And Winton, with another deep breath, would say: 

“Glass of port, doctor?”

An expression of surprise would pass over the doctor’s face.

“Cold day—­ah, perhaps—­” And he would blow his nose on his purple-and-red bandanna.

Watching him drink his port, Winton would mark: 

“We can get you at any time, can’t we?”

And the doctor, sucking his lips, would answer: 

“Never fear, my dear sir!  Little Miss Gyp—­old friend of mine.  At her service day and night.  Never fear!”

A sensation of comfort would pass through Winton, which would last quite twenty minutes after the crunching of the wheels and the mingled perfumes of him had died away.

In these days, his greatest friend was an old watch that had been his father’s before him; a gold repeater from Switzerland, with a chipped dial-plate, and a case worn wondrous thin and smooth—­a favourite of Gyp’s childhood.  He would take it out about every quarter of an hour, look at its face without discovering the time, finger it, all smooth and warm from contact with his body, and put it back.  Then he would listen.  There was nothing whatever to listen to, but he could not help it.  Apart from this, his chief distraction was to take a foil and make passes at a leather cushion, set up on the top of a low bookshelf.  In these occupations, varied by constant visits to the room next the nursery, where—­to save her the stairs—­Gyp was now established, and by excursions to the conservatory to see if he could not find some new flower to take her, he passed all his time, save when he was eating, sleeping, or smoking cigars, which he had constantly to be relighting.

By Gyp’s request, they kept from him knowledge of when her pains began.  After that first bout was over and she was lying half asleep in the old nursery, he happened to go up.  The nurse—­a bonny creature—­one of those free, independent, economic agents that now abound—­met him in the sitting-room.  Accustomed to the “fuss and botheration of men” at such times, she was prepared to deliver him a little lecture.  But, in approaching, she became affected by the look on his face, and, realizing somehow that she was in the presence of one whose self-control was proof, she simply whispered: 

“It’s beginning; but don’t be anxious—­she’s not suffering just now.  We shall send for the doctor soon.  She’s very plucky”; and with an unaccustomed sensation of respect and pity she repeated:  “Don’t be anxious, sir.”

“If she wants to see me at any time, I shall be in my study.  Save her all you can, nurse.”

The nurse was left with a feeling of surprise at having used the word “Sir”; she had not done such a thing since—­since—!  And, pensive, she returned to the nursery, where Gyp said at once: 

“Was that my father?  I didn’t want him to know.”

The nurse answered mechanically: