er face. And, forcing a
smile, he said:

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

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

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

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

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

Gyp drew back from him against the wall.

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

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

"And shall you try to hurt them?"

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

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

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

Fiorsen said hoarsely:

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

But to say to Love: "Stand and deliver!" was not the way to touch Gyp.
It seemed to her mere ill-bred stupidity. She froze against him in soul,
all the more that she yielded her body. When a woman refuses nothing