having your head in chancery. Can't you get it out?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Divorce-court! Ugh! I couldn't!"

"Yes, I know--it's hellish!"

Was he, who gripped her hand so hard and said that, really the same
nonchalant young man who had leaned out of the carriage window, gurgling
with laughter? And what had made the difference? She buried her face
in the heliotrope, whose perfume seemed the memory of his visit; then,
going to the piano, began to play. She played Debussy, McDowell, Ravel;
the chords of modern music suited her feelings just then. And she was
still playing when her father came in. During these last nine months
of his daughter's society, he had regained a distinct measure of
youthfulness, an extra twist in his little moustache, an extra touch of
dandyism in his clothes, and the gloss of his short hair. Gyp stopped
playing at once, and shut the piano.

"Mr. Summerhay's been here, Dad. He was sorry to miss you."

There was an appreciable pause before Winton answered:

"My dear, I doubt it."

And there passed through Gyp the thought that she could never again be
friends with a man without giving that pause. Then, conscious that her
father was gazing at her, she turned and said:

"Well, was it nice in the Park?"

"Thirty years ago they were all nobs and snobs; now God himself doesn't
know what they are!"

"But weren't the flowers nice?"

"Ah--and the trees, and the birds--but, by Jove, the humans do their
best to dress the balance!"

"What a misanthrope you're getting!"

"I'd like to run a stud for two-leggers; they want proper breeding. What
sort of a fellow is young Summerhay? Not a bad face."

She answered impassively:

"Yes; it's so alive."

In spite of his self-control, she could always read her father's
thoughts quicker than he could read hers, and knew that he was
struggling between the wish that she should have a good time and the
desire to convey some kind of warning. He said, with a sigh:

"What does a young man's fancy turn to in summer, Gyp?"

Women who have subtle instincts and some experience are able to impose
their own restraint on those who, at the lifting of a hand, would become
their lovers. From that afternoon on, Gyp knew that a word from her
would change everything; but she was far from speaking it. And yet,
except at week-ends, when she went back to her baby at Mildenham, she
saw Summerhay most days--in the Row, at the opera, or at Bury Street.
She had a habit of g