The New Warden

The Founders and the Benefactors of Oxford, Princes, wealthy priests, patriotic gentlemen, noble ladies with a taste for learning; any of these as they travelled along the high...

May Dashwood's features were not faultless. For instance, her determined little nose was rather short and just a trifle retroussé and her eyebrows sometimes looked a little surp...

A tear fell upon the envelope in her hand, and one fell upon the red carpet under her feet. She must try and not cry, crying made one ugly. She must go to her room as quickly as...

Before his maternal aunt had left him Chartcote, the Honourable Bernard Boreham's income had been just sufficient to enable him to live without making himself useful. The Boreha...

If Pilate had uttered the sardonic remark "What is truth?" in Boreham's presence, he would certainly have compelled that weary official to wait for definite enlightenment. Boreh...

Lady Dashwood, who knew every passing change in his face and manner (they were photographed over and over again in every imaginable style in her book of life), noticed that the...

After the Warden had closed the door on his sister he came back to the fireplace. He had been interrupted, and he stood silently with his hand on the back of the chair, just as...

The next morning it was still raining. It was a typical Oxford day, a day of which there are so many in the year that those who have best known Oxford think of her fondly in ter...

Boreham was in his dressing-room at Chartcote looking at himself in the mirror. The picture he saw in its depths was familiar to him. Had he (like prehistoric man) never had the...

"Well, May," said Lady Dashwood, leaning back into her corner and speaking in a voice of satisfaction, "we've done our duty, I hope, and now, if you don't mind, we'll go on doin...

Lady Dashwood sat on in the drawing-room. Now that she was alone it was not necessary to keep up the show of reading a book. She put it down on a table close at hand and gave he...

As soon as she had reached her room Gwendolen Scott sat down seriously by the little writing-table. Here was the paper and here was the pen, but the composition of the letter to...

The clock struck midnight, and yet the Warden had not done what he had intended to do before he picked up that letter and read it. He had not gone to bed. He was still in his li...

The Lodgings at King's were built at a period when the college demanded that its Warden should be a bachelor and a divine, and it contained neither morning-room nor boudoir. The...

There is little left in Christ Church of the simplicity and piety of the Age of Faith. It was rebuilt when the fine spiritual romanticism of our architectural adolescence had co...

Boreham had been very successful that afternoon. He had managed to secure Mrs. Dashwood without having to be rude to her hostess. He had done it by exchanging Mrs. Potten for th...

Mrs. Harding had not succeeded in finding some chance of "casually" asking Mrs. Potten to have tea with her, but she had secured the Dashwoods. That was something. Mrs. Harding'...

Robinson was of opinion that the general question of ghosts was still an open one. Also that he had never heard in his time, or his father's, of the Barber's ghost actually appe...

The drawing-room was empty except for the figure of Gwendolen Scott. Her slim length was in a great easy-chair, on the arms of which she was resting her hands, while she turned...

Mrs. Potten found that it "paid" to do her own shopping, and she did it once every week, on Friday. For this purpose she was compelled to use her car. This grieved her. Her extr...

Mrs. Potten was emerging from a shop in Broad Street when she caught sight of Mr. Bingham, in cap and gown, passing her and called to him. He stopped and walked a few steps with...

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 alway...

May waited within the gates of the Lodgings for some moments. She did not open the door and enter the house. She walked up and down on the gravelled court. She wanted to be alon...

Lady Dashwood looked at her and looked again. She put out her hand and rested it on the mantelshelf, and still looked at May. May was taking off one of her gloves. When she had...

What stung Gwendolen, what made her smart almost beyond endurance, was that she had exchanged the Warden for an umbrella. The transaction had been simple, and sudden, and inevit...

It was not easy for her to say to Lady Dashwood quite unconcernedly: "You won't mind my running away to-morrow, will you? You won't mind if I run off, will you? All your trouble...

"Keep a strict watch over her," he had said to May, outside in the corridor. "She has got to the point when rest will put her right, or fatigue will put her all wrong."

The Warden went to the door and turned the key. Why, he did not know. He simply did it instinctively. Then he finished reading the letter; and having read it through, read it ag...

"I am sorry I'm late," said the Warden quietly, and he looked at both his guests. "I have been with Lady Dashwood. I must apologise, Bingham, for her absence. I expect Mrs. Dash...

"Quite true," said Lady Dashwood; "I heard the extra bells going on round us. No, what I was thinking of was, what on earth Marian Potten did with Gwendolen yesterday afternoon....

When May went back again to the drawing-room she did not sit down immediately but walked round, taking up the books that were lying about. Some she had read, and the book she ha...

The Warden was on his way to the station. For three days he had done what he could to keep out of May Dashwood's presence. He had invented no excuses for seeing her, he had inve...