The door closed behind her and Lady Dashwood was left alone.
She lay back on the cushions. The sun was coming in through the windows much as it had done that afternoon when she was reading the telegram from May.
"I can't do any more," she murmured half aloud; "I can't."
Her eyes wandered to the fire and up to the portrait over the fireplace. The light falling on the painted face obliterated the shadows at the corners of the mouth, so that he seemed to be smiling.
CHAPTER XXXII
THE WARDEN HURRIES
The Warden was on his way to the station. For three days he had done what he could to keep out of May Dashwood's presence. He had invented no excuses for seeing her, he had invented reasons for not seeing her. These three days of self-restraint were almost over.
He could have returned home in time to take her to the railway-station himself if he had intended to do so. His business was over and he lingered, a desperate conscientiousness forcing him to linger. He allowed himself to be button-holed by other men, not completely aware of what was being said to him, because all the time in his imagination he saw May waiting for him. He pictured her going down the staircase to the hall and getting into her taxi alone. He pictured this while some one propounded to him plans, not only for successfully getting rid of party politics, but for the regeneration of the whole human race. It was at that point that he broke away. Some one else proposed walking back to King's with him.