Then
the mimicry began again. When Aunt Rosamund had taken a somewhat sudden
leave, Gyp stood at the window of her drawing-room with the mask off her
face. Fiorsen came up, put his arm round her from behind, and said with
a fierce sigh:
"Are they coming often--these excellent people?"
Gyp drew back from him against the wall.
"If you love me, why do you try to hurt the people who love me too?"
"Because I am jealous. I am jealous even of those puppies."
"And shall you try to hurt them?"
"If I see them too much near you, perhaps I shall."
"Do you think I can be happy if you hurt things because they love me?"
He sat down and drew her on to his knee. She did not resist, but made
not the faintest return to his caresses. The first time--the very first
friend to come into her own new home! It was too much!
Fiorsen said hoarsely:
"You do not love me. If you loved me, I should feel it through your
lips. I should see it in your eyes. Oh, love me, Gyp! You shall!"
But to say to Love: "Stand and deliver!" was not the way to touch Gyp.
It seemed to her mere ill-bred stupidity. She froze against him in soul,
all the more that she yielded her body. When a woman refuses nothing to
one whom she does not really love, shadows are already falling on the
bride-house. And Fiorsen knew it; but his self-control about equalled
that of the two puppies.
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