"What's happened?"
"Nothing at all, that I know of. It's just in the air. Fuller's like a bear with a sore head, and those two women—Farmer and Sandiloe—whispering together in corners and exchanging glances like conspirators in a gunpowder plot. What on earth is the matter with them all?"
There was silence, and then Mark said, still in the same irritable voice:
"I suppose they think one's a perfect fool. If I've had one of them into my office this morning, I've had half a dozen—on the flimsiest excuses you ever heard of in your life. I don't know what they expected to find there, I'm sure."
If Sir Julian could have enlightened his agent on the point, he did not do so.
But he became himself very acutely aware of the state of tension pervading the College during the course of the committee meeting. Mark, contrary to his usual habit, scarcely spoke at all; Mr. Fuller sat with a face like a thundercloud, and, looking up occasionally under his closely-knitted eyebrows, fixed inscrutable eyes upon Miss Marchrose opposite.
She looked tired and nervous, and Sir Julian remembered that it was less than a week since he had thought her looking beautiful at Iris Easter's wedding.
Edna, he noticed, did not glance at Miss Marchrose, but from time to time her eyes rested thoughtfully upon Mark Easter.
Even Alderman Bellew, far from susceptible to shades of atmosphere, struck Sir Julian as being vaguely and uneasily watchful.
The meeting was poorly attended, and when it was over Mark said rather doubtfully to Lady Rossiter: