er face wore a kind of
wonder. She did not see Winton, who stood stone-quiet, watching, while
the nurse moved about her business behind a screen. This was the first
time in his life that he had seen a mother with her just-born baby. That
look on her face--gone right away somewhere, right away--amazed him. She
had never seemed to like children, had said she did not want a child.
She turned her head and saw him. He went in. She made a faint motion
toward the baby, and her eyes smiled. Winton looked at that swaddled
speckled mite; then, bending down, he kissed her hand and tiptoed away.

At dinner he drank champagne, and benevolence towards all the world
spread in his being. Watching the smoke of his cigar wreathe about him,
he thought: 'Must send that chap a wire.' After all, he was a fellow
being--might be suffering, as he himself had suffered only two hours ago.
To keep him in ignorance--it wouldn't do! And he wrote out the form--

"All well, a daughter.--WINTON,"

and sent it out with the order that a groom should take it in that night.

Gyp was sleeping when he stole up at ten o'clock.

He, too, turned in, and slept like a child.

XI

Returning the next afternoon from the first ride for several days, Winton
passed the station fly rolling away from the drive-gate with the
light-hearted disillusionment peculiar to quite empty vehicles.

The sight of a fur coat and broad-brimmed hat in the hall warned him of
what had happened.

"Mr. Fiorsen, sir; gone up to Mrs. Fiorsen."

Natural, but a d--d bore! And bad, perhaps, for Gyp. He asked:

"Did he bring things?"

"A bag, sir."

"Get a room ready, then."

To dine tete-a-tete with that fellow!

Gyp had passed the strangest morning in her life, so far. Her baby
fascinated her, also the tug of its lips, giving her the queerest
sensation, almost sensual; a sort of meltedness, an infinite warmth, a
desire to grip the little creature right into her--which, of course, one
must not do. And yet, neither her sense of humour nor her sense of
beauty were deceived. It was a queer little affair with a tuft of black
hair, in grace greatly inferior to a kitten. Its tiny, pink, crisped
fingers with their infinitesimal nails, its microscopic curly toes, and
solemn black eyes--when they showed, its inimitable stillness when it
slept, its incredible vigour when it fed, were all, as it were,
miraculous. Withal, she had a feeling of gratitude to one th