s, small farmers, and small tradesmen, doing
them little turns when he could, giving their children sixpences, and so
forth. The fact that they could not afford to put on airs of virtue
escaped him; he perceived only that they were respectful and friendly to
Gyp and this warmed his heart toward them in proportion as he grew
exasperated with the two or three landed families, and that parvenu lot
in the riverside villas.

When he first came down, the chief landowner--a man he had known for
years--had invited him to lunch. He had accepted with the deliberate
intention of finding out where he was, and had taken the first natural
opportunity of mentioning his daughter. She was, he said, devoted to her
flowers; the Red House had quite a good garden. His friend's wife,
slightly lifting her brows, had answered with a nervous smile: "Oh! yes;
of course--yes." A silence had, not unnaturally, fallen. Since then,
Winton had saluted his friend and his friend's wife with such frigid
politeness as froze the very marrow in their bones. He had not gone
there fishing for Gyp to be called on, but to show these people that his
daughter could not be slighted with impunity. Foolish of him, for, man of
the world to his fingertips, he knew perfectly well that a woman living
with a man to whom she was not married could not be recognized by people
with any pretensions to orthodoxy; Gyp was beyond even the debatable
ground on which stood those who have been divorced and are married again.
But even a man of the world is not proof against the warping of devotion,
and Winton was ready to charge any windmill at any moment on her behalf.

Outside the inn door, exhaling the last puffs of his good-night
cigarette, he thought: 'What wouldn't I give for the old days, and a
chance to wing some of these moral upstarts!'

II

The last train was not due till eleven-thirty, and having seen that the
evening tray had sandwiches, Gyp went to Summerhay's study, the room at
right angles to the body of the house, over which was their bedroom.
Here, if she had nothing to do, she always came when he was away, feeling
nearer to him. She would have been horrified if she had known of her
father's sentiments on her behalf. Her instant denial of the wish to see
more people had been quite genuine. The conditions of her life, in that
respect, often seemed to her ideal. It was such a joy to be free of
people one did not care two straws about, and of all em