"There is no hurry, dear," said Lady Dashwood. "Let me see, you have nearly an hour." The car was to come at ten—an unearthly hour except in Oxford and at Potten End.
Gwendolen disappeared upstairs, and the two ladies lingered about in the breakfast-room, neither able to attend to the papers, though both read ostentatiously. At last the car was announced and they went into the hall.
Gwendolen came downstairs hastily. That horrible umbrella was in her hand, in the other hand was a handkerchief. She was frowning under her veil to keep herself from crying.
"Well, good-bye, Gwen," said Lady Dashwood, and she kissed the girl on both cheeks. "Good-bye, dear; give my love to Mrs. Potten."
"Thanks——" began Gwen, but her voice began to fail her. "Thanks——"
"My love to Mrs. Potten," repeated Lady Dashwood hurriedly, and Gwendolen turned away without finishing her sentence.
May kissed Gwendolen and murmured in her ear: "Brave girl!" "Good-bye," she said aloud.
"Good-bye," said Gwen.
There was the familiar hall, its great bevelled doors, its oak panelling and its wide oak staircase. There was the round table in the middle under the electric chandelier and the dim portraits on the walls. All was familiar, and all had been thought of as hers for a time, all too short; for a day that now seemed as if it could never have been; for a dream and no part of the reality of Gwen's life.
There outside was the car which was to take her away for ever. Robinson Junior was holding open the door, his snub nose well in the air, his cheeks reddened by the chill autumn wind. He was waiting for her to get in. Then he would bang the door to, and have done with her, and the Lodgings would never again have anything to do with her—nor Oxford.