Hooking her arm into his, and talking all the time, she took him up-stairs and down, and out into the garden, to the studio, or music-room, at the end, which had an entrance to itself on to a back lane.  This room had been the great attraction.  Fiorsen could practice there in peace.  Winton went along with her very quietly, making a shrewd comment now and then.  At the far end of the garden, looking over the wall, down into that narrow passage which lay between it and the back of another garden he squeezed her arm suddenly and said: 

“Well, Gyp, what sort of a time?”

The question had come at last.

“Oh, rather lovely—­in some ways.”  But she did not look at him, nor he at her.  “See, Dad!  The cats have made quite a path there!”

Winton bit his lips and turned from the wall.  The thought of that fellow was bitter within him.  She meant to tell him nothing, meant to keep up that lighthearted look—­which didn’t deceive him a bit!

“Look at my crocuses!  It’s really spring today!”

It was.  Even a bee or two had come.  The tiny leaves had a transparent look, too thin as yet to keep the sunlight from passing through them.  The purple, delicate-veined crocuses, with little flames of orange blowing from their centres, seemed to hold the light as in cups.  A wind, without harshness, swung the boughs; a dry leaf or two still rustled round here and there.  And on the grass, and in the blue sky, and on the almond-blossom was the first spring brilliance.  Gyp clasped her hands behind her head.

“Lovely—­to feel the spring!”

And Winton thought:  ‘She’s changed!’ She had softened, quickened—­ more depth of colour in her, more gravity, more sway in her body, more sweetness in her smile.  But—­was she happy?

A voice said: 

“Ah, what a pleasure!”

The fellow had slunk up like the great cat he was.  And it seemed to Winton that Gyp had winced.

“Dad thinks we ought to have dark curtains in the music-room, Gustav.”

Fiorsen made a bow.

“Yes, yes—­like a London club.”

Winton, watching, was sure of supplication in her face.  And, forcing a smile, he said: 

“You seem very snug here.  Glad to see you again.  Gyp looks splendid.”

Another of those bows he so detested!  Mountebank!  Never, never would he be able to stand the fellow!  But he must not, would not, show it.  And, as soon as he decently could, he went, taking his lonely way back through this region, of which his knowledge was almost limited to Lord’s Cricket-ground, with a sense of doubt and desolation, an irritation more than ever mixed with the resolve to be always at hand if the child wanted him.

He had not been gone ten minutes before Aunt Rosamund appeared, with a crutch-handled stick and a gentlemanly limp, for she, too, indulged her ancestors in gout.  A desire for exclusive possession of their friends is natural to some people, and the good lady had not known how fond she was of her niece till the girl had slipped off into this marriage.  She wanted her back, to go about with and make much of, as before.  And her well-bred drawl did not quite disguise this feeling.