One morning, he held up a letter.

“Ah, ha!  Paul Rosek went to see our house.  ‘A pretty dove’s nest!’ he calls it.”

The memory of the Pole’s sphinxlike, sweetish face, and eyes that seemed to know so many secrets, always affected Gyp unpleasantly.  She said quietly: 

“Why do you like him, Gustav?”

“Like him?  Oh, he is useful.  A good judge of music, and—­many things.”

“I think he is hateful.”

Fiorsen laughed.

“Hateful?  Why hateful, my Gyp?  He is a good friend.  And he admires you—­oh, he admires you very much!  He has success with women.  He always says, ‘J’ai une technique merveilleuse pour seduire une femme’”

Gyp laughed.

“Ugh!  He’s like a toad, I think.”

“Ah, I shall tell him that!  He will be flattered.”

“If you do; if you give me away—­I—­”

He jumped up and caught her in his arms; his face was so comically compunctious that she calmed down at once.  She thought over her words afterwards and regretted them.  All the same, Rosek was a sneak and a cold sensualist, she was sure.  And the thought that he had been spying at their little house tarnished her anticipations of homecoming.

They went to Town three days later.  While the taxi was skirting Lord’s Cricket-ground, Gyp slipped her hand into Fiorsen’s.  She was brimful of excitement.  The trees were budding in the gardens that they passed; the almond-blossom coming—­yes, really coming!  They were in the road now.  Five, seven, nine—­thirteen!  Two more!  There it was, nineteen, in white figures on the leaf-green railings, under the small green lilac buds; yes, and their almond-blossom was out, too!  She could just catch a glimpse over those tall railings of the low white house with its green outside shutters.  She jumped out almost into the arms of Betty, who stood smiling all over her broad, flushed face, while, from under each arm peered forth the head of a black devil, with pricked ears and eyes as bright as diamonds.

“Betty!  What darlings!”

“Major Winton’s present, my dear—­ma’am!”

Giving the stout shoulders a hug, Gyp seized the black devils, and ran up the path under the trellis, while the Scotch-terrier pups, squeezed against her breast, made confused small noises and licked her nose and ears.  Through the square hall she ran into the drawing-room, which opened out on to the lawn; and there, in the French window, stood spying back at the spick-and-span room, where everything was, of course, placed just wrong.  The colouring, white, ebony, and satinwood, looked nicer even than she had hoped.  Out in the garden—­her own garden—­the pear-trees were thickening, but not in blossom yet; a few daffodils were in bloom along the walls, and a magnolia had one bud opened.  And all the time she kept squeezing the puppies to her, enjoying their young, warm, fluffy savour, and letting them kiss her.  She ran out of the drawing-room, up the stairs.  Her bedroom, the dressing-room, the spare room, the bathroom—­she dashed into them all.  Oh, it was nice to be in your own place, to be—­Suddenly she felt herself lifted off the ground from behind, and in that undignified position, her eyes flying, she turned her face till he could reach her lips.