“I’m very glad.  I hoped perhaps you would.”

Mr. Wagge cleared his throat, and went on, in a hoarser voice: 

“I don’t want to say anything harsh about a certain party in your presence, especially as I read he’s indisposed, but really I hardly know how to bear the situation.  I can’t bring myself to think of money in relation to that matter; all the same, it’s a serious loss to my daughter, very serious loss.  I’ve got my family pride to think of.  My daughter’s name, well—­it’s my own; and, though I say it, I’m respected—­a regular attendant—­I think I told you.  Sometimes, I assure you, I feel I can’t control myself, and it’s only that—­and you, if I may say so, that keeps me in check.”

During this speech, his black-gloved hands were clenching and unclenching, and he shifted his broad, shining boots.  Gyp gazed at them, not daring to look up at his eyes thus turning and turning from Christianity to shekels, from his honour to the world, from his anger to herself.  And she said: 

“Please let me do what I ask, Mr. Wagge.  I should be so unhappy if I mightn’t do that little something.”

Mr. Wagge blew his nose.

“It’s a delicate matter,” he said.  “I don’t know where my duty lays.  I don’t, reelly.”

Gyp looked up then.

“The great thing is to save Daisy suffering, isn’t it?”

Mr. Wagge’s face wore for a moment an expression of affront, as if from the thought:  ‘Sufferin’!  You must leave that to her father!’ Then it wavered; the curious, furtive warmth of the attracted male came for a moment into his little eyes; he averted them, and coughed.  Gyp said softly: 

“To please me.”

Mr. Wagge’s readjusted glance stopped in confusion at her waist.  He answered, in a voice that he strove to make bland: 

“If you put it in that way, I don’t reelly know ’ow to refuse; but it must be quite between you and me—­I can’t withdraw my attitude.”

Gyp murmured: 

“No, of course.  Thank you so much; and you’ll let me know about everything later.  I mustn’t take up your time now.”  And she held out her hand.

Mr. Wagge took it in a lingering manner.

“Well, I have an appointment,” he said; “a gentleman at Campden Hill.  He starts at twelve.  I’m never late.  Good-morning.”

When she had watched his square, black figure pass through the outer gate, busily rebuttoning those shining black gloves, she went upstairs and washed her face and hands.

For several days, Fiorsen wavered; but his collapse had come just in time, and with every hour the danger lessened.  At the end of a fortnight of a perfectly white life, there remained nothing to do in the words of the doctor but “to avoid all recurrence of the predisposing causes, and shove in sea air!” Gyp had locked up all brandy—­and violins; she could control him so long as he was tamed by his