tion of a public exhibition of troubles simply never comes, and it had
certainly never come to Gyp. With a bitter smile she thought: 'I'm
better off than she is, after all! Suppose I loved him, too? No, I
never--never--want to love. Women who love suffer too much.'

She sat on that bench a long time before it came into her mind that she
was due at Monsieur Harmost's for a music lesson at three o'clock. It
was well past two already; and she set out across the grass. The summer
day was full of murmurings of bees and flies, cooings of blissful
pigeons, the soft swish and stir of leaves, and the scent of lime blossom
under a sky so blue, with few white clouds slow, and calm, and full. Why
be unhappy? And one of those spotty spaniel dogs, that have broad heads,
with frizzy topknots, and are always rascals, smelt at her frock and
moved round and round her, hoping that she would throw her sunshade on
the water for him to fetch, this being in his view the only reason why
anything was carried in the hand.

She found Monsieur Harmost fidgeting up and down the room, whose opened
windows could not rid it of the smell of latakia.

"Ah," he said, "I thought you were not coming! You look pale; are you
not well? Is it the heat? Or"--he looked hard into her face--"has
someone hurt you, my little friend?" Gyp shook her head. "Ah, yes," he
went on irritably; "you tell me nothing; you tell nobody nothing! You
close up your pretty face like a flower at night. At your age, my child,
one should make confidences; a secret grief is to music as the east wind
to the stomach. Put off your mask for once." He came close to her.
"Tell me your troubles. It is a long time since I have been meaning to
ask. Come! We are only once young; I want to see you happy."

But Gyp stood looking down. Would it be relief to pour her soul out?
Would it? His brown eyes questioned her like an old dog's. She did not
want to hurt one so kind. And yet--impossible!

Monsieur Harmost suddenly sat down at the piano. Resting his hands on
the keys, he looked round at her, and said:

"I am in love with you, you know. Old men can be very much in love, but
they know it is no good--that makes them endurable. Still, we like to
feel of use to youth and beauty; it gives us a little warmth. Come; tell
me your grief!" He waited a moment, then said irritably: "Well, well, we
go to music then!"

It was his habit to sit by her at the piano corner, but to-day