"I am sorry I'm late," said the Warden quietly, and he looked at both his guests. "I have been with Lady Dashwood. I must apologise, Bingham, for her absence. I expect Mrs. Dashwood has already told you that she is not well."
The bow with which the Warden offered his arm to May was one which included more than the mere formal invitation to go down to dinner, it meant a greeting after absence and an acknowledgment that she was acting as his hostess. It was one of those ceremonial bows which men are rarely able to make without looking pompous. He had the reputation, in Oxford, of being one of the very few men who, in his tutorial days, could present men for degrees with academic grace.
"I'm sorry, Bingham," he said; "I have only just returned, or I might have secured a fourth to dinner—yes, even in war time."
May went downstairs, wondering. Wondering how it was that the worst was so soon over, and that, after all, instead of feeling a painful pity for the man whose arm held hers in a light grasp, she felt strangely timorous of him.
She was profoundly thankful for the presence of Bingham, who was following behind, cheerful and chatty, having put aside, apparently, all recollection of the conversation of the evening before. Yes, whatever his secret thoughts might have been, Bingham appeared to have forgotten that there were any moonlight nights in the streets of Oxford. For this, May blessed him.
They entered the long dining-room and, sitting at the Warden's end of the table, formed a bright living space of light and movement. Outside that bright space the room gradually sombred to the dark panelled walls. The Warden, in his high-backed chair, looked the very impersonation of Oxford. This was what struck Bingham as he glanced at his host, and the thought suggested that hater of Oxford, the Warden's relative, Bernard Boreham.
"I have just got your friend Boreham to undertake a job of work," said Bingham. "It'll do him a world of good to have work, a library to catalogue for the use of our prisoners. He wanted to shove off the job to some chaplain. I was to procure the chaplain, just as if all men weren't scarce, even chaplains!"
Composed as the Warden was, he looked at Bingham with something of eager attention on his face, as if relying on him for support and conversation.
"Poor old Boreham, he is a connection of mine by marriage," he said, and as the words fell from his lips, he, in his present sensitive mood, recoiled from them, for they implied that Boreham was not a friend. Why was he posing as one who was too superior to choose Boreham as a friend?
"Talking of chaplains," said Bingham, who knew nothing of what was going on in the Warden's mind, and thought this sudden stop came from dislike of any reference to Boreham—"talking of parsons, why not release all parsons in West End churches for the war?"