"It was a nice letter," said Gwen, thinking hard as she spoke. "But you see we haven't got any home now," she went on. "Mother stays about with people. It is hard lines, but she is so sporting."
"Yes," said the Warden, "and," he said, as if to assist her to complete the picture, "yet she wants you!" As he spoke his eyes narrowed and his breath was arrested for a moment.
"Oh no," said Gwen, eagerly. "She doesn't want to prevent—me—me marrying. You see she can't have me much, it's—it's difficult in other people's houses—at least it sometimes is—just now especially."
"Thank you," said the Warden, "I understand." He sighed and moved slightly from his former position. "You mean that she wants you very much, but that she can't afford to give you a home."
"Yes," said Gwen, with relief. The way was being made very clear to her. She was telling "the truth" and he was helping her so kindly. "You see mother couldn't stand a small house and servant bothers. It's been such hard luck on her, that father left nothing like what she thought he had got. Mother has been so plucky, she really has."
"I see," said the Warden. "Then your mother's letter has your approval?"
Her approval! Yes, of course; it was simply topping of her mother to have written in the way she did.
"It was good of mother," she said. If it hadn't been for her mother she would not have known what to do.
The Warden moved his hand away from the mantelshelf and now stood with his back against it, away from the blaze of the fire.
"You have never mentioned, in my presence," he said, "what you think about the work that most girls of your age are doing for the war."