"I'm quite sorry," she whispered, "to find that your Aunt Lena seems worried about the engagement. Now why on earth, oh why, did the Warden run himself into an engagement with a girl he doesn't really care about?" This question was a master-stroke. There was no getting out of this for May Dashwood. Mrs. Potten clapped her hand over her mouth and drew in a breath. Then she listened breathless for the answer. The answer must either be: "But he _does_ really care about her," or something evasive. Not only Mrs. Potten's emotional superficies but her core of flint feared the emphatic answer, and yearned for an evasive one. What was it to be? May's face had suddenly blanched. Had her Aunt Lena told? No--surely not; and yet Mrs. Potten seemed to _know_. "How can I tell, Mrs. Potten?" said May, unsteadily. "I----" "Evasive!" said Mrs. Potten to herself triumphantly. "Never mind! things do happen," she said, interrupting May. "I suppose, at any rate, he has to make the best of it, now it's done." Mrs. Potten was afraid that she was now going too far, and she swiftly turned the subject sideways before May had time to think out a reply. "Tell your Aunt Lena that I expect Gwendolen, without fail, after lunch. Please tell her; so kind of you! Good-bye, good-bye," and Mrs. Potten got fiercely into her car. "Well, I never!" she said, and she said it over and over again. A cloud of thoughts seemed to float with her as the car skimmed along the road, and through that cloud seemed to peer at her, though somewhat dimly, the "beaux yeux" of the Warden of King's. "I think I shall," said Mrs. Potten, "I think I shall; but I shall make certain first--absolutely certain--first." CHAPTER XXII MR. BOREHAM'S PROPOSAL Boreham's purpose had been thwarted for the moment. But there was still time for him to make another effort, and this time it was to be a successful effort. A letter to May would have been the easiest way in which to achieve his purpose, but Boreham shrank from leaving to posterity a written proposal of marriage, because there always was just the chance that such a letter might not be answered in the right spirit, and in that case the letter would appear to future readers of Boreham's biography as an unsolicited testimonial in favour of marriage--as an institution. So Boreham decided to continue "feeling" his way! After all, there was not very much time in which to feel the way, for May was leaving Oxford on Monday. To-day was Friday, and Boreham knew the King's party were going to chapel at Magdalen. If he went, too, it would be possible for him to get May to himself on the way back to the Lodgings (in the dark). So to Magdalen he went, hurrying along on that Friday afternoon, and the nearer he got to Magdalen the more sure he was that only fools lived in the country; the more convinced he was that Chartcote had become, even in three months, a hateful place.