"Jim," she called to him gently, "tell me at least—if you are happy—whether——"
"I can't talk just now—not just now, Lena," he said.
"But Belinda takes the matter as settled—otherwise the letter is not merely absurd—but outrageous!"
The Warden hesitated in his slow stride towards the door.
"I am not going to have Belinda here on Saturday. There is no room for her. She can't come till May has gone." Lady Dashwood spoke this in a firm, rapid voice.
"That is for you to decide," he said. "You are mistress here."
He was moving again when she said in a voice full of pain: "You say you can't talk just now, you can't speak to me of what is happening to you, of what may happen to you, when you, next to John, are more to me than anything else in the world. What happens to you means happiness or misery to me, and yet you can't talk!"
The Warden was arrested, stood still, and turned towards her.
"You owe me some consideration, Jim. I have no children, you have been a son as well as a brother to me. I can have no peace of mind, no joy in life if things go wrong with you. Yes, I repeat it—if things go wrong with you. I was your mother, Jim, for many years, and yet you say you can't discuss something that is of supreme importance! You are willing to go out of this room and leave me to spend a night sleepless with anxiety."
What his engagement to Gwendolen would mean to her was expressed more in her voice even than in her words. The Warden stood motionless.