May Dashwood had slipped her hand into her aunt's arm, making it obvious to Boreham that he and the Warden must walk on ahead, or else walk behind. They walked on ahead.
"I've got to fetch Mrs. Potten from Eliston's," he said fretfully, as he walked beside the Warden. All four went along in silence. They passed Carfax. There, a little farther on, was Mrs. Potten just at the shop's door, looking out keenly through her glasses, peering from one side of the street to the other.
She came forward to meet them, evidently charmed at seeing the Warden.
"I'm afraid I made a great fuss over that note. Did you find it, Bernard?"
Boreham felt too cross to answer.
"We didn't," said May Dashwood. "I'm sorry!"
"No, we couldn't find it," said Lady Dashwood.
"You really couldn't," repeated Mrs. Potten. "Well, I wonder—— But how kind of you!"
Now, Mrs. Potten rarely saw the Warden, and this fact made her prize him all the more. Mrs. Potten's weakness for men was very weak for the Warden, so much so that for the moment she forgot the loss of her note, and—thinking of Wardens—burst into a long story about the Heads of colleges she had known personally and those she had not known personally.
Her assumption that Heads of colleges were of any importance was all the more distasteful to Boreham because May Dashwood was listening.