“Ah,” he said, “I thought you were not coming!  You look pale; are you not well?  Is it the heat?  Or”—­he looked hard into her face—­ “has someone hurt you, my little friend?” Gyp shook her head.  “Ah, yes,” he went on irritably; “you tell me nothing; you tell nobody nothing!  You close up your pretty face like a flower at night.  At your age, my child, one should make confidences; a secret grief is to music as the east wind to the stomach.  Put off your mask for once.”  He came close to her.  “Tell me your troubles.  It is a long time since I have been meaning to ask.  Come!  We are only once young; I want to see you happy.”

But Gyp stood looking down.  Would it be relief to pour her soul out?  Would it?  His brown eyes questioned her like an old dog’s.  She did not want to hurt one so kind.  And yet—­impossible!

Monsieur Harmost suddenly sat down at the piano.  Resting his hands on the keys, he looked round at her, and said: 

“I am in love with you, you know.  Old men can be very much in love, but they know it is no good—­that makes them endurable.  Still, we like to feel of use to youth and beauty; it gives us a little warmth.  Come; tell me your grief!” He waited a moment, then said irritably:  “Well, well, we go to music then!”

It was his habit to sit by her at the piano corner, but to-day he stood as if prepared to be exceptionally severe.  And Gyp played, whether from overexcited nerves or from not having had any lunch, better than she had ever played.  The Chopin polonaise in A flat, that song of revolution, which had always seemed so unattainable, went as if her fingers were being worked for her.  When she had finished, Monsieur Harmost, bending forward, lifted one of her hands and put his lips to it.  She felt the scrub of his little bristly beard, and raised her face with a deep sigh of satisfaction.  A voice behind them said mockingly: 

“Bravo!”

There, by the door, stood Fiorsen.

“Congratulations, madame!  I have long wanted to see you under the inspiration of your—­master!”

Gyp’s heart began to beat desperately.  Monsieur Harmost had not moved.  A faint grin slowly settled in his beard, but his eyes were startled.

Fiorsen kissed the back of his own hand.

“To this old Pantaloon you come to give your heart.  Ho—­what a lover!”

Gyp saw the old man quiver; she sprang up and cried: 

“You brute!”

Fiorsen ran forward, stretching out his arms toward Monsieur Harmost, as if to take him by the throat.

The old man drew himself up.  “Monsieur,” he said, “you are certainly drunk.”

Gyp slipped between, right up to those outstretched hands till she could feel their knuckles against her.  Had he gone mad?  Would he strangle her?  But her eyes never moved from his, and his began to waver; his hands dropped, and, with a kind of moan, he made for the door.