muttering: "These people!"
he made her another of his little bows and abruptly slipped away. The
baroness was bringing up another man. The chief thought left by that
meeting was: "Is that how he begins to everyone?" She could not quite
believe it. The stammering earnestness of his voice, those humbly
adoring looks! Then she remembered the smile on the lips of the little
Pole, and thought: "But he must know I'm not silly enough just to be
taken in by vulgar flattery!"

Too sensitive to confide in anyone, she had no chance to ventilate the
curious sensations of attraction and repulsion that began fermenting in
her, feelings defying analysis, mingling and quarrelling deep down in
her heart. It was certainly not love, not even the beginning of that;
but it was the kind of dangerous interest children feel in things
mysterious, out of reach, yet within reach, if only they dared! And the
tug of music was there, and the tug of those words of the baroness about
salvation--the thought of achieving the impossible, reserved only
for the woman of supreme charm, for the true victress. But all these
thoughts and feelings were as yet in embryo. She might never see him
again! And she certainly did not know whether she even wanted to.

IV

Gyp was in the habit of walking with Winton to the Kochbrunnen, where,
with other patient-folk, he was required to drink slowly for twenty
minutes every morning. While he was imbibing she would sit in a remote
corner of the garden, and read a novel in the Reclam edition, as a daily
German lesson.

She was sitting there, the morning after the "at-home" at the Baroness
von Maisen's, reading Turgenev's "Torrents of Spring," when she saw
Count Rosek sauntering down the path with a glass of the waters in his
hand. Instant memory of the smile with which he had introduced
Fiorsen made her take cover beneath her sunshade. She could see his
patent-leathered feet, and well-turned, peg-top-trousered legs go by
with the gait of a man whose waist is corseted. The certainty that he
wore those prerogatives of womanhood increased her dislike. How dare men
be so effeminate? Yet someone had told her that he was a good rider, a
good fencer, and very strong. She drew a breath of relief when he was
past, and, for fear he might turn and come back, closed her little
book and slipped away. But her figure and her springing step were more
unmistakable than she knew.

Next morning, on the same bench, she was reading b