stare
at it gloomily or utter a laugh, and go out. Sometimes, he would come up
when Gyp was there, and after watching her a little in silence, almost
drag her away.

Suffering always from the guilty consciousness of having no love for him,
and ever more and more from her sense that, instead of saving him she
was, as it were, pushing him down-hill--ironical nemesis for vanity!--Gyp
was ever more and more compliant to his whims, trying to make up. But
this compliance, when all the time she felt further and further away, was
straining her to breaking-point. Hers was a nature that goes on
passively enduring till something snaps; after that--no more.

Those months of spring and summer were like a long spell of drought, when
moisture gathers far away, coming nearer, nearer, till, at last, the
deluge bursts and sweeps the garden.

XV

The tenth of July that year was as the first day of summer. There had
been much fine weather, but always easterly or northerly; now, after a
broken, rainy fortnight, the sun had come in full summer warmth with a
gentle breeze, drifting here and there scent of the opening lime blossom.
In the garden, under the trees at the far end, Betty sewed at a garment,
and the baby in her perambulator had her seventh morning sleep. Gyp
stood before a bed of pansies and sweet peas. How monkeyish the pansies'
faces! The sweet peas, too, were like tiny bright birds fastened to
green perches swaying with the wind. And their little green tridents,
growing out from the queer, flat stems, resembled the antennae of
insects. Each of these bright frail, growing things had life and
individuality like herself!

The sound of footsteps on the gravel made her turn. Rosek was coming
from the drawing-room window. Rather startled, Gyp looked at him over
her shoulder. What had brought him at eleven o'clock in the morning? He
came up to her, bowed, and said:

"I came to see Gustav. He's not up yet, it seems. I thought I would
speak to you first. Can we talk?"

Hesitating just a second, Gyp drew off her gardening-gloves:

"Of course! Here? Or in the drawing-room?"

Rosek answered:

"In the drawing-room, please."

A faint tremor passed through her, but she led the way, and seated
herself where she could see Betty and the baby. Rosek stood looking down
at her; his stillness, the sweetish gravity of his well-cut lips, his
spotless dandyism stirred in Gyp a kind of unwilling admiration.

"Wha