inking--thinking of May's strange exhibition of emotion. Was
May----? No--that made things worse than ever--that made the irony of
her brother's fate more acute! That was a tragic thought! But it was
just this tragic thought that made Lady Dashwood now at the breakfast
table observe with a subtle keenness of observation and yet without
seeming to observe, or even to look. She sat there, absorbing May,
absorbing the Warden, measuring them, weighing them while she tried to
eat a piece of toast, biting it up as if she had pledged herself to
reduce it to the minutest fragments.

"Perhaps I'm not fair to Mr. Boreham," said May, shaking her head. "But
I am an ignoramus. How can one," she said smiling, but keeping her
eyelids still downcast, "how can one combine the bathing of babies and
feeding them, the dressing and undressing of them, the putting them to
bed and getting them up again, with any culture (spelt with a 'c'). I
get only a short and rather tired hour of leisure in the evening in
which to read?"

"You do combine them," he said, still bending towards her with the same
tense look. "Only one woman in a thousand would."

The colour had slightly risen in May's face, and now it died away, for
she was aware that no sooner were the last words spoken than the Warden
seemed to regret them. At least he stiffened himself and looked away
from her, stared at nothing in particular and then put out his hand to
take a piece of toast, making that simple action seem as if it were a
protest of resolute indifference to her.

May felt as if his hand had struck her. She had partly succeeded in her
effort and she had refused to glance at him. But she had not succeeded
in thinking of something else, and now this simple movement of his hand
made thoughts of him burn in her brain. Why did this man, with all his
erudition, with his distinction, with all his force of character, his
wide sympathies and his curious influence over others, why did this man
with all his talk (and this she said bitterly) about life and death--and
yes--about eternity, why did he bind himself hand and foot to a selfish
and shallow girl? He who talked of life and of death, could he not stand
the test of life himself?

The Warden rose from the table the moment that he had finished and
looked at his sister. She had put her letters aside and appeared to have
fallen into a heavy preoccupation with her own thoughts.

"Can I see you--afterwards--for a moment in the li