e poised beauty of her
figure, took a little bag from the back of a chair, and said:

"I think, if you don't mind going on, it's less conspicuous. I'll meet
you at Ruffel's--they have lovely things there. Au revoir."

In a state of bewilderment, irritation, and queer meekness, Fiorsen
passed down Coventry Street, and entering the empty Ruffel's, took a
table near the window. There he sat staring before him, for the sudden
vision of Gyp sitting on that oaken chest, at the foot of her bed, had
blotted the girl clean out. The attendant coming to take his order,
gazed at his pale, furious face, and said mechanically:

"What can I get you, please?"

Looking up, Fiorsen saw Daphne Wing outside, gazing at the cakes in the
window. She came in.

"Oh, here you are! I should like iced coffee and walnut cake, and some
of those marzipan sweets--oh, and some whipped cream with my cake. Do
you mind?" And, sitting down, she fixed her eyes on his face and asked:

"Where have you been abroad?"

"Stockholm, Budapest, Moscow, other places."

"How perfect! Do you think I should make a success in Budapest or
Moscow?"

"You might; you are English enough."

"Oh! Do you think I'm very English?"

"Utterly. Your kind of--" But even he was not quite capable of finishing
that sentence--"your kind of vulgarity could not be produced anywhere
else." Daphne Wing finished it for him:

"My kind of beauty?"

Fiorsen grinned and nodded.

"Oh, I think that's the nicest thing you ever said to me! Only, of
course, I should like to think I'm more of the Greek type--pagan, you
know."

She fell silent, casting her eyes down. Her profile at that moment,
against the light, was very pure and soft in line. And he said:

"I suppose you hate me, little Daphne? You ought to hate me."

Daphne Wing looked up; her round, blue-grey eyes passed over him much as
they had been passing over the marzipan.

"No; I don't hate you--now. Of course, if I had any love left for you, I
should. Oh, isn't that Irish? But one can think anybody a rotter without
hating them, can't one?"

Fiorsen bit his lips.

"So you think me a 'rotter'?"

Daphne Wing's eyes grew rounder.

"But aren't you? You couldn't be anything else--could you?--with the
sort of things you did."

"And yet you don't mind having tea with me?"

Daphne Wing, who had begun to eat and drink, said with her mouth full:

"You see, I'm independent now, and I know life. That makes you
harmless."