hing! That letter of her mother's! It had
not been in her hand when she went into her bedroom. No, it had not. Had
she dropped it in the library, when the Warden had---- Oh!

"I've lost my handkerchief," murmured the girl, "somewhere----" Her
voice was very small and sad, and she looked helplessly round the room.

"Mr. Boreham, stop and help her find it," said Lady Dashwood, "I must go
down."

Boreham stood rigidly at the door. He saw his hostess go out and still
he did not move.

Gwen looked at him in despair. What she had intended, of course, was to
have flown into the library and looked for her letter. How could she
now, with Mr. Boreham standing in the way? And that terrible woman had
gone off arm-in-arm with the Warden. Gwen stared at Boreham. An idea
struck her. She would go into the library--after dinner--before the men
came up. But she must pretend to look for her handkerchief for a minute
or two.

"Do you call Mrs. Dashwood pretty?" she asked tremulously, not looking
at Boreham, but diving her hand into the corners of the chair she had
been sitting in. She must find out what men thought of Mrs. Dashwood.
She must know the worst--now, when she had the opportunity.

"Pretty!" said Boreham, still motionless at the door. "That's not a
useful word. She's alluring."

"Oh!" said Gwen. She had left off thumping the chair, and now walked
slowly to him--wide-eyed with anxiety. To Gwen, a man past his youth,
wearing a fair beard and fair eyebrows that were stiff and stuck out
like spikes, was scarcely a person of sex at all; but still he would
probably know what men thought.

"I don't think she is pretty--very," she said, her lips trembling a
little as she spoke, and she gazed in a challenging way at Boreham.

"She is the most womanly woman I know," said Boreham. "Middleton is
probably finding that out already."

Gwen patted her waistband where it bulged ever so slightly with her
handkerchief. "Womanly!" she repeated in a doubtful voice.

"He'll fall in love with her to-day and propose to-morrow. Do him a
world of good," said Boreham.

"Propose!" Gwen caught her breath. "But he couldn't--she couldn't--he
couldn't--marry!"

"Couldn't marry--I didn't say marry--I said he will propose to-morrow."
Boreham laughed a little in his beard.

"I don't understand," stammered the girl. "You mean--she would refuse?"

"No," said Boreham. "It mightn't go as far as that--the whole thing is a
matter of words--words--wor