s he stood with his head bent,
apparently very much aloof, absorbed in his own thoughts.

He, of all men she had ever met, ought to have understood "love that is
born of the deep," and did not. He turned his head slightly and met her
eyes for the flash of a second. It was the look of a man who takes his
last look.

She did not move, but she grasped the arms of her chair and heard no
more of the music but sounds, vaguely drumming at her ears, without
meaning.

She did not even notice Bingham's movement, the slow cautious movement
with which he turned to see what had aroused her emotion. When he knew,
he made a still more cautious and imperceptible movement away from her;
the movement of a man who discerns that he had made a step too far and
wishes to retrace that step without being observed.

May did not even notice that the song was over and that people were
talking and moving about.

"We are going, May," said Lady Dashwood. "Mr. Boreham has to go and hunt
for a ten-shilling note that Mrs. Potten thinks she dropped at Christ
Church. She has just sent me a letter about it. She can't remember the
staircase. In any case we have to go and pick up our purchases there, so
we are all going together."

"She's always dropping things," said Boreham, who had taken the
opportunity of coming up and speaking to May. "She may have lost the
note anywhere between here and Norham Gardens. She's incorrigible."

The little gathering was beginning to melt away. Harding and Bingham had
hurried off on business, and there was nobody now left but Boreham and
the party from King's and Mrs. Harding, who was determined to help in
the search for Mrs. Potten's lost note.

"Miss Scott is coming back with me--to help wind up things at the Sale,"
said Mrs. Harding, "and on our way we will go in and help you."

Gwendolen's first impulse, when Mrs. Potten's note was discussed, was to
get behind somebody else so as not to be seen. Would Mr. Harding and Mr.
Bingham remember about the extra note? Probably--so her second impulse
was to say aloud: "I wonder if it's the note I quite forgot to give to
Mrs. Potten? I've got it somewhere." Alas! this impulse was short-lived.
Ever since she had put the note in her pocket, the mental image of an
umbrella had been before her eyes. She had begun to consider that mental
umbrella as already a real umbrella and hers. She walked about already,
in imagination, under it. She might have planned to spend money that