"Take off your furs. Sit down!"
And while Gyp was taking off her coat, he fixed on her his prominent
brown eyes that rolled easily in their slightly blood-shot whites, under
squared eyelids and cliffs of brow. She had on what Fiorsen called her
"humming-bird" blouse--dark blue, shot with peacock and old rose, and
looked very warm and soft under her fur cap. Monsieur Harmost's stare
seemed to drink her in; yet that stare was not unpleasant, having in it
only the rather sad yearning of old men who love beauty and know that
their time for seeing it is getting short.
"Play me the 'Carnival,'" he said. "We shall soon see!"
Gyp played. Twice he nodded; once he tapped his fingers on his teeth,
and showed her the whites of his eyes--which meant: "That will have to
be very different!" And once he grunted. When she had finished, he
sat down beside her, took her hand in his, and, examining the fingers,
began:
"Yes, yes, soon again! Spoiling yourself, playing for that fiddler! Trop
sympathique! The back-bone, the back-bone--we shall improve that. Now,
four hours a day for six weeks--and we shall have something again."
Gyp said softly:
"I have a baby, Monsieur Harmost."
Monsieur Harmost bounded.
"What! That is a tragedy!" Gyp shook her head. "You like it? A baby!
Does it not squall?"
"Very little."
"Mon Dieu! Well, well, you are still as beautiful as ever.
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