She had turned round now, and if Winton had doubt of her feeling, he lost it. This was a Gyp he had never seen! A glowing, soft, quick-breathing creature, with just that lithe watchful look of the mother cat or lioness whose whelps are threatened. There flashed through him a recollection of how, as a child, with face very tense, she would ride at fences that were too big. At last he said:
“I'm sorry you didn't tell me sooner.”
“I couldn't. I didn't know. Oh, Dad, I'm always hurting you! Forgive me!”
She was pressing his hand to her cheek that felt burning hot. And he thought: “Forgive! Of course I forgive. That's not the point; the point is—”
And a vision of his loved one talked about, besmirched, bandied from mouth to mouth, or else—for her what there had been for him, a hole-and-corner life, an underground existence of stealthy meetings kept dark, above all from her own little daughter. Ah, not that! 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. And, at once, his brain began to search, steely and quick, for some way out; and the expression as when a fox broke covert, came on his face.
“Nobody knows, Gyp?”
“No; nobody.”
That was something! With an irritation that rose from his very soul, he muttered:
“I can't stand it that you should suffer, and that fellow Fiorsen go scot-free. Can you give up seeing Summerhay while we get you a divorce? We might do it, if no one knows. I think you owe it to me, Gyp.”
Gyp got up and stood by the window a long time without answering. Winton watched her face. At last she said: