"Gyp, we MUST go away together. We can never stand it going on apart, snatching hours here and there."Pressing his hand to her cheeks, she murmured:
"Why not, darling? Hasn't this been perfect? What could we ever have more perfect? It's been paradise itself!""Yes; but to be thrown out every day! To be whole days and nights without you! Gyp, you must--you must! What is there against it?
Don't you love me enough?"
She looked at him, and then away into the shadows.
"Too much, I think. It's tempting Providence to change. Let's go on as we are, Bryan. No; don't look like that--don't be angry!""Why are you afraid? Are you sorry for our love?""No; but let it be like this. Don't let's risk anything.""Risk? Is it people--society--you're afraid of? I thought YOUwouldn't care."
Gyp smiled.
"Society? No; I'm not afraid of that."
"What, then? Of me?"
"I don't know. Men soon get tired. I'm a doubter, Bryan, I can't help it.""As if anyone could get tired of you! Are you afraid of yourself?"Again Gyp smiled.
"Not of loving too little, I told you."
"How can one love too much?"
She drew his head down to her. But when that kiss was over, she only said again:
"No, Bryan; let's go on as we are. I'll make up to you when I'm with you. If you were to tire of me, I couldn't bear it."For a long time more he pleaded--now with anger, now with kisses, now with reasonings; but, to all, she opposed that same tender, half-mournful "No," and, at last, he gave it up, and, in dogged silence, rowed her to the village, whence she was to take train back. It was dusk when they left the boat, and dew was falling.
Just before they reached the station, she caught his hand and pressed it to her breast.
"Darling, don't be angry with me! Perhaps I will--some day."And, in the train, she tried to think herself once more in the boat, among the shadows and the whispering reeds and all the quiet wonder of the river.
XII
On reaching home she let herself in stealthily, and, though she had not had dinner, went up at once to her room. She was just taking off her blouse when Betty entered, her round face splotched with red, and tears rolling down her cheeks.
"Betty! What is it?"
"Oh, my dear, where HAVE you been? Such a dreadful piece of news!
They've stolen her! That wicked man--your husband--he took her right out of her pram--and went off with her in a great car--he and that other one! I've been half out of my mind!" Gyp stared aghast. "I hollered to a policeman. 'He's stolen her--her father!
Catch them!' I said. 'However shall I face my mistress?'" She stopped for breath, then burst out again. "'He's a bad one,' Isaid. 'A foreigner! They're both foreigners!' 'Her father?' he said. 'Well, why shouldn't he? He's only givin' her a joy ride.
He'll bring her back, never you fear.' And I ran home--I didn't know where you were. Oh dear! The major away and all--what was Ito do? I'd just turned round to shut the gate of the square gardens, and I never saw him till he'd put his great long arm over the pram and snatched her out." And, sitting on the bed, she gave way utterly.
Gyp stood still. Nemesis for her happiness? That vengeful wretch, Rosek! This was his doing. And she said:
"Oh, Betty, she must be crying!"
A fresh outburst of moans was the only answer. Gyp remembered suddenly what the lawyer had said over a year ago--it had struck her with terror at the time. In law, Fiorsen owned and could claim her child. She could have got her back, then, by bringing a horrible case against him, but now, perhaps, she had no chance.
Was it her return to Fiorsen that they aimed at--or the giving up of her lover? She went over to her mirror, saying:
"We'll go at once, Betty, and get her back somehow. Wash your face."While she made ready, she fought down those two horrible fears--of losing her child, of losing her lover; the less she feared, the better she could act, the more subtly, the swifter. She remembered that she had somewhere a little stiletto, given her a long time ago. She hunted it out, slipped off its red-leather sheath, and, stabbing the point into a tiny cork, slipped it beneath her blouse.
If they could steal her baby, they were capable of anything. She wrote a note to her father, telling him what had happened, and saying where she had gone. Then, in a taxi, they set forth. Cold water and the calmness of her mistress had removed from Betty the main traces of emotion; but she clasped Gyp's hand hard and gave vent to heavy sighs.
Gyp would not think. If she thought of her little one crying, she knew she would cry, too. But her hatred for those who had dealt this cowardly blow grew within her. She took a resolution and said quietly:
"Mr. Summerhay, Betty. That's why they've stolen our darling. Isuppose you know he and I care for each other. They've stolen her so as to make me do anything they like."A profound sigh answered her.
Behind that moon-face with the troubled eyes, what conflict was in progress--between unquestioning morality and unquestioning belief in Gyp, between fears for her and wishes for her happiness, between the loyal retainer's habit of accepting and the old nurse's feeling of being in charge? She said faintly:
"Oh dear! He's a nice gentleman, too!" And suddenly, wheezing it out with unexpected force: "To say truth, I never did hold you was rightly married to that foreigner in that horrible registry place--no music, no flowers, no blessin' asked, nor nothing. I cried me eyes out at the time."Gyp said quietly:
