“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: