"And Jim?"
"Yes, my lord, as far as this night's work goes."
Harry got up from his chair, quietly and steadily. He advanced to the groom and grasped both his hands in his. Still, without a word, he turned to the doctor with the same action. Then, still steadily, he walked across the hearth rug to Geoffrey, and the doctor moved from where he stood, touched Jim on the shoulder, and withdrew with him. Not till then did Harry speak, but now his mouth quivered, and the tension grew to snapping point.
"Geoff, Geoff!" he said, and the blessed relief of tears came to him.
[EPILOGUE]
Evie was sitting in one of the low window seats in the hall at Vail, regarding with all the gravity due to the subject her two months' old baby, that soft little atom round which revolved the world and the stars and all space. Her discoveries about it were in number like the sands of the sea, but far more remarkable. This afternoon they had been, and still continued to be, epoch-making.
"His nose," she said, after a long pause, to Lady Oxted, who was sitting by the fire, "is at present like mine—that is to say, it is no particular nose, but it will certainly be like Harry's, which is perpendicular. That's a joke, dear aunt, the sort of thing which people who write society stories think clever. It isn't, really."
Lady Oxted sighed.