It gave him a thrill to walk into that little restaurant behind her; and passing through its low red rooms to mark the diners turn and stare with envy—­taking him, perhaps, for a different sort of relation.  He settled her into a far corner by a window, where she could see the people and be seen.  He wanted her to be seen; while he himself turned to the world only the short back wings of his glossy greyish hair.  He had no notion of being disturbed in his enjoyment by the sight of Hivites and Amorites, or whatever they might be, lapping champagne and shining in the heat.  For, secretly, he was living not only in this evening but in a certain evening of the past, when, in this very corner, he had dined with her mother.  His face then had borne the brunt; hers had been turned away from inquisition.  But he did not speak of this to Gyp.

She drank two full glasses of wine before she told him her news.  He took it with the expression she knew so well—­tightening his lips and staring a little upward.  Then he said quietly: 

“When?”

“November, Dad.”

A shudder, not to be repressed, went through Winton.  The very month!  And stretching his hand across the table, he took hers and pressed it tightly.

“It’ll be all right, child; I’m glad.”

Clinging to his hand, Gyp murmured: 

“I’m not; but I won’t be frightened—­I promise.”

Each was trying to deceive the other; and neither was deceived.  But both were good at putting a calm face on things.  Besides, this was “a night out”—­for her, the first since her marriage—­of freedom, of feeling somewhat as she used to feel with all before her in a ballroom of a world; for him, the unfettered resumption of a dear companionship and a stealthy revel in the past.  After his, “So he’s gone to Ostend?” and his thought:  ‘He would!’ they never alluded to Fiorsen, but talked of horses, of Mildenham—­it seemed to Gyp years since she had been there—­of her childish escapades.  And, looking at him quizzically, she asked: 

“What were you like as a boy, Dad?  Aunt Rosamund says that you used to get into white rages when nobody could go near you.  She says you were always climbing trees, or shooting with a catapult, or stalking things, and that you never told anybody what you didn’t want to tell them.  And weren’t you desperately in love with your nursery-governess?”

Winton smiled.  How long since he had thought of that first affection.  Miss Huntley!  Helena Huntley—­with crinkly brown hair, and blue eyes, and fascinating frocks!  He remembered with what grief and sense of bitter injury he heard in his first school-holidays that she was gone.  And he said: 

“Yes, yes.  By Jove, what a time ago!  And my father’s going off to India.  He never came back; killed in that first Afghan business.  When I was fond, I was fond.  But I didn’t feel things like you—­not half so sensitive.  No; not a bit like you, Gyp.”