"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.