Muffled in distance, the whining drone of that thresher still came travelling, deepening her discomfort. Then in the hedge, whence the boys had bolted down, a man reared himself above the lane, and came striding along toward her. He jumped down the bank, among the birch-trees. And she saw it was Fiorsen--panting, dishevelled, pale with heat. He must have followed her, and climbed straight up the hillside from the path she had come along in the bottom, before crossing the stream. His artistic dandyism had been harshly treated by that scramble. She might have laughed; but, instead, she felt excited, a little scared by the look on his hot, pale face. He said, breathlessly:
"I have caught you. So you are going to-morrow, and never told me!
You thought you would slip away--not a word for me! Are you always so cruel? Well, I will not spare you, either!"Crouching suddenly, he took hold of her broad ribbon sash, and buried his face in it. Gyp stood trembling--the action had not stirred her sense of the ridiculous. He circled her knees with his arms.
"Oh, Gyp, I love you--I love you--don't send me away--let me be with you! I am your dog--your slave. Oh, Gyp, I love you!"His voice moved and terrified her. Men had said "I love you"several times during those last two years, but never with that lost-soul ring of passion, never with that look in the eyes at once fiercely hungry and so supplicating, never with that restless, eager, timid touch of hands. She could only murmur:
"Please get up!"
But he went on:
"Love me a little, only a little--love me! Oh, Gyp!"The thought flashed through Gyp: 'To how many has he knelt, Iwonder?' His face had a kind of beauty in its abandonment--the beauty that comes from yearning--and she lost her frightened feeling. He went on, with his stammering murmur: "I am a prodigal, I know; but if you love me, I will no longer be. I will do great things for you. Oh, Gyp, if you will some day marry me! Not now.
When I have proved. Oh, Gyp, you are so sweet--so wonderful!"His arms crept up till he had buried his face against her waist.
Without quite knowing what she did, Gyp touched his hair, and said again:
"No; please get up."
He got up then, and standing near, with his hands hard clenched at his sides, whispered:
"Have mercy! Speak to me!"
She could not. All was strange and mazed and quivering in her, her spirit straining away, drawn to him, fantastically confused. She could only look into his face with her troubled, dark eyes. And suddenly she was seized and crushed to him. She shrank away, pushing him back with all her strength. He hung his head, abashed, suffering, with eyes shut, lips trembling; and her heart felt again that quiver of compassion. She murmured:
"I don't know. I will tell you later--later--in England."He bowed, folding his arms, as if to make her feel safe from him.
And when, regardless of the rain, she began to move on, he walked beside her, a yard or so away, humbly, as though he had never poured out those words or hurt her lips with the violence of his kiss.
Back in her room, taking off her wet dress, Gyp tried to remember what he had said and what she had answered. She had not promised anything. But she had given him her address, both in London and the country. Unless she resolutely thought of other things, she still felt the restless touch of his hands, the grip of his arms, and saw his eyes as they were when he was kissing her; and once more she felt frightened and excited.
He was playing at the concert that evening--her last concert. And surely he had never played like that--with a despairing beauty, a sort of frenzied rapture. Listening, there came to her a feeling--a feeling of fatality--that, whether she would or no, she could not free herself from him.
VOnce back in England, Gyp lost that feeling, or very nearly. Her scepticism told her that Fiorsen would soon see someone else who seemed all he had said she was! How ridiculous to suppose that he would stop his follies for her, that she had any real power over him! But, deep down, she did not quite believe this. It would have wounded her belief in herself too much--a belief so subtle and intimate that she was not conscious of it; belief in that something about her which had inspired the baroness to use the word "fatality."Winton, who breathed again, hurried her off to Mildenham. He had bought her a new horse. They were in time for the last of the cubbing. And, for a week at least, the passion for riding and the sight of hounds carried all before it. Then, just as the real business of the season was beginning, she began to feel dull and restless. Mildenham was dark; the autumn winds made dreary noises.
Her little brown spaniel, very old, who seemed only to have held on to life just for her return, died. She accused herself terribly for having left it so long when it was failing. Thinking of all the days Lass had been watching for her to come home--as Betty, with that love of woeful recital so dear to simple hearts, took good care to make plain--she felt as if she had been cruel. For events such as these, Gyp was both too tender-hearted and too hard on herself. She was quite ill for several days. The moment she was better, Winton, in dismay, whisked her back to Aunt Rosamund, in town. He would lose her company, but if it did her good, took her out of herself, he would be content. Running up for the week-end, three days later, he was relieved to find her decidedly perked-up, and left her again with the easier heart.
