"Your engagement, I mean," explained Mrs. Potten.

Gwendolen breathed again, and now she laughed. Oh, why had she been so frightened? That silly little affair of yesterday was over, it was dead and buried! It was absolutely safe, and here was the first real proper congratulations and acknowledgment of her importance.

"You've got a charming man, very charming," said Mrs. Potten.

Gwendolen admitted that she had, and then Mrs. Potten waved her hand and was gone.

That morning, when Gwendolen had come down to breakfast, she wondered how she was going to be received, and whether she would have to wait again for recognition as the future Mrs. Middleton. Breakfast had been put half an hour later.

She had found Lady Dashwood and Mrs. Dashwood already at breakfast. The Warden had had breakfast alone a little before eight. Lady Dashwood called to her and, when she came near, kissed her, and said very quietly--

"The Warden has told me."

And then Mrs. Dashwood smiled and stretched out her hand and said: "I have been allowed to hear the news."

And Gwendolen had looked at them both and said: "Thanks ever so much. I can scarcely believe it, only I know it's true!"

However, the glamour of the situation was gone because the Warden's seat was empty. He could be heard in the hall; the taxi could be heard and the door slamming, and he never came in to say "Good-bye"! Still it was all exhilarating and wonderfully full of hope and promise, and mysterious to a degree!

The conversation at breakfast was not about herself, but that did not matter, she was occupied with happy thoughts. Now all this, everything she looked at and everything she happened to touch, was hers. Everything was hers from the silver urn down to the very salt spoons. The cup that Lady Dashwood was just raising to her lips was hers, Gwendolen's.

And now as she walked along Broad Street, after leaving Mrs. Potten, how gay the world seemed--how brilliant! Even the leaden grey sky was joyful! To Gwendolen there was no war, no sorrow, no pain! There was no world beyond, no complexity of moral forces, no great piteous struggle for an ideal, no "Christ that is to be!" She was engaged and was going shopping!

It was, however, a pity that she had only ten shillings. That would not get a really good umbrella. Oh, look at those perfectly ducky gloves in the window they were only eight and elevenpence!

Gwendolen stared at the window. Stopping to look at shop windows had been strictly forbidden by her mother, but her dear mother was not there! So Gwendolen peered in intently. What about getting those gloves instead of the umbrella?

She marched into the shop, rather bewildered with her own thoughts. The gloves were shown her by the same woman who had served Lady Dashwood a day or two ago, and who recognised her and smiled respectfully. The gloves were sweet; the gauntlets were exactly what she preferred to any others. And the colour was right. Gwendolen was fingering her purse when the shopwoman said--

"Do you want to pay for them, or shall I enter them, miss?"

Gwendolen's brain worked. She was now definitely engaged, and in a few weeks no doubt would be Mrs. Middleton; after that a bill of eight and elevenpence would be a trifle.

"Enter them, please," said Gwendolen, and she surprised herself by hearing her own voice asking for the umbrella department.

After this, problems that had in the past appeared insoluble, arranged themselves without any straining effort on her part; they just straightened themselves out and went "right there."

She looked at a plain umbrella for nine and sixpence, and then examined one at fifteen and eleven. Thereupon she was shown another at twenty-five shillings, which was more respectable looking and had a nice top. It was clearly her duty to choose this, anything poorer would lower the dignity of the future Mrs. Middleton. Gwendolen was learning the "duties" she owed to the station in life to which G.o.d had called her.

She found no sort of difficulty in this kind of learning, and it was far more really useful than book learning which is proverbially deleterious to the character. She had the umbrella, too, put down to Miss Scott, the Lodgings, King's College. When she got out of the shop the ten-shilling note was still in her purse.

"I shall get some chocolates," she said. "A few!"

CHAPTER XXI

THE SOUL OF MRS. POTTEN

Mrs. Potten was emerging from a shop in Broad Street when she caught sight of Mr. Bingham, in cap and gown, pa.s.sing her and called to him. He stopped and walked a few steps with her, while she informed him that the proceeds of the Sale had come to ninety-three pounds, ten shillings and threepence; but this was only in order to find out whether he had heard of that poor dear Warden's engagement. It was all so very foolish!

"Only that!" said Bingham, who was evidently in ignorance of the event; "and after I bought a table-cloth, which I find goes badly with my curtains, and bedroom slippers, that are too small now I've tried them on. Well, Mrs. Potten, you did your best, anyhow, flinging notes about all over Christ Church. Was the second note found?"

"The second note?" exclaimed Mrs. Potten. "What d'ye mean?"

"You dropped one note at Christ Church, and you would have lost another if Harding hadn't discovered that you had given him an extra note and restored it to Miss Scott. I suppose Miss Scott pretended that it was she who had been clever enough to rescue the note for you?"

"No, she did not," said Mrs. Potten; and here she paused and remained silent, for her brain was seething with tumultuous thoughts.

"Well, but for Harding, the Sale would have made a cool ninety-three pounds, fifteen shillings and threepence. Do you follow me?"

Mrs. Potten did follow him and with much agitation.

"How do you know it was my note and not Miss Scott's own note?" she asked, and there was in her tone a tw.a.n.g of cunning, for Bingham's remarks had roused not only the emotional superficies of Mrs. Potten's nature, but had pierced to the very core where lay the thought of money.

"Because," replied Bingham, "Miss Scott, who was running like a two-year-old, was not likely to have unfastened your note and fitted one of her own under it so tightly that Harding, whose mind is quite accustomed to the solution of simple problems, had to blow 'poof' to separate them. No, take the blame on yourself, Mrs. Potten, and in future have a purse-bearer."

Mrs. Potten's mind was in such a state of inward indignation that she went past the chemist's shop, and was now within a few yards of the Sheldonian Theatre. She had become forgetful of time and place, and was muttering to herself--

"What a little baggage--what a little minx!" and other remarks unheard by Bingham.

"I see you are admiring that semicircle of splendid heads that crown the palisading of the Sheldonian," said Bingham, as they came up close to the historic building.

"Admiring them!" exclaimed Mrs. Potten. "They are monstrosities."

"They are perfectly sweet, as ladies say," contradicted Bingham; "we wouldn't part with them for the world."

"What are they?" demanded Mrs. Potten, trying hard to preserve an outward calm and discretion.

"Jupiter Tonans--or Plato," said Bingham, "and in progressive stages of senility."

"Why don't you have handsome heads?" said Mrs. Potten, and she began to cross the road with Bingham. Bingham was crossing the road because he was going that way, and Mrs. Potten drifted along with him because she was too much excited to think out the matter.

"They are handsome," said Bingham.

Mrs. Potten was speechless. Suddenly she discovered that she was hurrying in the wrong direction, just as if she were running away with Mr. Bingham. She paused at the curb of the opposite pavement.

"Mr. Bingham," she said, arresting him.

He stopped.

"I must go back," she said. "I quite forgot that my car may be waiting for me at the chemist's!" and then she fumbled with her bag, and then looked thoughtfully into Bingham's face as they stood together on the curb. "Bernard always lunches with me on Sundays," she said; "I shall be glad to see you any Sunday if you want a walk, and we can talk about the removal of those heads."

Bingham gave a cordial but elusive reply, and, raising his cap, he sauntered away eastwards, his gown flying out behind him in the light autumn wind.

Mrs. Potten re-crossed the road and walked slowly back to the chemist's.

Her car was there waiting for her, and it contained her weekly groceries, her leg of mutton, and the unbleached calico for the making of hospital slings which she had bought in Queen's Street, because she could obtain it there at 4 1/2d. per yard.