The girl came forward and looked round the room. She held two books in her hand, one the Warden had lent her on her arrival—a short guide to Oxford. She was still going about with it gazing earnestly at the print from time to time in bird-like fashion.
"Mrs. Jack Dashwood is arriving this afternoon," said Lady Dashwood as she moved towards the door.
"Oh," said Gwen, and she stood still in the glow of the windows, her two books conspicuous in her hand. She looked at the nearest low easy-chair and dropped into it, propped one book on her knee and opened the other at random. Then she gazed down at the page she had opened and then looked round the room at Lady Dashwood, keenly aware that she was a beautiful young girl looking at an elderly woman.
"Mrs. Dashwood is my husband's niece by marriage," said Lady Dashwood.
"Oh, yes," said Gwen, who would have been more interested if the subject of the conversation had been a man and not a woman.
"You don't happen to know if the Warden has come back?" asked Lady Dashwood as she moved to the door.
"He is back," said Gwen, and a slightly deeper colour came into her cheeks and spread on to the creamy whiteness of her slender neck.
"In his library?" asked Lady Dashwood, stopping short and listening for the reply.
"Yes!" said Gwen, and then she added: "He has lent me another book." Here she fingered the book on her knee. "A book about the—what-you-may-call-'ems of King's, I'm sorry but I can't remember. We were talking about them at lunch—a word like 'jumps'!"
If a man had been present Gwen would have dimpled and demanded sympathy with large lingering glances; she would have demanded sympathy and approbation for not knowing the right word and only being able to suggest "jumps."