An agreeable voice answered her knock. She went in. The library was a noble room. Opposite the door was a wide, high latticed window, hung with heavy curtains and looking on to the Entrance Court. To the right was a great fireplace with a small high window on each side of it. On the left hand the walls were lined with books--and a great winged book-case stood out from the wall, like a screen sheltering the door which Lady Dashwood entered. Over the door was the portrait of a Cardinal once a member of King's. Over the mantelpiece was a large engraving of King's as it was in the sixteenth century. At a desk in the middle of the room sat the Warden with his back to the fire and his face towards the serried array of books. He was just turning up a reading-lamp--for he always read and wrote by lamplight.
"Robinson hasn't drawn your curtains," said Lady Dashwood.
"I am going to draw them--he came in too soon," said the Warden, without moving from his seat. His face was lit up by the flame of the lamp which he was staring at intently. There was just a faint sprinkling of grey in his brown hair, but on the regular features there was almost no trace of age.
"You have given Gwen another book to read," said Lady Dashwood coming up to the writing-table.
The Warden raised his eyes very slowly to hers. His eyes were peculiar. They were very narrow and blue, seeming to reflect little. On the other hand, they seemed to absorb everything. He moved them very slowly as if he were adjusting a photographic apparatus.
"You might just as well, my dear, hand out a volume of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ to the sparrows in your garden," said his sister.
The Warden made no reply, he merely moved the lamp very slightly nearer to the writing pad in front of him.
He had a stored-up memory of pink cheeks, a pure curve of chin and neck, a dark curl by the ear; objects young and graceful and gradually absorbed by those narrow eyes and stored in the brain. He also had memories less pleasant of the slighting way in which once or twice his sister had spoken of "Belinda and Co.," meaning by that the mother of this pretty piece of pretty girlhood, and the girl herself.
"She tries hard to read because we expect her to," continued Lady Dashwood. "If she had her own way she would throw the books into the fire, as tiresome stodge."