us as she looked round the table. How envious
some people would be of her! Mrs. Dashwood would not be pleased! For all
her clever talk, Mrs. Dashwood had not done much. What a bustle there
would be when the secret was discovered, when the Warden announced: "I
am engaged to Miss Scott, Miss Gwendolen Scott!" How young, how awfully
young to be a Warden's wife! What an excitement!

During dinner, Lady Dashwood told Robinson to keep up a good fire in the
library, as the Warden would probably arrive at about a quarter to
eleven.

That decided Gwen. She would go to bed at ten, and that would give her
time to write her little note and get it taken to the library before the
Warden arrived home. He would find it there, awaiting him.

Dinner passed swiftly, though the two ladies were rather dull and
silent. Gwen had so much to think of that she ate almost without knowing
that she was eating. When they went upstairs to the drawing-room, the
time went much more slowly, for there was nothing to do. Lady Dashwood
and Mrs. Dashwood both took up books, and seemed to sink back into the
very depths of their chairs, and disappear. It was very dismal. Perhaps
Lady Dashwood hadn't read _that_ letter all through. Anyhow she had not
been able to interfere. That was clear!

Gwen went and fetched the book on Oxford, and read half a page of it,
and when she had mastered that, she discovered that she had read it
before. So she was no farther on for all her industry. How slowly the
hands of the clock on the mantelpiece moved; how interminable the time
was! Everybody was so silent that the clock could be heard ticking. That
Lady Dashwood hadn't been able to interfere and make mischief with the
Warden, showed how little power she had after all.

At last the clock struck ten, and Gwen got up from her chair.

"Ten," said Mrs. Dashwood, and she raised her face from her book.

"Ten," said Lady Dashwood.

"Yes, ten," said Gwendolen. "I think I'll go to bed, Lady Dashwood, if
you don't mind."

"Do, my dear," said Lady Dashwood.

The girl stood up before her, slim and straight as an arrow. Both women
sat and looked at her, and she glanced at both of them in silence. Her
very beauty stung Lady Dashwood and made her eyes harden as she looked
at the girl. What were May Dashwood's thoughts as she, too, leaning back
in her large chair, looked at the dark hair and the flushed cheeks, the
white brow and neck, the radiant pearly prettiness of eighteen!