"
Gyp said quietly, as if to herself:
"Yes; I don't think I understand that--yet."
Winton drew breath through his teeth with a subdued hiss.
"Did she love you at first sight, too?"
He blew out a long puff of smoke.
"One easily believes what one wants to--but I think she did. She used to
say so."
"And how long?"
"Only a year."
Gyp said very softly:
"Poor darling Dad." And suddenly she added: "I can't bear to think I
killed her--I can't bear it!"
Winton got up in the discomfort of these sudden confidences; a
blackbird, startled by the movement, ceased his song. Gyp said in a hard
voice:
"No; I don't want to have any children."
"Without that, I shouldn't have had you, Gyp."
"No; but I don't want to have them. And I don't--I don't want to love
like that. I should be afraid."
Winton looked at her for a long time without speaking, his brows drawn
down, frowning, puzzled, as though over his own past.
"Love," he said, "it catches you, and you're gone. When it comes, you
welcome it, whether it's to kill you or not. Shall we start back, my
child?"
When she got home, it was not quite noon. She hurried over her bath and
dressing, and ran out to the music-room. Its walls had been hung with
Willesden scrim gilded over; the curtains were silver-grey; there was a
divan covered with silver-and-gold stuff, and a beaten brass fireplace.
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