he mocked at Winton, Aunt Rosamund, and
their world. Life with him had certainly one effect on Gyp; it made her
feel less and less a part of that old orthodox, well-bred world which
she had known before she married him; but to which she had confessed to
Winton she had never felt that she belonged, since she knew the secret
of her birth. She was, in truth, much too impressionable, too avid of
beauty, and perhaps too naturally critical to accept the dictates of
their fact-and-form-governed routine; only, of her own accord, she would
never have had initiative enough to step out of its circle. Loosened
from those roots, unable to attach herself to this new soil, and not
spiritually leagued with her husband, she was more and more lonely. Her
only truly happy hours were those spent with Winton or at her piano or
with her puppies. She was always wondering at what she had done, longing
to find the deep, the sufficient reason for having done it. But the more
she sought and longed, the deeper grew her bewilderment, her feeling of
being in a cage. Of late, too, another and more definite uneasiness had
come to her.

She spent much time in her garden, where the blossoms had all dropped,
lilac was over, acacias coming into bloom, and blackbirds silent.

Winton, who, by careful experiment, had found that from half-past three
to six there was little or no chance of stumbling across his son-in-law,
came in nearly every day for tea and a quiet cigar on the lawn. He
was sitting there with Gyp one afternoon, when Betty, who usurped the
functions of parlour-maid whenever the whim moved her, brought out a
card on which were printed the words, "Miss Daphne Wing."

"Bring her out, please, Betty dear, and some fresh tea, and buttered
toast--plenty of buttered toast; yes, and the chocolates, and any other
sweets there are, Betty darling."

Betty, with that expression which always came over her when she was
called "darling," withdrew across the grass, and Gyp said to her father:

"It's the little dancer I told you of, Dad. Now you'll see something
perfect. Only, she'll be dressed. It's a pity."

She was. The occasion had evidently exercised her spirit. In warm ivory,
shrouded by leaf-green chiffon, with a girdle of tiny artificial leaves,
and a lightly covered head encircled by other green leaves, she was
somewhat like a nymph peering from a bower. If rather too arresting, it
was charming, and, after all, no frock could quite disguise the be