"I'm quite sorry," she whispered, "to find that your Aunt Lena seems worried about the engagement. Now why on earth, oh why, did the Warden run himself into an engagement with a girl he doesn't really care about?"
This question was a master-stroke. There was no getting out of this for May Dashwood. Mrs. Potten clapped her hand over her mouth and drew in a breath. Then she listened breathless for the answer. The answer must either be: "But he does really care about her," or something evasive.
Not only Mrs. Potten's emotional superficies but her core of flint feared the emphatic answer, and yearned for an evasive one. What was it to be?
May's face had suddenly blanched. Had her Aunt Lena told? No—surely not; and yet Mrs. Potten seemed to know.
"How can I tell, Mrs. Potten?" said May, unsteadily. "I——"
"Evasive!" said Mrs. Potten to herself triumphantly.
"Never mind! things do happen," she said, interrupting May. "I suppose, at any rate, he has to make the best of it, now it's done."
Mrs. Potten was afraid that she was now going too far, and she swiftly turned the subject sideways before May had time to think out a reply.
"Tell your Aunt Lena that I expect Gwendolen, without fail, after lunch. Please tell her; so kind of you! Good-bye, good-bye," and Mrs. Potten got fiercely into her car.
"Well, I never!" she said, and she said it over and over again. A cloud of thoughts seemed to float with her as the car skimmed along the road, and through that cloud seemed to peer at her, though somewhat dimly, the "beaux yeux" of the Warden of King's.