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Once or even twice a day she went to the concerts in the Kurhaus, either with her father or alone. The first time she heard Fiorsen play she was alone. Unlike most violinists, he was tall and thin, with great pliancy of body and swift sway of movement.
With Betty who, bone-conservative, admitted Fiorsen as hardly as she had once admitted Winton she had to be very careful. But her great trouble was with her father. Though she longed to see him, she literally dreaded their meeting. He first came as he had been wont to come when she was a tiny girl at the hour when he thought the fellow to whom she now belonged would most likely be out.
But there was the old expression on her face, limpid, dovelike. And that something of the divine about her dancing smote Fiorsen through all the sheer imbecility of her posturings.
Fiorsen took the little moist hand; and his eyes passed over her, avoiding a direct meeting with her eyes. He received an impression of something harder, more self-possessed, than he remembered. Her face was the same, yet not the same; only her perfect, supple little body was as it had been. The dresser rose, murmured: "Good-afternoon, miss," and went. Daphne Wing smiled faintly.
How could women mope and moan because they were cast out, and try to scratch their way back where they were not welcome? How could any woman do that? Sometimes, she wondered whether, if Fiorsen died, she would marry her lover. What difference would it make? She could not love him more. It would only make him feel, perhaps, too sure of her, make it all a matter of course.
Pink came up in Daphne Wing's cheeks. And, encouraged by that flush, he went on warmly: "If you loved me now, I should not tire of you. Oh, you can believe me! She shook her head. "We won't talk about love, will we? Did you have a big triumph in Moscow and St. Petersburg? It must be wonderful to have really great triumphs!" Fiorsen answered gloomily: "Triumphs? I made a lot of money."
Her fastidiousness desired perfection, but her sensitiveness refused to demand it of others especially servants. Why should she harry them? Fiorsen had not the faintest notion of regularity. She found that he could not even begin to appreciate her struggles in housekeeping. And she was much too proud to ask his help, or perhaps too wise, since he was obviously unfit to give it.
When a woman refuses nothing to one whom she does not really love, shadows are already falling on the bride-house. And Fiorsen knew it; but his self-control about equalled that of the two puppies. Yet, on the whole, these first weeks in her new home were happy, too busy to allow much room for doubting or regret. Several important concerts were fixed for May.
"Oh, yes; please. It would have been better if he could have seen the dance properly, wouldn't it? What will he think?" Gyp smiled, and opened the door into the lane. When she returned, Fiorsen was at the window, gazing out. Was it for her or for that flying nymph? September and October passed. There were more concerts, not very well attended.
She was thinking of all those preposterous young wives she had read of, who, blushing, trembling, murmur into the ears of their young husbands that they "have something something to tell them!" Looking at Fiorsen, next morning, still sunk in heavy sleep, her first thought was: 'He looks exactly the same. And, suddenly, it seemed queer to her that she had not been, and still was not, disgusted.
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