He opened it and began to play, staring vacantly before him, the cigarette burned nearly to his lips.  He went on, scarcely knowing what he played.  At last he stopped, and sat dejected.  A great artist?  Often, nowadays, he did not care if he never touched a violin again.  Tired of standing up before a sea of dull faces, seeing the blockheads knock their silly hands one against the other!  Sick of the sameness of it all!  Besides—­besides, were his powers beginning to fail?  What was happening to him of late?

He got up, went into the dining-room, and drank some brandy.  Gyp could not bear his drinking.  Well, she shouldn’t be out so much—­ taking music-lessons.  Music-lessons!  Nearly three o’clock.  If he went for once and saw what she really did—­Went, and offered her his escort home!  An attention.  It might please her.  Better, anyway, than waiting here until she chose to come in with her face all closed up.  He drank a little more brandy—­ever so little—­took his hat and went.  Not far to walk, but the sun was hot, and he reached the house feeling rather dizzy.  A maid-servant opened the door to him.

“I am Mr. Fiorsen.  Mrs. Fiorsen here?”

“Yes, sir; will you wait?”

Why did she look at him like that?  Ugly girl!  How hateful ugly people were!  When she was gone, he reopened the door of the waiting-room, and listened.

Chopin!  The polonaise in A flat.  Good!  Could that be Gyp?  Very good!  He moved out, down the passage, drawn on by her playing, and softly turned the handle.  The music stopped.  He went in.

When Winton had left him, an hour and a half later that afternoon, Fiorsen continued to stand at the front door, swaying his body to and fro.  The brandy-nurtured burst of jealousy which had made him insult his wife and old Monsieur Harmost had died suddenly when Gyp turned on him in the street and spoke in that icy voice; since then he had felt fear, increasing every minute.  Would she forgive?  To one who always acted on the impulse of the moment, so that he rarely knew afterward exactly what he had done, or whom hurt, Gyp’s self-control had ever been mysterious and a little frightening.  Where had she gone?  Why did she not come in?  Anxiety is like a ball that rolls down-hill, gathering momentum.  Suppose she did not come back!  But she must—­there was the baby—­their baby!

For the first time, the thought of it gave him unalloyed satisfaction.  He left the door, and, after drinking a glass to steady him, flung himself down on the sofa in the drawing-room.  And while he lay there, the brandy warm within him, he thought:  ’I will turn over a new leaf; give up drink, give up everything, send the baby into the country, take Gyp to Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Rome—­ anywhere out of this England, anywhere, away from that father of hers and all these stiff, dull folk!  She will like that—­she loves travelling!’ Yes, they would be happy!