She could feel him thinking: 'Perhaps it will make her nice to me!' He turned suddenly and went.
She stood with her eyes shut, seeing the divan in the music-room and the girl's arm shivering. Then, going to the piano, she began with all her might to play a Chopin polonaise.
That evening they dined out, and went to “The Tales of Hoffmann.” By such devices it was possible to put off a little longer what she was going to do. During the drive home in the dark cab, she shrank away into her corner, pretending that his arm would hurt her dress; her exasperated nerves were already overstrung. Twice she was on the very point of crying out: “I am not Daphne Wing!” But each time pride strangled the words in her throat. And yet they would have to come. What other reason could she find to keep him from her room?
But when in her mirror she saw him standing behind her—he had crept into the bedroom like a cat—fierceness came into her. She could see the blood rush up in her own white face, and, turning round she said:
“No, Gustav, go out to the music-room if you want a companion.”
He recoiled against the foot of the bed and stared at her haggardly, and Gyp, turning back to her mirror, went on quietly taking the pins out of her hair. For fully a minute she could see him leaning there, moving his head and hands as though in pain. Then, to her surprise, he went. And a vague feeling of compunction mingled with her sense of deliverance. She lay awake a long time, watching the fire-glow brighten and darken on the ceiling, tunes from “The Tales of Hoffmann” running in her head; thoughts and fancies crisscrossing in her excited brain. Falling asleep at last, she dreamed she was feeding doves out of her hand, and one of them was Daphne Wing. She woke with a start. The fire still burned, and by its light she saw him crouching at the foot of the bed, just as he had on their wedding-night—the same hungry yearning in his face, and an arm outstretched. Before she could speak, he began:
“Oh, Gyp, you don't understand! All that is nothing—it is only you I want—always. I am a fool who cannot control himself. Think! It's a long time since you went away from me.”
Gyp said, in a hard voice:
“I didn't want to have a child.”
He said quickly: