y.

"No. Pay him."

The girl glanced at Gyp, answered: "Yes, sir," and went out.

Fiorsen laughed; he laughed, holding his sides. It was droll coming on
the top of his assertion, too droll! And, looking up at her, he said:

"That was good, wasn't it, Gyp?"

But her face had not abated its gravity; and, knowing that she was even
more easily tickled by the incongruous than himself, he felt again that
catch of fear. Something was different. Yes; something was really
different.

"Did I hurt you last night?"

She shrugged her shoulders and went to the window. He looked at her
darkly, jumped up, and swung out past her into the garden. And, almost at
once, the sound of his violin, furiously played in the music-room, came
across the lawn.

Gyp listened with a bitter smile. Money, too! But what did it matter?
She could not get out of what she had done. She could never get out.
Tonight he would kiss her; and she would pretend it was all right. And
so it would go on and on! Well, it was her own fault. Taking twelve
shillings from her purse, she put them aside on the bureau to give the
maid. And suddenly she thought: 'Perhaps he'll get tired of me. If only
he would get tired!' That was a long way the furthest she had yet gone.

VII

They who have known the doldrums--how the sails of the listless ship
droop, and the hope of escape dies day by day--may understand something
of the life Gyp began living now. On a ship, even doldrums come to an
end. But a young woman of twenty-three, who has made a mistake in her
marriage, and has only herself to blame, looks forward to no end, unless
she be the new woman, which Gyp was not. Having settled that she would
not admit failure, and clenched her teeth on the knowledge that she was
going to have a child, she went on keeping things sealed up even from
Winton. To Fiorsen, she managed to behave as usual, making material life
easy and pleasant for him--playing for him, feeding him well, indulging
his amorousness. It did not matter; she loved no one else. To count
herself a martyr would be silly! Her malaise, successfully concealed,
was deeper--of the spirit; the subtle utter discouragement of one who has
done for herself, clipped her own wings.

As for Rosek, she treated him as if that little scene had never taken
place. The idea of appealing to her husband in a difficulty was gone for
ever since the night he came home drunk. And she did not dare to tell