“That’s all right, my dear.”

“How long do you think before—­before it’ll begin again, nurse?  I’d like to see him.”

The nurse stroked her hair.

“Soon enough when it’s all over and comfy.  Men are always fidgety.”

Gyp looked at her, and said quietly: 

“Yes.  You see, my mother died when I was born.”

The nurse, watching those lips, still pale with pain, felt a queer pang.  She smoothed the bed-clothes and said: 

“That’s nothing—­it often happens—­that is, I mean,—­you know it has no connection whatever.”

And seeing Gyp smile, she thought:  ‘Well, I am a fool.’

“If by any chance I don’t get through, I want to be cremated; I want to go back as quick as I can.  I can’t bear the thought of the other thing.  Will you remember, nurse?  I can’t tell my father that just now; it might upset him.  But promise me.”

And the nurse thought:  ’That can’t be done without a will or something, but I’d better promise.  It’s a morbid fancy, and yet she’s not a morbid subject, either.’  And she said: 

“Very well, my dear; only, you’re not going to do anything of the sort.  That’s flat.”

Gyp smiled again, and there was silence, till she said: 

“I’m awfully ashamed, wanting all this attention, and making people miserable.  I’ve read that Japanese women quietly go out somewhere by themselves and sit on a gate.”

The nurse, still busy with the bedclothes, murmured abstractedly: 

“Yes, that’s a very good way.  But don’t you fancy you’re half the trouble most of them are.  You’re very good, and you’re going to get on splendidly.”  And she thought:  ’Odd!  She’s never once spoken of her husband.  I don’t like it for this sort—­too perfect, too sensitive; her face touches you so!’

Gyp murmured again: 

“I’d like to see my father, please; and rather quick.”

The nurse, after one swift look, went out.

Gyp, who had clinched her hands under the bedclothes, fixed her eyes on the window.  November!  Acorns and the leaves—­the nice, damp, earthy smell!  Acorns all over the grass.  She used to drive the old retriever in harness on the lawn covered with acorns and the dead leaves, and the wind still blowing them off the trees—­in her brown velvet—­that was a ducky dress!  Who was it had called her once “a wise little owl,” in that dress?  And, suddenly, her heart sank.  The pain was coming again.  Winton’s voice from the door said: 

“Well, my pet?”

“It was only to see how you are.  I’m all right.  What sort of a day is it?  You’ll go riding, won’t you?  Give my love to the horses.  Good-bye, Dad; just for now.”

Her forehead was wet to his lips.

Outside, in the passage, her smile, like something actual on the air, preceded him—­the smile that had just lasted out.  But when he was back in the study, he suffered—­suffered!  Why could he not have that pain to bear instead?