When she returned,
Fiorsen was at the window, gazing out. Was it for her or for that flying
nymph?
IX
September and October passed. There were more concerts, not very well
attended. Fiorsen's novelty had worn off, nor had his playing sweetness
and sentiment enough for the big Public. There was also a financial
crisis. It did not seem to Gyp to matter. Everything seemed remote and
unreal in the shadow of her coming time. Unlike most mothers to be, she
made no garments, no preparations of any kind. Why make what might never
be needed? She played for Fiorsen a great deal, for herself not at all,
read many books--poetry, novels, biographies--taking them in at the
moment, and forgetting them at once, as one does with books read just to
distract the mind. Winton and Aunt Rosamund, by tacit agreement, came
on alternate afternoons. And Winton, almost as much under that shadow as
Gyp herself, would take the evening train after leaving her, and spend
the next day racing or cub-hunting, returning the morning of the day
after to pay his next visit. He had no dread just then like that of an
unoccupied day face to face with anxiety.
Betty, who had been present at Gyp's birth, was in a queer state. The
obvious desirability of such events to one of motherly type defrauded
by fate of children was terribly impinged on by that old memory, and a
solicitude for her "pretty" far exceeding what she would have had for
a daughter of her own.
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