"Then you don't love me for myself?"

Winton was but dimly conscious of how that question revealed her
nature, its power of piercing instinctively to the heart of things, its
sensitive pride, and demand for utter and exclusive love. To things that
go too deep, one opposes the bulwark of obtuseness. And, smiling, he
simply said:

"What do you think?"

Then, to his dismay, he perceived that she was crying--struggling
against it so that her shoulder shook against his knee. He had hardly
ever known her cry, not in all the disasters of unstable youth, and she
had received her full meed of knocks and tumbles. He could only stroke
that shoulder, and say:

"Don't cry, Gyp; don't cry!"

She ceased as suddenly as she had begun, got up, and, before he too
could rise, was gone.

That evening, at dinner, she was just as usual. He could not detect the
slightest difference in her voice or manner, or in her good-night kiss.
And so a moment that he had dreaded for years was over, leaving only the
faint shame which follows a breach of reticence on the spirits of those
who worship it. While the old secret had been quite undisclosed, it had
not troubled him. Disclosed, it hurt him. But Gyp, in those twenty-four
hours, had left childhood behind for good; her feeling toward men had
hardened. If she did not hurt them a little, they would hurt her! The
sex-instinct had come to life. To Winton she gave as much love as ever,