whatever
they were. And he said:

"I'll send for her. In the meantime, perhaps you'll have some
refreshment?"

Fiorsen shook his head, and there followed half an hour of acute
discomfort. Winton, in his mud-stained clothes before the fire,
supported it better than his visitor. That child of nature, after
endeavouring to emulate his host's quietude, renounced all such efforts
with an expressive gesture, fidgeted here, fidgeted there, tramped the
room, went to the window, drew aside the curtains and stared out into
the dark; came back as if resolved again to confront Winton; then,
baffled by that figure so motionless before the fire, flung himself down
in an armchair, and turned his face to the wall. Winton was not cruel by
nature, but he enjoyed the writhings of this fellow who was endangering
Gyp's happiness. Endangering? Surely not possible that she would accept
him! Yet, if not, why had she not told him? And he, too, suffered.

Then she came. He had expected her to be pale and nervous; but Gyp never
admitted being naughty till she had been forgiven. Her smiling face had
in it a kind of warning closeness. She went up to Fiorsen, and holding
out her hand, said calmly:

"How nice of you to come!"

Winton had the bitter feeling that he--he--was the outsider. Well, he
would speak plainly; there had been too much underhand doing.

"Mr. Fiorsen has done us the honour to wish to marry you. I've told him
that you decide such things for yourself. If you accept him, it will be
against my wish, naturally."

While he was speaking, the glow in her cheeks deepened; she looked
neither at him nor at Fiorsen. Winton noted the rise and fall of the
lace on her breast. She was smiling, and gave the tiniest shrug of her
shoulders. And, suddenly smitten to the heart, he walked stiffly to the
door. It was evident that she had no use for his guidance. If her
love for him was not worth to her more than this fellow! But there his
resentment stopped. He knew that he could not afford wounded feelings;
could not get on without her. Married to the greatest rascal on earth,
he would still be standing by her, wanting her companionship and love.
She represented too much in the present and--the past. With sore heart,
indeed, he went down to dinner.

Fiorsen was gone when he came down again. What the fellow had said, or
she had answered, he would not for the world have asked. Gulfs
between the proud are not lightly bridged. And when she came