?"

Little Gyp looked at him with flying eyes, and, hugging his legs,
answered furiously:

"Yes; because I love you.  PULL!"





End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Beyond, by John Galsworthy

