His friend's wife,
slightly lifting her brows, had answered with a nervous smile: "Oh! yes;
of course--yes." A silence had, not unnaturally, fallen. Since then,
Winton had saluted his friend and his friend's wife with such frigid
politeness as froze the very marrow in their bones. He had not gone
there fishing for Gyp to be called on, but to show these people that his
daughter could not be slighted with impunity. Foolish of him, for, man
of the world to his fingertips, he knew perfectly well that a woman
living with a man to whom she was not married could not be recognized
by people with any pretensions to orthodoxy; Gyp was beyond even the
debatable ground on which stood those who have been divorced and are
married again. But even a man of the world is not proof against the
warping of devotion, and Winton was ready to charge any windmill at any
moment on her behalf.
Outside the inn door, exhaling the last puffs of his good-night
cigarette, he thought: 'What wouldn't I give for the old days, and a
chance to wing some of these moral upstarts!'
II
The last train was not due till eleven-thirty, and having seen that the
evening tray had sandwiches, Gyp went to Summerhay's study, the room
at right angles to the body of the house, over which was their bedroom.
Here, if she had nothing to do, she always came when he was away,
feeling nearer to him.
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