ious of
the girl's chic, genuinely attracted by one so pretty, took care that she
saw all the people, perhaps more than all, that were desirable.

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

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

He played first a minuet by Mozart; then the Cesar Franck sonata; and
when he came back to make his bow, he was holding in his hand a Gloire de
Dijon and a La France rose. Involuntarily, Gyp raised her hand to her
own roses. His eyes met hers; he bowed just a little lower. Then, quite
naturally, put the roses to his lips as he was walking off the platform.
Gyp dropped her hand, as if it had been stung. Then, with the swift
thought: "Oh, that's schoolgirlish!" she contrived a little smile. But
her cheeks were flushing. Should she take out those roses and let them
fall? Her father might see, might notice Fiorsen's--put two and two
together! He would consider she had been insulted. Had she? She could
not bring herself to think so. It was too pretty a compliment, as if he
wished to tell her that he was playing to her alone. The baroness's
wor