The New Warden. Ritchie David George

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      Here Lady Dashwood's indignation against herself made the blood tingle hotly in her hands and face. She was by nature calm, but this afternoon she was excited. She mentally pictured the Warden – just when there was so much for him to do – wasting his time by figuring as a sacrifice upon the Altar of a foolish Marriage. She saw the knife at his throat – she saw his blood flow.

      At this moment the door opened and the old butler, who had served other Wardens and who had been retained along with the best furniture as a matter of course, came into the room and handed a telegram to Lady Dashwood.

      She tore open the envelope and read the paper: "Arrive this evening – about seven. May."

      "Thank – !" exclaimed Lady Dashwood – and then she suddenly paused, for she met the old thoughtful eye of Robinson.

      "Yes!" she remarked irrelevantly. Then she folded the paper. "There is no answer," she said. "When you've taken the tea away – please tell Mrs. Robinson that quite unexpectedly Mrs. Jack Dashwood is arriving at seven. She must have the blue room – there isn't another one ready. Don't let in any callers for me, Robinson."

      All that concerned the Warden's lodgings concerned Robinson. Oxford – to Robinson meant King's College. He had "heard tell" of "other colleges"; in fact he had passed them by and had seen "other college" porters standing about at their entrance doors as if they actually were part of Oxford. Robinson felt about the other colleges somewhat as the old-fashioned Evangelical felt about the godless, unmanageable, tangled, nameless rabble of humanity (observe the little "h") who were not elected. The "Elect" being a small convenient Body of which he was a member.

      King's was the "Elect" and Robinson was an indispensable member of it.

      Robinson went downstairs with his orders, which, dropping like a pebble into the pool of the servants' quarters, started a quiet expanding ripple to the upper floor, reaching at last to the blue bedroom.

      Alone in the drawing-room Lady Dashwood was able to complete her exclamatory remark that Robinson's solemn eye had checked.

      "Thank Heaven!" she said, and she said it again more than once. She laughed even and opened the telegram again and re-read it for the pure pleasure of seeing the words. "Arrive this evening."

      "I've risked Jim's life – and now I've saved it." Then Lady Dashwood began to think carefully. There was no train arriving at seven from Malvern – but there was one arriving at six and one at seven fifteen. Anyhow May was coming. Lady Dashwood actually laughed with triumph and said – "May is coming —that for 'Belinda and Co.'!"

      "Did you speak to me, Lady Dashwood?" asked a girlish voice, and Lady Dashwood turned swiftly at the sound and saw just within the doorway a girlish figure, a pretty face with dark hair and large wandering eyes.

      "No, Gwen!" said Lady Dashwood. "I didn't know you were there – " and again she folded the telegram and her features resumed their normal calm. With that folded paper in her hand she could look composedly now at that pretty face and slight figure. If she had made a criminal blunder she had – though she didn't deserve it – been able to rectify the blunder. May Dashwood was coming! Again: "That for Belinda and Co.!"

      The girl came forward and looked round the room. She held two books in her hand, one the Warden had lent her on her arrival – a short guide to Oxford. She was still going about with it gazing earnestly at the print from time to time in bird-like fashion.

      "Mrs. Jack Dashwood is arriving this afternoon," said Lady Dashwood as she moved towards the door.

      "Oh," said Gwen, and she stood still in the glow of the windows, her two books conspicuous in her hand. She looked at the nearest low easy-chair and dropped into it, propped one book on her knee and opened the other at random. Then she gazed down at the page she had opened and then looked round the room at Lady Dashwood, keenly aware that she was a beautiful young girl looking at an elderly woman.

      "Mrs. Dashwood is my husband's niece by marriage," said Lady Dashwood.

      "Oh, yes," said Gwen, who would have been more interested if the subject of the conversation had been a man and not a woman.

      "You don't happen to know if the Warden has come back?" asked Lady Dashwood as she moved to the door.

      "He is back," said Gwen, and a slightly deeper colour came into her cheeks and spread on to the creamy whiteness of her slender neck.

      "In his library?" asked Lady Dashwood, stopping short and listening for the reply.

      "Yes!" said Gwen, and then she added: "He has lent me another book." Here she fingered the book on her knee. "A book about the – what-you-may-call-'ems of King's, I'm sorry but I can't remember. We were talking about them at lunch – a word like 'jumps'!"

      If a man had been present Gwen would have dimpled and demanded sympathy with large lingering glances; she would have demanded sympathy and approbation for not knowing the right word and only being able to suggest "jumps."

      One thing Gwen had already learned: that men are kinder in their criticism than women! It was priceless knowledge.

      "Founders, I suppose you mean," said Lady Dashwood and she opened the door. "Never mind," she said to herself as she closed the door behind her. "Never mind – May is coming – 'Jumps!' What a self-satisfied little monkey the girl is!"

      At the head of the staircase it was rather dark and Lady Dashwood put on the lights. Immediately at right angles to the drawing-room door two or three steps led up to a corridor that ran over the premises of the College porter. In this corridor were three bedrooms looking upon the street, bedrooms occupied by Lady Dashwood and by Gwendolen Scott, and the third room, the blue room, about to be occupied by Mrs. Dashwood. Lady Dashwood passed the corridor steps, passed the head of the staircase, and went towards a curtained door. This was the Warden's bedroom. Beyond was his library door. At this door beyond, she knocked.

      An agreeable voice answered her knock. She went in. The library was a noble room. Opposite the door was a wide, high latticed window, hung with heavy curtains and looking on to the Entrance Court. To the right was a great fireplace with a small high window on each side of it. On the left hand the walls were lined with books – and a great winged book-case stood out from the wall, like a screen sheltering the door which Lady Dashwood entered. Over the door was the portrait of a Cardinal once a member of King's. Over the mantelpiece was a large engraving of King's as it was in the sixteenth century. At a desk in the middle of the room sat the Warden with his back to the fire and his face towards the serried array of books. He was just turning up a reading-lamp – for he always read and wrote by lamplight.

      "Robinson hasn't drawn your curtains," said Lady Dashwood.

      "I am going to draw them – he came in too soon," said the Warden, without moving from his seat. His face was lit up by the flame of the lamp which he was staring at intently. There was just a faint sprinkling of grey in his brown hair, but on the regular features there was almost no trace of age.

      "You have given Gwen another book to read," said Lady Dashwood coming up to the writing-table.

      The Warden raised his eyes very slowly to hers. His eyes were peculiar. They were very narrow and blue, seeming to reflect little. On the other hand, they seemed to absorb everything. He moved them very slowly as if he were adjusting a photographic apparatus.

      "Yes," he said.

      "You might just as well, my dear, hand out a volume of the Encyclopædia Britannica to the sparrows in your garden," said his sister.

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