Besides, Ms. Wintour has been here before — surrounded by rumors that her end was nigh, and that she was suddenly human, and hence vulnerable. In 1999, New York magazine ran a cover story, “The Summer of Her Discontent,” that included the following: “‘The general feeling is that people are abandoning Anna,’ says one Vogue editor. ‘And that her heart isn’t in it anymore.’”

Eight years later, whispers had it that she was going to be replaced by Carine Roitfeld from Paris Vogue. Ms. Roitfeld ended up announcing her Vogue resignation in 2010. (She is now global fashion director at the Vogue rival Harper’s Bazaar, and has her own magazine, CR Fashion Book, which comes out twice a year.) Ms. Wintour is still here. Alexander Liberman, the former Condé Nast editorial director, worked into his early 80s. Ms. Wintour is 68.

She has outlasted not just rivals but also designer carping, competition from other magazines, not to mention the internet, criticism about her manner and her model choices, and multiple trends, fashion and social. She has adapted her magazine and herself to changing times and cultures to an unmatched extent, dispassionately (or ruthlessly) jettisoning her catechisms when they cease to work, from magazine sections to Vogue spinoffs.

Such longevity is impossible to achieve without a certain amount of casualties and chafing, and it is little wonder there are those who have embraced the recent speculation as a long-awaited comeuppance.

And yet, as Marco Bizzarri, the much-celebrated C.E.O. of Gucci, who previously was the much-celebrated C.E.O. of Bottega Veneta and before that the much-celebrated C.E.O. of Stella McCartney, regularly jokes in interviews, he doesn’t wonder whether he will be fired, but when. The only person in fashion who doesn’t own the company he works for and is widely known to have permanent job security is Karl Lagerfeld, who has a lifetime contract with Chanel.

Which means that as far as Ms. Wintour goes, no matter the rumors and their particulars, the question is not actually “Will she leave?” Of course she will, at some point. The question for her, as for all of us, is when, and how.