, ready to go downstairs. A little shepherdess in
china on the mantel-shelf attracted her attention, and she took it in her
hand. She had bought it three and more years ago, when she first came to
London, at the beginning of that time of girl-gaiety when all life seemed
a long cotillion, and she its leader. Its cool daintiness made it seem
the symbol of another world, a world without depths or shadows, a world
that did not feel--a happy world!

She had not long to wait before he tapped on the drawing-room window.
She got up from the tea-table to let him in. Why do faces gazing in
through glass from darkness always look hungry--searching, appealing for
what you have and they have not? And while she was undoing the latch she
thought: 'What am I going to say? I feel nothing!' The ardour of his
gaze, voice, hands seemed to her so false as to be almost comic; even
more comically false his look of disappointment when she said:

"Please take care; I'm still brittle!" Then she sat down again and
asked:

"Will you have some tea?"

"Tea! I have you back, and you ask me if I will have tea Gyp! Do you
know what I have felt like all this time? No; you don't know. You know
nothing of me--do you?"

A smile of sheer irony formed on her lips--without her knowing it was
there. She said:

"Have you had a good time at Count Rosek's?" And, without her will,
against her will, the words slipped out: "I'm afraid you've missed the
music-room!"

His stare wavered; he began to walk up and down.

"Missed! Missed everything! I have been very miserable, Gyp. You've no
idea how miserable. Yes, miserable, miserable, miserable!" With each
repetition of that word, his voice grew gayer. And kneeling down in
front of her, he stretched his long arms round her till they met behind
her waist: "Ah, my Gyp! I shall be a different being, now."

And Gyp went on smiling. Between that, and stabbing these false raptures
to the heart, there seemed to be nothing she could do. The moment his
hands relaxed, she got up and said:

"You know there's a baby in the house?"

He laughed.

"Ah, the baby! I'd forgotten. Let's go up and see it."

Gyp answered:

"You go."

She could feel him thinking: 'Perhaps it will make her nice to me!' He
turned suddenly and went.

She stood with her eyes shut, seeing the divan in the music-room and the
girl's arm shivering. Then, going to the piano, she began with all her
might to play a Chopin po