Chapter VI: Part II: I (4)

“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.”