May looked straight before her, past Bingham's elbow. She knew the song from Becket well. Words in the song were soon coming that she dreaded, because of the Warden standing there by the door.
The words came—
"Love that is born of the deep coming up with the sun from the sea,
Love that can shape or can shatter a life till the life shall have fled."
She raised her eyes to the Warden. She could see his profile. It looked noble among the faces around him, as he stood with his head bent, apparently very much aloof, absorbed in his own thoughts.
He, of all men she had ever met, ought to have understood "love that is born of the deep," and did not. He turned his head slightly and met her eyes for the flash of a second. It was the look of a man who takes his last look.
She did not move, but she grasped the arms of her chair and heard no more of the music but sounds, vaguely drumming at her ears, without meaning.
She did not even notice Bingham's movement, the slow cautious movement with which he turned to see what had aroused her emotion. When he knew, he made a still more cautious and imperceptible movement away from her; the movement of a man who discerns that he had made a step too far and wishes to retrace that step without being observed.
May did not even notice that the song was over and that people were talking and moving about.
"We are going, May," said Lady Dashwood. "Mr. Boreham has to go and hunt for a ten-shilling note that Mrs. Potten thinks she dropped at Christ Church. She has just sent me a letter about it. She can't remember the staircase. In any case we have to go and pick up our purchases there, so we are all going together."
"She's always dropping things," said Boreham, who had taken the opportunity of coming up and speaking to May. "She may have lost the note anywhere between here and Norham Gardens. She's incorrigible."