y returned from the sea, with a solemn, dark-eyed,
cooing little Gyp, brown as a roasted coffee-berry. When she had been
given all that she could wisely eat after the journey, Gyp carried her
off to her own room, undressed her for sheer delight of kissing her from
head to foot, and admiring her plump brown legs, then cuddled her up
in a shawl and lay down with her on the bed. A few sleepy coos and
strokings, and little Gyp had left for the land of Nod, while her mother
lay gazing at her black lashes with a kind of passion. She was not
a child-lover by nature; but this child of her own, with her dark
softness, plump delicacy, giving disposition, her cooing voice, and
constant adjurations to "dear mum," was adorable. There was something
about her insidiously seductive. She had developed so quickly, with the
graceful roundness of a little animal, the perfection of a flower. The
Italian blood of her great-great-grandmother was evidently prepotent in
her as yet; and, though she was not yet two years old, her hair, which
had lost its baby darkness, was already curving round her neck and
waving on her forehead. One of her tiny brown hands had escaped the
shawl and grasped its edge with determined softness. And while Gyp gazed
at the pinkish nails and their absurdly wee half-moons, at the sleeping
tranquillity stirred by breathing no more than a rose-leaf on a windless
day, her lips grew fuller, trembled, reached toward the dark
lashes, till she had to rein her neck back with a jerk to stop such
self-indulgence. Soothed, hypnotized, almost in a dream, she lay there
beside her baby.

That evening, at dinner, Winton said calmly:

"Well, I've been to see Fiorsen, and warned him off. Found him at that
fellow Rosek's." Gyp received the news with a vague sensation of alarm.
"And I met that girl, the dancer, coming out of the house as I was going
in--made it plain I'd seen her, so I don't think he'll trouble you."

An irresistible impulse made her ask:

"How was she looking, Dad?"

Winton smiled grimly. How to convey his impression of the figure he had
seen coming down the steps--of those eyes growing rounder and rounder at
sight of him, of that mouth opening in an: "Oh!"

"Much the same. Rather flabbergasted at seeing me, I think. A white
hat--very smart. Attractive in her way, but common, of course. Those two
were playing the piano and fiddle when I went up. They tried not to let
me in, but I wasn't to be put off. Queer place,