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She won't accept any crumbs." "That's lucky!" hovered on Lady Summerhay's lips; but, gazing at her son, she became aware that she stood on the brink of a downfall in his heart. Then the bitterness of her disappointment rising up again, she said coldly: "Are you going to live together openly?" "Yes; if she will." "You don't know yet?" "I shall soon."
He was pleased with an encounter which had relieved his feelings. Gyp spent all that evening writing her first real love-letter. But when, next afternoon at six, in fulfilment of its wording, she came to Summerhay's little house, her heart sank; for the blinds were down and it had a deserted look. If he had been there, he would have been at the window, waiting.
He wanted her exactly as she was; and did not weigh her in any sort of balance. It is possible for men to love passionately, yet know that their passion is but desire, possible for men to love for sheer spiritual worth, feeling that the loved one lacks this or that charm. Summerhay's love had no such divided consciousness. About her past, too, he dismissed speculation.
The last train was not due till eleven-thirty, and having seen that the evening tray had sandwiches, Gyp went to Summerhay's study, the room at right angles to the body of the house, over which was their bedroom. Here, if she had nothing to do, she always came when he was away, feeling nearer to him. She would have been horrified if she had known of her father's sentiments on her behalf.
And yet was not even that better than the other, which revolted to the soul his fastidious pride in her, roused in advance his fury against tongues that would wag, and eyes that would wink or be uplifted in righteousness? Summerhay's world was more or less his world; scandal, which like all parasitic growths flourishes in enclosed spaces, would have every chance.
In that unlighted room with the moonbeams drifting in, she sat down at Summerhay's bureau, where he often worked too late at his cases, depriving her of himself. She sat there resting her elbows on the bare wood, crossing her finger-tips, gazing out into the moonlight, her mind drifting on a stream of memories that seemed to have beginning only from the year when he came into her life.
She felt Summerhay's arm slipping round her. "It's over, darling. Never again I promise you!" Ah, he might promise might even keep that promise. But he would suffer, always suffer, thinking of that other. And she said: "You can only have me as I am, Bryan. I can't make myself new for you; I wish I could oh, I wish I could!" "I ought to have cut my tongue out first! Don't think of it!
But he drew a certain gruesome comfort from the conclusion slowly forced on him, that Summerhay's tragic death had cut short a situation which might have had an even more tragic issue. One night in the big chair at the side of her bed, he woke from a doze to see her eyes fixed on him. They were different; they saw, were her own eyes again. Her lips moved. "Dad." "Yes, my pet."
So they knew Summerhay's name he had not somehow expected that. He did not answer, not knowing what to say. During those days of fever, the hardest thing to bear was the sound of her rapid whisperings and mutterings incoherent phrases that said so little and told so much. Sometimes he would cover his ears, to avoid hearing of that long stress of mind at which he had now and then glimpsed.
And the clear, heart-aching music mocking it all, down to those last words: La commedia e finita! While she was putting on her cloak, her eyes caught Summerhay's. She tried to smile could not, gave a shake of her head, slowly forced her gaze away from his, and turned to follow Winton.
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