Certainly she had never looked prettier, daintier, shown more breeding than she did out here among these Germans with their thick pasterns, and all the cosmopolitan hairy-heeled crowd in this God-forsaken place!  The girl, unconscious of his stealthy regalement, was letting her clear eyes rest, in turn, on each figure that passed, on the movements of birds and dogs, watching the sunlight glisten on the grass, burnish the copper beeches, the lime-trees, and those tall poplars down there by the water.  The doctor at Mildenham, once consulted on a bout of headache, had called her eyes “perfect organs,” and certainly no eyes could take things in more swiftly or completely.  She was attractive to dogs, and every now and then one would stop, in two minds whether or no to put his nose into this foreign girl’s hand.  From a flirtation of eyes with a great Dane, she looked up and saw Fiorsen passing, in company with a shorter, square man, having very fashionable trousers and a corseted waist.  The violinist’s tall, thin, loping figure was tightly buttoned into a brownish-grey frock-coat suit; he wore a rather broad-brimmed, grey, velvety hat; in his buttonhole was a white flower; his cloth-topped boots were of patent leather; his tie was bunched out at the ends over a soft white-linen shirt—­ altogether quite a dandy!  His most strange eyes suddenly swept down on hers, and he made a movement as if to put his hand to his hat.

‘Why, he remembers me,’ thought Gyp.  That thin-waisted figure with head set just a little forward between rather high shoulders, and its long stride, curiously suggested a leopard or some lithe creature.  He touched his short companion’s arm, muttered something, turned round, and came back.  She could see him staring her way, and knew he was coming simply to look at her.  She knew, too, that her father was watching.  And she felt that those greenish eyes would waver before his stare—­that stare of the Englishman of a certain class, which never condescends to be inquisitive.  They passed; Gyp saw Fiorsen turn to his companion, slightly tossing back his head in their direction, and heard the companion laugh.  A little flame shot up in her.

Winton said: 

“Rum-looking Johnnies one sees here!”

“That was the violinist I told you of—­Fiorsen.”

“Oh!  Ah!” But he had evidently forgotten.

The thought that Fiorsen should have picked her out of all that audience for remembrance subtly flattered her vanity.  She lost her ruffled feeling.  Though her father thought his dress awful, it was really rather becoming.  He would not have looked as well in proper English clothes.  Once, at least, during the next two days, she noticed the short, square young man who had been walking with him, and was conscious that he followed her with his eyes.

And then a certain Baroness von Maisen, a cosmopolitan friend of Aunt Rosamund’s, German by marriage, half-Dutch, half-French by birth, asked her if she had heard the Swedish violinist, Fiorsen.  He would be, she said, the best violinist of the day, if—­and she shook her head.  Finding that expressive shake unquestioned, the baroness pursued her thoughts: