With the instinct to take all the respite she could, and
knowing no more than before how she would receive his return, she went
out in the forenoon and wandered about all day shopping and trying not
to think. Returning at tea-time, she went straight up to her baby, and
there heard from Betty that he had come, and gone out with his violin to
the music-room.
Bent over the child, Gyp needed all her self-control--but her
self-control was becoming great. Soon, the girl would come fluttering
down that dark, narrow lane; perhaps at this very minute her fingers
were tapping at the door, and he was opening it to murmur, "No; she's
back!" Ah, then the girl would shrink! The rapid whispering--some other
meeting-place! Lips to lips, and that look on the girl's face; till she
hurried away from the shut door, in the darkness, disappointed! And
he, on that silver-and-gold divan, gnawing his moustache, his
eyes--catlike---staring at the fire! And then, perhaps, from his violin
would come one of those swaying bursts of sound, with tears in them, and
the wind in them, that had of old bewitched her! She said:
"Open the window just a little, Betty dear--it's hot."
There it was, rising, falling! Music! Why did it so move one even when,
as now, it was the voice of insult! And suddenly she thought: "He
will expect me to go out there again and play for him.
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