to
one whom she does not really love, shadows are already falling on the
bride-house. And Fiorsen knew it; but his self-control about equalled
that of the two puppies.

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

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

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

"Only once--the very ride we've been to