; but she did
not. However difficult it may be to live with an artist, to hate him
is quite as difficult. An artist is so flexible--only the rigid can be
hated. She hated the things he did, and him when he was doing them; but
afterward again could hate him no more than she could love him, and that
was--not at all. Resolution and a sense of the practical began to come
back with daylight. When things were hopeless, it was far better to
recognize it and harden one's heart.

Winton, whose night had been almost as sleepless--to play like a
beggar in the street, under his windows, had seemed to him the
limit!--announced at breakfast that he must see his lawyer, make
arrangements for the payment of Fiorsen's debts, and find out what
could be done to secure Gyp against persecution. Some deed was probably
necessary; he was vague on all such matters. In the meantime, neither
Gyp nor the baby must go out. Gyp spent the morning writing and
rewriting to Monsieur Harmost, trying to express her chagrin, but not
saying that she had left Fiorsen.

Her father came back from Westminster quiet and angry. He had with
difficulty been made to understand that the baby was Fiorsen's property,
so that, if the fellow claimed it, legally they would be unable to
resist. The point opened the old wound, forced him to remember that
his own daughter had once belonged to another--father. He had told the
lawyer in a measured voice that he would see the fellow damned first,
and had directed a deed of separation to be prepared, which should
provide for the complete payment of Fiorsen's existing debts on
condition that he left Gyp and the baby in peace. After telling Gyp
this, he took an opportunity of going to the extempore nursery and
standing by the baby's cradle. Until then, the little creature had only
been of interest as part of Gyp; now it had for him an existence of
its own--this tiny, dark-eyed creature, lying there, watching him so
gravely, clutching his finger. Suddenly the baby smiled--not a beautiful
smile, but it made on Winton an indelible impression.

Wishing first to settle this matter of the deed, he put off going down
to Mildenham; but "not trusting those two scoundrels a yard"--for he
never failed to bracket Rosek and Fiorsen--he insisted that the baby
should not go out without two attendants, and that Gyp should not go
out alone. He carried precaution to the point of accompanying her to
Monsieur Harmost's on the Friday afternoon, and