"Congratulations, madame! I have long wanted to see you under the
inspiration of your--master!"
Gyp's heart began to beat desperately. Monsieur Harmost had not moved. A
faint grin slowly settled in his beard, but his eyes were startled.
Fiorsen kissed the back of his own hand.
"To this old Pantaloon you come to give your heart. Ho--what a lover!"
Gyp saw the old man quiver; she sprang up and cried:
"You brute!"
Fiorsen ran forward, stretching out his arms toward Monsieur Harmost, as
if to take him by the throat.
The old man drew himself up. "Monsieur," he said, "you are certainly
drunk."
Gyp slipped between, right up to those outstretched hands till she could
feel their knuckles against her. Had he gone mad? Would he strangle her?
But her eyes never moved from his, and his began to waver; his hands
dropped, and, with a kind of moan, he made for the door.
Monsieur Harmost's voice behind her said:
"Before you go, monsieur, give me some explanation of this imbecility!"
Fiorsen spun round, shook his fist, and went out muttering. They heard
the front door slam. Gyp turned abruptly to the window, and there, in
her agitation, she noticed little outside things as one does in moments
of bewildered anger. Even into that back yard, summer had crept. The
leaves of the sumach-tree were glistening; in a three-cornered little
patch of sunlight, a black cat with a blue ribbon round its neck was
basking.
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