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Hastily she undid the latch, ran through, and saw Summerhay lying in the mud on his back, with eyes wide-open, his forehead and hair all blood. Some leaves had dropped on him. God! O God! His eyes had no sight, his lips no breath; his heart did not beat; the leaves had dropped even on his face in the blood on his poor head. Gyp raised him stiffened, cold as ice!
"YOU can do that. I am in the dark." "I don't in the least understand what you mean." "Don't you?" There was something deadly in her utter disregard of him, while her fingers moved swiftly about her dark, shining hair something so appallingly sudden in this hostility that Summerhay felt a peculiar sensation in his head, as if he must knock it against something. He sat down on the side of the bed.
But in Lady Summerhay all was too sore and blank. This woman she had never seen, whose origin was doubtful, whose marriage must have soiled her, who was some kind of a siren, no doubt. It really was too hard! She believed in her son, had dreamed of public position for him, or, rather, felt he would attain it as a matter of course.
And he said softly: "I didn't mean that, Gyp." But she only shook her head. He HAD meant it had wanted to hurt her! It didn't matter she wouldn't give him the chance again. And she said: "Look at that long white cloud, and the apple-green in the sky rain to-morrow. One ought to enjoy any fine day as if it were the last." Uneasy, ashamed, yet still a little angry, Summerhay rode on beside her.
In the little low-roofed inner lounge of that old hotel, whose rooms were all "entirely renovated," Gyp saw her visitor standing at a table, rapidly turning the pages of an illustrated magazine, as people will when their minds are set upon a coming operation. And she thought: 'I believe she's more frightened than I am! Lady Summerhay held out a gloved hand. "How do you do?" she said.
"My dear mother, the more there is against her, the more I shall love her that's obvious." Lady Summerhay sighed again. "What is this man going to do? I heard him play once." "I don't know. Nothing, I dare say. Morally and legally, he's out of court. I only wish to God he WOULD bring a case, and I could marry her; but Gyp says he won't." Lady Summerhay murmured: "Gyp? Is that her name?"
Sunlight, through the curtains where she had opened them to find the flowers, was shining on her. Very late that same night, Summerhay came out of the little Chelsea house, which he inhabited, and walked toward the river.
She saw him as the train ran in; but they met without a hand-clasp, without a word, simply looking at each other and breaking into smiles. A little victoria "dug up" as Summerhay said "horse, driver and all," carried them slowly upward.
Summerhay wrote from an inn on the river, asking her to come down by the eleven o'clock train, and he would meet her at the station. He wanted to show her a house that he had seen; and they could have the afternoon on the river! Gyp received this letter, which began: "My darling!" with an ecstasy that she could not quite conceal.
"If there's anything I can do to help, I should be so glad it must be horrid for you." Gyp said very quietly: "Oh! no. I'm perfectly happy couldn't be happier." And she thought: 'I suppose she doesn't believe that. Lady Summerhay was looking at her fixedly. "One doesn't realize these things at first neither of you will, till you see how dreadfully Society can cold-shoulder."
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