Gwen's head swam. Along with this new and painful sensation had come a sudden recollection of something! That letter of her mother's! It had not been in her hand when she went into her bedroom. No, it had not. Had she dropped it in the library, when the Warden had—— Oh!
"I've lost my handkerchief," murmured the girl, "somewhere——" Her voice was very small and sad, and she looked helplessly round the room.
"Mr. Boreham, stop and help her find it," said Lady Dashwood, "I must go down."
Boreham stood rigidly at the door. He saw his hostess go out and still he did not move.
Gwen looked at him in despair. What she had intended, of course, was to have flown into the library and looked for her letter. How could she now, with Mr. Boreham standing in the way? And that terrible woman had gone off arm-in-arm with the Warden. Gwen stared at Boreham. An idea struck her. She would go into the library—after dinner—before the men came up. But she must pretend to look for her handkerchief for a minute or two.
"Do you call Mrs. Dashwood pretty?" she asked tremulously, not looking at Boreham, but diving her hand into the corners of the chair she had been sitting in. She must find out what men thought of Mrs. Dashwood. She must know the worst—now, when she had the opportunity.
"Pretty!" said Boreham, still motionless at the door. "That's not a useful word. She's alluring."
"Oh!" said Gwen. She had left off thumping the chair, and now walked slowly to him—wide-eyed with anxiety. To Gwen, a man past his youth, wearing a fair beard and fair eyebrows that were stiff and stuck out like spikes, was scarcely a person of sex at all; but still he would probably know what men thought.
"I don't think she is pretty—very," she said, her lips trembling a little as she spoke, and she gazed in a challenging way at Boreham.
"She is the most womanly woman I know," said Boreham. "Middleton is probably finding that out already."