"It's all right," she said, gently; "only, what's to be done?"Daphne Wing put her hands up over her white face and sobbed. She sobbed so quietly but so terribly deeply that Gyp herself had the utmost difficulty not to cry. It was the sobbing of real despair by a creature bereft of hope and strength, above all, of love--the sort of weeping which is drawn from desolate, suffering souls only by the touch of fellow feeling. And, instead of making Gyp glad or satisfying her sense of justice, it filled her with more rage against her husband--that he had taken this girl's infatuation for his pleasure and then thrown her away. She seemed to see him discarding that clinging, dove-fair girl, for cloying his senses and getting on his nerves, discarding her with caustic words, to abide alone the consequences of her infatuation. She put her hand timidly on that shaking shoulder, and stroked it. For a moment the sobbing stopped, and the girl said brokenly:
"Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen, I do love him so!" At those naive words, a painful wish to laugh seized on Gyp, making her shiver from head to foot. Daphne Wing saw it, and went on: "I know--I know--it's awful; but I do--and now he--he--" Her quiet but really dreadful sobbing broke out again. And again Gyp began stroking and stroking her shoulder. "And I have been so awful to you! Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen, do forgive me, please!"All Gyp could find to answer, was:
"Yes, yes; that's nothing! Don't cry--don't cry!"Very slowly the sobbing died away, till it was just a long shivering, but still the girl held her hands over her face and her face down. Gyp felt paralyzed. The unhappy girl, the red and green room, the smell of mutton--creeping!
At last, a little of that white face showed; the lips, no longer craving for sugar-plums, murmured:
"It's you he--he--really loves all the time. And you don't love him--that's what's so funny--and--and--I can't understand it. Oh, Mrs. Fiorsen, if I could see him--just see him! He told me never to come again; and I haven't dared. I haven't seen him for three weeks--not since I told him about IT. What shall I do? What shall I do?"His being her own husband seemed as nothing to Gyp at that moment.
She felt such pity and yet such violent revolt that any girl should want to crawl back to a man who had spurned her. Unconsciously, she had drawn herself up and pressed her lips together. The girl, who followed every movement, said piteously:
"I don't seem to have any pride. I don't mind what he does to me, or what he says, if only I can see him."Gyp's revolt yielded to her pity. She said:
"How long before?"
"Three months."
Three months--and in this state of misery!
"I think I shall do something desperate. Now that I can't dance, and THEY know, it's too awful! If I could see him, I wouldn't mind anything. But I know--I know he'll never want me again. Oh, Mrs.
Fiorsen, I wish I was dead! I do!"
A heavy sigh escaped Gyp, and, bending suddenly, she kissed the girl's forehead. Still that scent of orange blossom about her skin or hair, as when she asked whether she ought to love or not; as when she came, moth-like, from the tree-shade into the moonlight, spun, and fluttered, with her shadow spinning and fluttering before her. Gyp turned away, feeling that she must relieve the strain.
and pointing to the bowl, said:
"YOU put that there, I'm sure. It's beautiful."The girl answered, with piteous eagerness:
"Oh, would you like it? Do take it. Count Rosek gave it me." She started away from the door. "Oh, that's papa. He'll be coming in!"Gyp heard a man clear his throat, and the rattle of an umbrella falling into a stand; the sight of the girl wilting and shrinking against the sideboard steadied her. Then the door opened, and Mr.
Wagge entered. Short and thick, in black frock coat and trousers, and a greyish beard, he stared from one to the other. He looked what he was, an Englishman and a chapelgoer, nourished on sherry and mutton, who could and did make his own way in the world. His features, coloured, as from a deep liverishness, were thick, like his body, and not ill-natured, except for a sort of anger in his small, rather piggy grey eyes. He said in a voice permanently gruff, but impregnated with a species of professional ingratiation:
"Ye-es? Whom 'ave I--?"
"Mrs. Fiorsen."
"Ow!" The sound of his breathing could be heard distinctly; he twisted a chair round and said:
"Take a seat, won't you?"
Gyp shook her head.
In Mr. Wagge's face a kind of deference seemed to struggle with some more primitive emotion. Taking out a large, black-edged handkerchief, he blew his nose, passed it freely over his visage, and turning to his daughter, muttered:
"Go upstairs."
The girl turned quickly, and the last glimpse of her white face whipped up Gyp's rage against men. When the door was shut, Mr.
Wagge cleared his throat; the grating sound carried with it the suggestion of enormously thick linings.
He said more gruffly than ever:
"May I ask what 'as given us the honour?"
"I came to see your daughter."
His little piggy eyes travelled from her face to her feet, to the walls of the room, to his own watch-chain, to his hands that had begun to rub themselves together, back to her breast, higher than which they dared not mount. Their infinite embarrassment struck Gyp. She could almost hear him thinking: 'Now, how can I discuss it with this attractive young female, wife of the scoundrel who's ruined my daughter? Delicate-that's what it is!' Then the words burst hoarsely from him.
"This is an unpleasant business, ma'am. I don't know what to say.
Reelly I don't. It's awkward; it's very awkward."Gyp said quietly:
