There rose up before her the memory of the man who had
kissed her arm at the first ball. And now--this! But, mixed with her
rage, a sort of unwilling compassion and fellow feeling kept rising for
that girl, that silly, sugar-plum girl, brought to such a pass by--her
husband. These feelings sustained her through that voyage to Fulham. She
got down at the nearest corner, walked up a widish street of narrow
grey houses till she came to number eighty-eight. On that newly scrubbed
step, waiting for the door to open, she very nearly turned and fled.
What exactly had she come to do?
The door was opened by a servant in an untidy frock. Mutton! The smell
of mutton--there it was, just as the girl had said!
"Is Miss--Miss Daphne Wing at home?"
In that peculiar "I've given it up" voice of domestics in small
households, the servant answered:
"Yes; Miss Disey's in. D'you want to see 'er? What nyme?"
Gyp produced her card. The maid looked at it, at Gyp, and at two
brown-painted doors, as much as to say, "Where will you have it?" Then,
opening the first of them, she said:
"Tyke a seat, please; I'll fetch her."
Gyp went in. In the middle of what was clearly the dining-room, she
tried to subdue the tremor of her limbs and a sense of nausea. The table
against which her hand rested was covered with red baize, no doubt to
keep the stains of mutton from penetrating to the wood.
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