Dashwood was serene and satisfied. A shy Don accompanied by a very
nice, untidy wife, appeared at lunch, and they were introduced by the
Warden as Mr. and Mrs. Stockwell. Mr. Stockwell was struck dumb at
finding himself seated next to Mrs. Dashwood, a type of female little
known to him. But May bravely taking him in hand, he recovered his
powers of speech and became epigrammatic and sparkling. This
round-shouldered, spectacled scholar, with a large nose and receding
chin, poured out brilliant observations, subtile and suggestive, and had
an apparently inexhaustible store of the literature of Europe. He sat
sideways in his chair and spoke into May's sympathetic ear, giving an
occasional swift appealing glance at the Warden, who came within the
range of his vision.

How Stockwell ate his food was impossible to discover. He seemed to give
automatic twiddles to his fork and apparently swallowed something
afterwards, for when Robinson's underling, Robinson _petit fils_,
removed Stockwell's plates, they contained only wreckage.

The Warden, aided by Lady Dashwood, struggled courteously with Mrs.
Stockwell. She was obliged to talk across Gwendolen, who spent her time
silently observing Mrs. Dashwood.

Mrs. Stockwell had pathetic pretensions to intellectuality, based on a
masterly acquaintance with the names of her husband's books and the fact
that she lived in the academic circle. She had drooped visibly at the
first sight of her hostess and Mrs. Dashwood, but was soon put at her
ease by Lady Dashwood, who deftly drew her away from vague hints at the
possession of learning into talk about her children. Gwen, watching the
Warden and Mrs. Dashwood across Mrs. Stockwell's imitation lace front,
could not be moved to speech. To any one in the secret there was written
on her face two absorbing questions: "Am I engaged or not?" "Is she
trying to oust me?"

The Warden's enigmatic eyes held no information in them. He looked at
her gravely when he did look, and--that was all. Was _he_ waiting to
know whether he was engaged or not? Gwen doubted it. He would be sure to
know everything. He would know. Think of all those books in the library!
Supposing he had found that letter--suppose he _had_ read it? No, if he
_had_, he would have looked not merely grave, but angry!

When the ladies rose from the table, Stockwell rose too, reluctantly and
as if waking from a pleasant dream. He stared in a startled way at the
Warden, who moved to ope