Fiorsen laughed; he laughed, holding his sides. It was droll coming on
the top of his assertion, too droll! And, looking up at her, he said:
"That was good, wasn't it, Gyp?"
But her face had not abated its gravity; and, knowing that she was even
more easily tickled by the incongruous than himself, he felt again
that catch of fear. Something was different. Yes; something was really
different.
"Did I hurt you last night?"
She shrugged her shoulders and went to the window. He looked at her
darkly, jumped up, and swung out past her into the garden. And, almost
at once, the sound of his violin, furiously played in the music-room,
came across the lawn.
Gyp listened with a bitter smile. Money, too! But what did it matter?
She could not get out of what she had done. She could never get out.
Tonight he would kiss her; and she would pretend it was all right. And
so it would go on and on! Well, it was her own fault. Taking twelve
shillings from her purse, she put them aside on the bureau to give the
maid. And suddenly she thought: 'Perhaps he'll get tired of me. If only
he would get tired!' That was a long way the furthest she had yet gone.
VII
They who have known the doldrums--how the sails of the listless ship
droop, and the hope of escape dies day by day--may understand something
of the life Gyp began living now. On a ship, even doldrums come to an
end.
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