"May, I am going to dress," she said. "I shall fight this affair; for if it hadn't been for me, Jim would still be a free man."
May looked at her again fixedly.
"What shall you say to Lady Belinda?" she asked.
"I shall say nothing to Belinda—just now," said Lady Dashwood. "The letter may be—a lie!"
"Suppose she comes on Saturday?" said May.
Lady Dashwood's eyes flickered. "She can't come on Saturday," she said slowly. "There is no room for her, while you are here; the other bedrooms are not furnished. You"—here Lady Dashwood's voice became strangely cool and commanding—"you stay here, May, till Monday! I must go and dress."
May did not reply. Lady Dashwood paused to listen to her silence—a silence which was assent, and then she left the room as rapidly and quietly as she had entered.
Outside, the familiar staircase looked strange and unsympathetic, like territory lost to an enemy and possessed by that enemy—ruined and distorted to some disastrous end. Some disastrous end! The word "end" made Lady Dashwood stop and to think about it. Would this engagement that threatened to end in marriage, affect her brother's career in Oxford?
It might! He might find it impossible to be an efficient Warden, if Gwendolen was his wife! There was no telling what she might not do to make his position untenable.
Lady Dashwood went up the short stair that led to the other bedrooms. She passed Gwendolen's door. What was the girl inside that room thinking of? Was she triumphant?