What a peony regards as a natural happening to
a peony, she watches with awe when it happens to the lily. That other
single lady of a certain age, Aunt Rosamund, the very antithesis to
Betty--a long, thin nose and a mere button, a sense of divine rights and
no sense of rights at all, a drawl and a comforting wheeze, length and
circumference, decision and the curtsey to providence, humour and none,
dyspepsia, and the digestion of an ostrich, with other oppositions--Aunt
Rosamund was also uneasy, as only one could be who disapproved heartily
of uneasiness, and habitually joked and drawled it into retirement.
But of all those round Gyp, Fiorsen gave the most interesting display.
He had not even an elementary notion of disguising his state of mind.
And his state of mind was weirdly, wistfully primitive. He wanted Gyp
as she had been. The thought that she might never become herself again
terrified him so at times that he was forced to drink brandy, and come
home only a little less far gone than that first time. Gyp had often to
help him go to bed. On two or three occasions, he suffered so that he
was out all night. To account for this, she devised the formula of a
room at Count Rosek's, where he slept when music kept him late, so as
not to disturb her. Whether the servants believed her or not, she never
knew. Nor did she ever ask him where he went--too proud, and not feeling
that she had the right.
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