During these weeks she held herself absolutely at her father’s disposal, but she lived for the post, and if, by any chance, she did not get her daily letter, her heart sank to the depths.  She wrote every day, sometimes twice, then tore up that second letter, remembering for what reason she had set herself to undergo this separation.  During the first week, his letters had a certain equanimity; in the second week they became ardent; in the third, they were fitful—­now beginning to look forward, now moody and dejected; and they were shorter.  During this third week Aunt Rosamund joined them.  The good lady had become a staunch supporter of Gyp’s new existence, which, in her view, served Fiorsen right.  Why should the poor child’s life be loveless?  She had a definitely low opinion of men, and a lower of the state of the marriage-laws; in her view, any woman who struck a blow in that direction was something of a heroine.  And she was oblivious of the fact that Gyp was quite guiltless of the desire to strike a blow against the marriage-laws, or anything else.  Aunt Rosamund’s aristocratic and rebellious blood boiled with hatred of what she called the “stuffy people” who still held that women were men’s property.  It had made her specially careful never to put herself in that position.

She had brought Gyp a piece of news.

“I was walking down Bond Street past that tea-and-tart shop, my dear—­you know, where they have those special coffee-creams, and who should come out of it but Miss Daphne Wing and our friend Fiorsen; and pretty hangdog he looked.  He came up to me, with his little lady watching him like a lynx.  Really, my dear, I was rather sorry for him; he’d got that hungry look of his; she’d been doing all the eating, I’m sure.  He asked me how you were.  I told him, ‘Very well.’

“‘When you see her,’ he said, ’tell her I haven’t forgotten her, and never shall.  But she was quite right; this is the sort of lady that I’m fit for.’  And the way he looked at that girl made me feel quite uncomfortable.  Then he gave me one of his little bows; and off they went, she as pleased as Punch.  I really was sorry for him.”

Gyp said quietly: 

“Ah! you needn’t have been, Auntie; he’ll always be able to be sorry for himself.”

A little shocked at her niece’s cynicism, Aunt Rosamund was silent.  The poor lady had not lived with Fiorsen!

That same afternoon, Gyp was sitting in a shelter on the common, a book on her knee—­thinking her one long thought:  ’To-day is Thursday—­Monday week!  Eleven days—­still!’—­when three figures came slowly toward her, a man, a woman, and what should have been a dog.  English love of beauty and the rights of man had forced its nose back, deprived it of half its ears, and all but three inches or so of tail.  It had asthma—­and waddled in disillusionment.  A voice said: 

“This’ll do, Maria.  We can take the sun ’ere.”