The little gathering was beginning to melt away. Harding and Bingham had hurried off on business, and there was nobody now left but Boreham and the party from King's and Mrs. Harding, who was determined to help in the search for Mrs. Potten's lost note.
"Miss Scott is coming back with me—to help wind up things at the Sale," said Mrs. Harding, "and on our way we will go in and help you."
Gwendolen's first impulse, when Mrs. Potten's note was discussed, was to get behind somebody else so as not to be seen. Would Mr. Harding and Mr. Bingham remember about the extra note? Probably—so her second impulse was to say aloud: "I wonder if it's the note I quite forgot to give to Mrs. Potten? I've got it somewhere." Alas! this impulse was short-lived. Ever since she had put the note in her pocket, the mental image of an umbrella had been before her eyes. She had begun to consider that mental umbrella as already a real umbrella and hers. She walked about already, in imagination, under it. She might have planned to spend money that had fallen into her hands on sweets. That would have been the usual thing; but no, she was going to spend it on something very useful and necessary. That ten shillings, in fact, so carelessly flung aside by Mrs. Potten, was going to be spent in a way very few girls would think of. To spend it on an umbrella was wonderfully virtuous and made the whole affair a sort of duty.
The umbrella, in short, had become now part of Gwendolen's future. Virtue walking with an umbrella. Without that umbrella there would be a distinct blank in Gwendolen's life!
If she obeyed her second impulse on the moment, that umbrella would never become hers. She would for ever lose that umbrella. But neither Mr. Harding nor Mr. Bingham seemed to think of her, or her note. They were already rushing off to lectures or chapels or something. The impulse died!
So the poor silly child pretended to search in the rooms at Christ Church with no less energy than Mrs. Harding and Mrs. Dashwood, and much more thoroughly than Boreham, who did nothing more than put up the lights and stand about looking gloomy.
The Warden was walking slowly with Lady Dashwood on the terrace below when the searchers came out announcing that no note could be found.
Boreham's arms were full of parcels, and these were distributed among the Warden, Lady Dashwood, and Mrs. Dashwood.
Mrs. Harding said "good-bye" outside the great gate.
"I shall bring Miss Scott home, after the work is over," she said; and Gwendolen glanced at the Warden in the fading afternoon light with some confidence, for was not the affair of the note over? What more could happen? She could not be certain whether he looked at her or not. He moved away the moment that Mrs. Harding had ceased speaking. He bowed, and in another moment was talking to Mr. Boreham.