But Philip Sheldon was not a man with whom even a superannuated nurse can venture to take many liberties. He was a good master, paid his servants their wages with unfailing punctuality, and gave very little trouble. But he was the last person in the world upon whom a garrulous woman could venture to inflict her rambling discourse; as Nancy Woolper--by courtesy, Mrs. Woolper--was fain to confess to her next-door neighbour, Mrs. Magson, when her master was the subject of an afternoon gossip. The heads of a household may inhabit a neighbourhood for years without becoming acquainted even with the outward aspect of their neighbours; but in the lordly servants' halls of the West, or the modest kitchens of Bloomsbury, there will be interchange of civilities and friendly "droppings in" to tea or supper, let the master of the house be never so ungregarious a creature. "You can take the tea-things, Nancy," Mr. Sheldon said presently, arousing himself suddenly from that sombre reverie in which he had been absorbed for the last ten minutes; "I am going to be very busy to-night, and I expect Mr. George in the course of the evening. Mind, I am not at home to anybody but him." The old woman arranged the tea-things on her tray, but still kept a furtive watch on her master, who sat with his head a little bent, and his bright black eyes fixed on the fire with that intensity of gaze peculiar to eyes which see something far away from the object they seem to contemplate. She was in the habit of watching Mr. Sheldon rather curiously at all times, for she had never quite got over a difficulty in realising the fact that the black-eyed baby with whom she had been so intimate _could_ have developed into this self-contained inflexible young man, whose thoughts were so very far away from her. To-night she watched him more intently than she was accustomed to do, for to-night there was some change in his face which she was trying in a dim way to account for. He looked up from the fire suddenly, and found her eyes fixed upon him. It may be that he had been disturbed by a semi-consciousness of that curious gaze, for he looked at her angrily,--"What are you staring at, Nancy?" It was not the first time he had encountered her watchful eyes and asked the same impatient question. But Mrs. Woolper possessed that north-country quickness of intellect which is generally equal to an emergency, and was always ready with some question or suggestion which went to prove that she had just fixed her eyes on her master, inspired by some anxiety about his interests. "I was just a-thinking, sir," she said, meeting his stern glance unflinchingly with her little sharp gray eyes, "I was just a-thinking--you said not at home to _any one_, except Mr. George. If it should be a person in a cab wanting their teeth out sudden--and if anything could make toothache more general in this neighbourhood it would be these March winds--if it should be a patient, sir, in a cab----"