There was
nothing sacred in Gyp's associations, no faiths to be broken by any
knowledge that might come to her; isolated from other girls, she
had little realisation even of the conventions. Still, she suffered
horribly, lying there in the dark--from bewilderment, from thorns
dragged over her skin, rather than from a stab in the heart. The
knowledge of something about her conspicuous, doubtful, provocative of
insult, as she thought, grievously hurt her delicacy. Those few
wakeful hours made a heavy mark. She fell asleep at last, still all
in confusion, and woke up with a passionate desire to KNOW. All that
morning she sat at her piano, playing, refusing to go out, frigid to
Betty and the little governess, till the former was reduced to tears
and the latter to Wordsworth. After tea she went to Winton's study, that
dingy little room where he never studied anything, with leather chairs
and books which--except "Mr. Jorrocks," Byron, those on the care of
horses, and the novels of Whyte-Melville--were never read; with prints
of superequine celebrities, his sword, and photographs of Gyp and of
brother officers on the walls. Two bright spots there were indeed--the
fire, and the little bowl that Gyp always kept filled with flowers.
When she came gliding in like that, a slender, rounded figure, her
creamy, dark-eyed, oval face all cloudy, she seemed to Winton to have
grown up of a sudden.
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