He looked at the ball and at the chair, and then, putting his cigar between his teeth, he lifted the chair from the labyrinth of wool and placed it out of mischief. Then he picked up the ball and stood holding it in his hand. Who was the "somebody"? To whom did it belong? It was obvious to whom it belonged! A long line of wool dropped from the ball to the carpet. There it described a foolish pattern of its own, and then from one corner of that pattern the line of wool ran straight to Mrs. Dashwood's hands. She was sitting there, pretending that she didn't know that she was very, very slowly and deliberately jerking out the very vitals of that pattern, in fact disembowelling it. Then the Warden pretended to discover suddenly that it was Mrs. Dashwood's ball, and this discovery obliged him to look at her, and she, without glancing at him, slightly nodded her head, very gravely. Lady Dashwood grasped her book and pretended to read it.
"I suppose I must clear up this mess," said the Warden, as articulately as a man can who is holding a cigar between his teeth.
He began to wind up the ball.
"How beautifully you are winding it!" said May Dashwood, without looking up from her knitting.
The Warden cleared the pattern from the floor, and now a long line of wool stretched tautly from his hands to those of Mrs. Dashwood.
"Please stop winding," she said quietly, and still she did not look up, though she might have easily done so for she had left off knitting.
The Warden stopped, but he stood looking at her as if to challenge her eyes. Then, as she remained obstinately unmoved, he came towards her chair and dropped the ball on her lap.
"You couldn't know I was winding it beautifully because you never looked."
"I knew without looking," said May. "I took for granted that you did everything well."
"If you will look now," said the Warden, "you will see how crookedly I've done it. So much for flattery."