To Winton’s extreme delight, she took to riding as a duck to water, and knew no fear on horseback.  She had the best governess he could get her, the daughter of an admiral, and, therefore, in distressed circumstances; and later on, a tutor for her music, who came twice a week all the way from London—­a sardonic man who cherished for her even more secret admiration than she for him.  In fact, every male thing fell in love with her at least a little.  Unlike most girls, she never had an epoch of awkward plainness, but grew like a flower, evenly, steadily.  Winton often gazed at her with a sort of intoxication; the turn of her head, the way those perfectly shaped, wonderfully clear brown eyes would “fly,” the set of her straight, round neck, the very shaping of her limbs were all such poignant reminders of what he had so loved.  And yet, for all that likeness to her mother, there was a difference, both in form and character.  Gyp had, as it were, an extra touch of “breeding,” more chiselling in body, more fastidiousness in soul, a little more poise, a little more sheer grace; in mood, more variance, in mind, more clarity and, mixed with her sweetness, a distinct spice of scepticism which her mother had lacked.

In modern times there are no longer “toasts,” or she would have been one with both the hunts.  Though delicate in build, she was not frail, and when her blood was up would “go” all day, and come in so bone-tired that she would drop on to the tiger skin before the fire, rather than face the stairs.  Life at Mildenham was lonely, save for Winton’s hunting cronies, and they but few, for his spiritual dandyism did not gladly suffer the average country gentleman and his frigid courtesy frightened women.

Besides, as Betty had foreseen, tongues did wag—­those tongues of the countryside, avid of anything that might spice the tedium of dull lives and brains.  And, though no breath of gossip came to Winton’s ears, no women visited at Mildenham.  Save for the friendly casual acquaintanceships of churchyard, hunting-field, and local race-meetings, Gyp grew up knowing hardly any of her own sex.  This dearth developed her reserve, kept her backward in sex-perception, gave her a faint, unconscious contempt for men—­creatures always at the beck and call of her smile, and so easily disquieted by a little frown—­gave her also a secret yearning for companions of her own gender.  Any girl or woman that she did chance to meet always took a fancy to her, because she was so nice to them, which made the transitory nature of these friendships tantalizing.  She was incapable of jealousies or backbiting.  Let men beware of such—­there is coiled in their fibre a secret fascination!