o see her, I hope you'll--"

Gyp was gone. In her cab she shivered. Once she had lunched with her
father at a restaurant in the Strand. It had been full of Mr. Wagges.
But, suddenly, she thought: 'It's hard on him, poor man!'

XIII

Seventy-three Comrade Street, Soho, was difficult to find; but, with the
aid of a milk-boy, Gyp discovered the alley at last, and the right door.
There her pride took sudden alarm, and but for the milk-boy's eyes fixed
on her while he let out his professional howl, she might have fled. A
plump white hand and wrist emerging took the can, and Daphne Wing's voice
said:

"Oh, where's the cream?"

"Ain't got none."

"Oh! I told you always--two pennyworth at twelve o'clock."

"Two penn'orth." The boy's eyes goggled.

"Didn't you want to speak to her, miss?" He beat the closing door. "Lidy
wants to speak to you! Good-mornin', miss."

The figure of Daphne Wing in a blue kimono was revealed. Her eyes peered
round at Gyp.

"Oh!" she said.

"May I come in?"

"Oh, yes! Oh, do! I've been practising. Oh, I am glad to see you!"

In the middle of the studio, a little table was laid for two. Daphne Wing
went up to it, holding in one hand the milk-can and in the other a short
knife, with which she had evidently been opening oysters. Placing the
knife on the table, she turned round to Gyp. Her face was deep pink, and
so was her neck, which ran V-shaped down into the folds of her kimono.
Her eyes, round as saucers, met Gyp's, fell, met them again. She said:

"Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen, I am glad! I really am. I wanted you so much to see
my room--do you like it? How DID you know where I was?" She looked down
and added: "I think I'd better tell you. Mr. Fiorsen came here, and,
since then, I've seen him at Count Rosek's--and--and--"

"Yes; but don't trouble to tell me, please."

Daphne Wing hurried on.

"Of course, I'm quite mistress of myself now." Then, all at once, the
uneasy woman-of-the-world mask dropped from her face and she seized Gyp's
hand. "Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen, I shall never be like you!"

With a little shiver, Gyp said:

"I hope not." Her pride rushed up in her. How could she ask this girl
anything? She choked back that feeling, and said stonily: "Do you
remember my baby? No, of course; you never saw her. HE and Count Rosek
have just taken her away from me."

Daphne Wing convulsively squeezed the hand of which she had possessed
herself.

"Oh, what a wicked