PAM 
 DECIDES 
 
 BETTIMAVON HUTTEN
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Mrs. Ben B. Lindsey
 
 PAM DECIDES 
 
 A Sequel to "Pam 
 
 By BETTINA von HUTTEN 
 
 Author of 
 1 Our Lady of the Beeches," " Violette," etc. 
 
 With Four Illustrations 
 By B. MARTIN JUSTICE 
 
 A. L. BURT COMPANY, Publishers 
 NEW YORK
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1906, w 
 BETTINA VON HUTTEK 
 
 All Rights Rutrvtd 
 
 Published, April,
 
 pa 
 
 60/5" 
 
 To those who understood and liked Pam and 
 have asked me what happened to her, I dedi- 
 cate this conclusion of her story. 
 
 B. v H 
 
 STEINBACH, 
 
 November g, 
 
 1106188
 
 SYNOPSIS 
 
 FOR THOSE TO WHOM, AS YET, PAM IS A 
 STRANGER. 
 
 " There is only one thing that mckes a woman's life happy, and that is the thing rhe 
 took. And having taken it and found it better than all the rest pat together, would you 
 bare her pretend to be sorry?" PAM. 
 
 Although many years have passed since her elopement with the 
 celebrated tenor, " Guy Sacheverel," the daughter of Lord Yeoland, 
 of Monks' Yeoland, has never regretted the step that brought sorrow, 
 not only to an adoring father, but also to the singer's deserted 
 wife, Mrs. Kennedy. Nor, would Pauline Yeoland ever consent 
 to adopt any of the subterfuges customary with people similarly 
 placed ; but insisted on being addressed by her baptismal name. 
 Furthermore, the true situation, together with the reasons therefor, 
 was not withheld from their child Pam, who accordingly, when 
 questioned as to her name, would reply ingenuously: "Just Pamela. 
 It appears that children whose parents are not married, have only 
 one name." 
 
 Yet, notwithstanding the general disbelief in the permanency of 
 love under such conditions, the life of her parents in the " Villa 
 Arcadie," in Southern Italy, continued to contain a happiness so 
 great that the child was always contrasting it with that of those in 
 the married state, and deducing therefrom, with the incontrovertible 
 logic of youth, that necessarily, the cause of their unhappiness 
 must be the marriage rite. But obviously, the attractions of such 
 a menage appealed more especially to the brilliant laxists sojourn- 
 ing on these shores; and among those to enjoy its hospitality were: 
 Charnley Burke, an Australian afterwards devoted to Pam and 
 the celebrated actress, Mde. Ravoglia, whose friendship lasted 
 through life, and who bequeathed all of her jewelry to the young 
 girl. 
 
 In due course, the steward Cazalet comes from Monks' Yeoland 
 to fetch Pam for a visit to his Lordship; and accompanied by her 
 nurse Pilgrim, she goes there and meets her cousins Evelyn after- 
 wards Lady Chesney and Ratty, who promptly falls in love with 
 her. Also, she makes the acquaintance of other old friends of her
 
 SYNOPSIS 
 
 grandfather, including the Duchess of Wight and her daughter, 
 Lady Henrietta Shanklin. Pam and G.F. (as she affectionately 
 calls her grandfather) are becoming great friends when two invi- 
 tations are received by her: one to visit the Duchess; the other, to 
 Pam's consternation, from Mrs. Kennedy, whose health is fast 
 failing, and who is begging for a sight of the child of her husband. 
 Lord Yeoland insists upon her acceptance of that of the Duchess; 
 but Pam, despite his threats of disownment, chooses to visit her 
 " father's wife." On the way there, Pam meets James Peele, a 
 brilliant member of Parliament, and whom, at her grandfather's 
 house, she has overheard making a proposal of marriage to Lady 
 Henrietta. The home of Peele and that of Mrs. Kennedy are in 
 the same village. Consequently, the man and girl are thrown 
 much together until the death of Mrs. Kennedy, who, dying, has 
 extorted a solemn promise from Pam to induce her parents to 
 marry a promise which was afterwards fulfilled. 
 
 Following this crisis, Pam is caught in a thunderstorm. For 
 shelter she goes to Peele's house, and terribly frightened, she 
 rushes into his arms, where she is discovered by Charnley Burke, 
 who, coming to the village for the purpose of asking her to become 
 his wife, has followed her there through the storm. Misunder- 
 standing an innocent situation and wild with jealousy, he denounces 
 her with bitter words, leaves the house and soon after sails for 
 Australia. 
 
 Once more, Pam is in her beloved Arcadia, with Peele trying to 
 persuade her to allow him to break his engagement with Lady 
 Henrietta and marry her. But although Pam acknowledges her 
 love, and gladly will go anywhere with him, her old objection to 
 marriage remains paramount. For the moment, all that is best 
 of manhood in Peele rises to combat, unsuccessfully, her folly. 
 Yet, later on, when her parents are in Japan and her grandfather 
 has died, neglecting to alter his will and leaving her practically 
 penniless, Peele, apparently acquiescent, proposes that she shall go 
 with him to South Africa. The girl joyfully accepts and they 
 are perfecting their plans when, fortunately, his brutal selfishness 
 is revealed to her; for he has the effrontery to contend that, before 
 their flight, his career demands marriage with Lady Henrietta. 
 Pam dismisses him forever, as she imagines, but in her heart has 
 already forgiven the seemingly repentant man. Then, immediately, 
 together with her old nurse Pilgrim, she sets out to make her living, 
 in accordance with one of her sayings: 
 
 " There is no ready-made position for me in the world, so I shall, 
 thank God, be able to make my own position."
 
 PAM DECIDES
 
 PART ONE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAMELA YEOLAND awoke on the morning of her 
 twenty-seventh birthday on the third floor of a Blooms- 
 bury boarding-house. Yawning luxuriously, she turned over, 
 rubbed her eyes, and then lay, her head on one arm, gazing 
 at a chest of drawers that, flattered by the faint light into 
 something like an appearance of respectability, chanced to 
 block her line of vision. 
 
 And as she lay there, lazily enjoying the magic comfort 
 of one's last half-hour in bed on a cold November morning, 
 the ghosts of her seven last birthdays trooped staidly before 
 her mental eyes. 
 
 The preceding one had been spent in a nearly similar 
 establishment on the opposite side of the same street; the 
 two before it in a temperance hotel in Montague Place; 
 then came one in Guilford Street; two in Henrietta Street, 
 Cavendish Square, in lodgings that seemed, thus seen by 
 the blazing torch of contrast, palatial, as she recalled 
 them. 
 
 The birthday before these two had been passed at an hotel 
 near Paddington, and at the memory of it, softened and 
 blurred as it had become with the passing of the years, the 
 girl shivered uneasily in her bed and frowned, for it had 
 been a very dreadful day. 
 
 But beyond it, dwindling down to a vague recollection of
 
 2 PAM DECIDES 
 
 pink cakes and burning candles, much be-frilled wax chil- 
 dren, and parental embraces, stretched many more little 
 birthdays, all of them happy ones. 
 
 The earliest she could remember was in Rome and the 
 cake alone was distinct; then came several more in Italy, 
 one in Florence, when her father had bought her a string 
 of pink corals on the Goldsmiths' Bridge, one in some small 
 city when, being afflicted with the mumps, she had been 
 most miserable, though exceptionally feted and cossetted. 
 And then, as the anniversaries marched sedately towards 
 that awful one in London, came one in Paris, two by the 
 sea, a blue southern sea, and one most dear at Monks* 
 Yeoland, when her grandfather had been alive. And this 
 was number twenty-seven, then. 
 
 The ochre-coloured daylight, pressing in at the two win- 
 dows, brought into slowly increasing distinctness the maps 
 of fabulous lands that Time, by the means of cracks and 
 tears, had produced on the dingy blinds, and revealed more 
 plainly the sordid ugliness of the room. Relentlessly day 
 withdrew from the worn carpet, the cheap brown bedstead 
 and chairs, the flyblown picture-frames within which the 
 pictures seemed to shrink shamefacedly, the kindly veil night 
 had spread over them; the cracks in the discoloured ceiling 
 reappeared, the spider-web that had adorned one corner of 
 it /or many months, the strange monster on the hearth-rug, 
 the much-mended tin bath behind the table. 
 
 Everything miserably sordid, ugly, and depressing, though 
 showing in one or two objects and arrangement* an attempt 
 at comfort.
 
 PAM DECIDES 3 
 
 The girl in the bed, after a whimsical glance at her sur- 
 roundings, shrugged her thin shoulders and, tossing back 
 the long dark hair that billowed about her face, sneezed 
 violently. 
 
 Then, as she rummaged under despondently featherless 
 pillows for her handkerchief, she said aloud to herself, 
 " Salute, mia cara, e mille auguri! " 
 
 Having thus congratulated herself on the anniversary of 
 her birth, she looked at her watch, and with a last shiver 
 on the brink of the cold room, sprang up, set a match to the 
 meagrely-laid fire, and a few minutes later was making a 
 funny little unmusical noise that was the nearest to singing 
 that she had ever been able to compass, as she went about 
 her simple toilet. 
 
 She was nearly dressed when immediately following a 
 single knock the door opened and a grimy maid-servant 
 appeared, bearing a box and some letters. " Oh, Miss Yeo- 
 land, jis' look! It's from the country, and four letters! 
 Oh, Miss Yeoland, did you write? The candle's burnt 
 down, I see " 
 
 Pam twisted her thick rope of hair into a flat coil on her 
 head, and pinned it firmly with some big pins. Then, 
 glancing at a pile of closely-written sheets of foolscap on the 
 table, nodded. 
 
 " Yes, I wrote till nearly one. The Duke is going to run 
 off with her, just as you suggested, and poor Sir Lancelot 
 nearly goes out of his wits. His sufferings, Mildred," she 
 added, solemnly, " are something terrific ! " 
 
 The maid-of-all-work clasped her unappetising-looking
 
 4 PAM DECIDES 
 
 hands in excited ecstasy. "Oh, Miss Yeoland! But she 
 does escaipe, doesn't she? 'E must suffer something crool, 
 but she does escaipe ! " 
 
 Pam, who had opened a letter, nodded absently. " Oh 
 yes, she escapes," she returned ; " oh dear, yes. There's a 
 rope-ladder, and a faithful retainer, and and things like 
 that, I say, Mildred, open the box, will you ? " 
 
 A minute later the room was sweet with the luxurious 
 scent of hot-house flowers, and Pam stood holding a spray 
 of stephanotis to her face, her eyes bright with pleasure. 
 There were roses, bits of heliotrope, and violets. And they 
 came from one who had always been her friend. 
 
 Her imagination, through long training, was able to bring 
 as if before her very eyes the things of which she thought, 
 and now she was seeing an old house in the country, soft, 
 green lawns, tall trees, most of them old oaks, brown in the 
 late autumn, bright windows, an ancient ruin covered with 
 ivy, and then, off to the left, where her material eyes could 
 not have seen them had she stood whence she saw the ruin 
 and the house-front, the gleaming line of hot- and green- 
 houses from which the flowers had come. 
 
 " Oh, Miss, do mike 'im, the dook, send *er flowers like 
 these 'ere white ones! " 
 
 Positively open-mouthed, Mildred stood gazing and sniff 
 ing. Pam started. " Yes, Mildred, I will," she said ; " and 
 now you may go." Taking a white rose, a bit of Cape 
 jessamine and a sprig of heliotrope she put them into the 
 other girl's dingy hand, and with an incoherent " Oh Miss, 
 thank you," Mildred, pathetic possessor of a beautiful name,
 
 PAM DECIDES 5 
 
 went pounding down the stairs, nearly as much surprised 
 as if someone had plucked a star for her. 
 
 After a moment Pam sat down and re-read her letter. 
 
 *' Monks' Yeoland, November 13." 
 " MY DEAR Miss PAM : 
 
 " Another year has passed by, and we are all just so much 
 older. My dear young lady, I wish you many happy returns 
 of the day. I can hardly realise that you are seven-and- 
 twenty. That it is really seventeen years since I rang at 
 your father's door, there by the sea, and you opened it, your 
 monkey in your arms. I remember it all so well, so well. 
 Indeed, now that I am so old, I find I remember best the 
 things of long ago. I can positively smell the heliotrope that 
 grew all over in such abundance, and you as you were 
 then, with your big eyes, and your big coil of hair, I re- 
 call better than I can the lovely young lady I saw three 
 years ago in London! I am so sorry to hear that poor 
 Jane has been so ill, and trust that she is now quite well 
 again. 
 
 " His Lordship asked most kindly for you the other day. 
 His Lordship is most kind always, but times have sadly 
 changed for me since your dear grandfather's death. If all 
 ace's friends lived, old age would not be sad at all, I some- 
 times think. I am glad that you have seen Lady Chesnev- 
 Please give her my respects and regards. 
 
 " In the hope that these flowers, the gift of Mr. M'Whfe 
 ter, will please you, he begs me to send you his respects. 
 
 " I beg you to send my kindest regards and respects to
 
 6 PAM DECIDES 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Sacheverel, when you write, and I am, my 
 dear Miss Pam, 
 
 "Your affectionate and faithful serv't, 
 
 " CHRISTOPHER CAZALET." 
 
 Pam folded the letter, her eyes wet. " Dear old Cazzy, 
 I wish I could see him! What an old lamb he is. Now, 
 let's see what Ratty has to say ! " 
 
 " Dear Pam," de Rattrec Gilbert Yeoland Maxse had to 
 say, on the thick grey paper of his regiment, " I think you 
 are really rather a rotter never to write to me. I think you 
 must be pretty ashamed of the way you live, or you would 
 let me know where you are ! So do be sensible and write to 
 me. I can tell you, my good girl, it isn't every fellow in my 
 position who would bother about a girl in yours, and you 
 ought to be grateful to me, instead of ignoring my let- 
 ters, and forbidding that old ass Cazalet to tell me your 
 address. 
 
 " I was down at the old place last week for a week, and 
 Julia Yeoland told me that she had heard you were on the 
 Variety-stage, but that isn't true, or I'd have seen you. I 
 write now to wish you many happy returns. ( Do you remem- 
 ber the birthday when I chased you up the old tower in the 
 ruin, and the awful row we had?) You always were a 
 little wild-cat. And do write and let a fellow know how 
 you are. You needn't be afraid of my wanting to marry 
 you any more, that was only calf-love, as they say. I have 
 been in love no end of times since, but I want to know how
 
 PAM DECIDES 7 
 
 you are. Evey says you looked pretty shabby the last time 
 she saw you, and the Duchess is furious with you for youi 
 behaviour to her. So buck up and send a line to 
 " Your affectionate Cousin, 
 
 " DE R. G. Y. MAXSE." 
 
 " Almost every sentence begins with ' I '," commented 
 Pam aloud to herself; " poor old Ratty, what an idiot he is! " 
 
 The next letter was a bill from a French charcutier in 
 Holborn, and the last one, had Mildred, whose broad thumb 
 had made a big smudge on it, but known, was from the 
 Duchess of Wight! 
 
 " DEAR PAM : 
 
 " Fred Yeoland tells me that old Cazalet is the one mem* 
 ber of the clan with whom you deign to remain in communi- 
 cation, so as I very much want news of you, I am sending 
 this down to him to be forwarded. My dear child, where 
 and how are you? 
 
 " It is over two years since I met you that day outside 
 Hatchard's, and until last Monday I have not had a glimpse 
 of you. And on Monday, as you were on a 'bus, hobnobbing 
 shamelessly with the driver, and I in my lowly victoria 
 trying to cross Piccadilly at Sackville Street, the view was 
 not very satisfying! 
 
 " Why did you not answer my letter? And where are 
 von. o,p4 is poor Jane Pilgrim, excellent woman, still alive? 
 Please write and tell me these things, for although you have 
 behaved so abominably to one of your grandfather's oldest
 
 - 8 PAM DECIDES 
 
 friends, and though it is high time that you gave up your 
 ridiculous, runaway tricks, I still love you, though if I had 
 any pride I should have forgotten you ages ago ! 
 
 " And another thing. Julia Yeoland tells everyone that 
 you have gone under, of course to justify herself for never 
 having done anything for you. Your grandfather, dear 
 man, would turn in his coffin if he knew that she says that 
 you are dancing in short skirts in East End ' Halls ', etc. 
 She is a hateful woman, and I am so glad the King can't 
 bear her. 
 
 " Now, do send me a line, my dear, and say that you will 
 come to see me. I will promise not to tell anyone where 
 you are living, if you insist, though useless mystery is a waste 
 of good material! 
 
 "To-morrow is your birthday, as it was my poor boy's. 
 My love to you, and best wishes. And do come to see me, 
 for your grandfather's sake. 
 
 " Yours affectionately, 
 
 " ELIZA WIGHT. 
 
 " P. S. Henny was asking about you only the other day. 
 Poor Henny, you would hardly know her, she has gone off 
 so. Their boy is very delicate and she is always worried 
 about him. He is a darling little fellow, though, and a great 
 comfort to her." 
 
 Pam locked this letter away in a tin despatch-box, the key 
 of which hung on her watch-chain, and after sitting for a 
 moment in troubled thought, went into the next room.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 BREAKFAST stood on a table by the fire, and in a much 
 worn chintz-covered arm-chair near it an old woman sat 
 knitting ; a hard-featured old woman, whose small button of 
 nearly white hair barefacedly gave the lie to the mahogany- 
 coloured front that sat so oddly over her shaggy grey eye- 
 brows. 
 
 Pam, slim and tall in her dark-brown frock, bent and 
 kissed the wooden cheek held up to her, and sat down to her 
 breakfast. 
 
 " Good gracious, Pilly," she began, beheading her egg 
 and peering at it with the close attention never bestowed 
 upon eggs in higher spheres, " what's the matter? You look 
 as cross as seven sticks! Have you forgotten that this is a 
 joyful occasion? That your beloved nursling is twenty- 
 seven years old to-day?" 
 
 " I wish you many 'appy returns, I'm sure, Miss Pam," 
 answered the old woman, lugubriously; " and I'm glad that 
 you can take things so easy." 
 
 Pam laid down her spoon, and leaning her elbows on the 
 table, clasped her hands under her chin and gazed steadily 
 at the old woman. 
 
 " Now, Pilgrim," she said, severely, " you are not going 
 to spoil my birthday with one of your grouches. You ought 
 to be ashamed of yourself to be so discontented. You were 
 so ill, and now you are better, you hated No. 27, and now 
 
 9
 
 io PAM DECIDES 
 
 we are in this much nicer house, and you like Mrs. King- 
 dom, and you have the comfortable mantle, with beads on it, 
 that you wanted. So please buck up and be your own dear, 
 pleasant self, for my birthday." 
 
 Pilgrim's eyes filled with the scarce, painful tears of old 
 age. " As if it was that," she protested, with a sniff. " As 
 if it was about me! And as if I could help it! I'm just a 
 cross-grained old woman, a cucumberer of the earth, and an 
 expense to you. And to see you looking so ill, Miss Pam, 
 and the silk on your cuffs all wore out, and you a-living in 
 this 'ere way it's that that comes over me sometimes till I 
 can't stand it ! " 
 
 "Nonsense! Perfect rubbish! If I don't mind my 
 shabby clothes (and I don't), surely you ought to be able 
 to bear them. And as to my looking ill, you know perfectly 
 well that I'm never ill. Who has had three bad illnesses 
 in the last nine years? You or me? " 
 
 " You get thinner every day," retorted Pilgrim, now 
 sobbing outright ; " and if your poor grandfather could see 
 you now, wouldn't 'e say you look like a monkey! " 
 
 The girl raised her eyes and inspected herself in the glass 
 opposite. In the strong light she looked older than her 
 twenty-seven years, for there were delicate lines about her 
 eyes and mouth, and her smooth cheeks were slightly hollow. 
 She was thin, too, far too thin; her waist was almost ludi- 
 crously slight under the brown leather belt, and the cheap 
 stuff of her clumsily made frock betrayed unmercifully the 
 angles of her elbows and shoulders. She was a healthy 
 creature enough, but she had lived in poverty for years,
 
 PAM DECIDES n 
 
 and her body had, as bodies will, adapted itself to its 
 circumstances. 
 
 After a moment the old servant, encouraged by her mis- 
 tress's silence, blew her nose and wiped her eyes. " You've 
 been writing again, Miss Pam," she said, with a last sniff, 
 "you've been a-working at one of them stories, and you 
 hadn't ought. You'll lose all your looks if you go on like 
 that." 
 
 Pam burst out laughing, her teeth flashing white. " And 
 what a boundless misfortune that would be, oh, Pillyl 
 Immortal beauty like mine lost to the world." 
 
 " Well, whatever it was, it's going" answered Pilgrim, 
 crossly. " I'm very glad Mr. and Mrs. Sacheverel and 'is 
 Lordship can't see you now." 
 
 " So am I. Poor darling old G.F., how he'd hate 
 this," glancing about the room. " Funny how one can 
 get used to things! I say, Pilly," she continued, picking a 
 substantial bit of coal from her toast, and looking at it with 
 the resignation of one accustomed to such culinary phenom- 
 ena, " guess whom I had a letter from this morning? " 
 
 " Mr. Cazalet, and Mr. Ratty, and a bill, and another 
 letter. That girl brought 'em in 'ere 'when she made the 
 fire. A pretty state they must 'ave been in, too, by the time 
 you got 'em ! " 
 
 "Well, the letter was from the Duchess. It appears 
 that the ducal eye fell on me the other day on the top of a 
 'bus, and so she wrote to me care of Cazzy, and he for- 
 warded it." 
 
 Jane Pilgrim, formerly a bit of drift-wood on Life's high
 
 12 PAM DECIDES 
 
 seas, now shut in a London backwater, dropped her knitting 
 and clasped her hands in her excitement. 
 
 " 'Er Grace ! Oh, Miss Pam " 
 
 The girl's dark eyes softened to a look of great tenderness 
 as they rested on the flushed face opposite her. As a child 
 and very young girl she had owned a monkey, to which little 
 beast's eyes she had often been told her own bore a startling 
 resemblance, and now as she watched Pilgrim's pathetic joy 
 over the Duchess's letter, there certainly was in the gaze 
 something of the misty wistfulness of the simian's. 
 
 " Such a nice letter, Pilly, dear, and her love to you, 
 and she wants to see me." 
 
 Pilgrim's lips shook, and for a moment she could not 
 speak, and then, when Pam had hastened to add, " and I am 
 going," the old woman returned, acidly, " I'm glad you 'ave 
 that much sense ! " Pam, with wisdom born of long expe- 
 rience, continued her breakfast in silence. 
 
 The sitting-room was, in spite of its shabbiness, less appall- 
 ingly ugly than the bedroom, for there were some books in a 
 cheap painted bookcase and on the table, some growing plants 
 and a canary in the windows, and clean, or comparatively 
 clean, chintz covers to the chairs and the sofa. On the table 
 stood a big double picture-frame of crimson imitation-leather, 
 containing a photograph of a handsome middle-aged man in 
 a velvet coat, and a wonderfully beautiful woman in evening 
 dress. On the wall over the sofa hung a large picture, also 
 a photograph, of an old country-house surrounded by fine 
 trees, and flanked on the right by an ancient ruin. Under 
 this a fourth photograph showed a pleasant-faced, worldly
 
 PAM DECIDES 13 
 
 looking man, dressed in the height of the fashion of 1870. 
 This was the late Lord Yeoland, of Monks' Yeoland, the 
 house hanging above him, father of the beautiful woman 
 in the crimson frame, and, through her, Pam's grandfather. 
 
 Beyond these few things there were no efforts at beautify- 
 ing in the room, and the depressing brown wallpaper was fur- 
 ther enlivened only by a chromo of Sunrise on Mont Blanc, 
 an engraving of Queen Victoria holding the present King 
 as a young infant in her arms, and one representing an 
 Evangelical missionary extending his hands to the enthusi- 
 astic kisses of scantily-attired heathen on some palm-covered 
 Eastern isle. 
 
 Pam crunched her toast and gazed indulgently at her 
 surroundings. " The time," she remarked, presently, " ap- 
 pears to have arrived for me to mend that rug. You are 
 lugubrious, my ancient retaineress, as melancholy as that 
 unknown beast, a Gib Cat, but I should hate to lose you, 
 and you stumble every time you cross the room, and every 
 time you stumble, moreover, you stretch the hole ! " 
 
 " To think " began the old woman, but Pam inter- 
 rupted her ruthlessly. " I also have a letter from the gentle 
 Ratty! Did I tell you? Sweet youth, he wrote under 
 pressure from his strong family feeling." 
 
 " Mr. Ratty is a very pleasant young gentleman " 
 
 ' ' Pilly, you vampire, you lie ! ' ' 
 
 Pilgrim rose. " Well, really, Miss Pam ! You never 
 before said anything that bad to me, and I must say " 
 
 " It wasn't me / that said it ! It's a great big sledge- 
 hammer of a man who writes delicate, rapier-like plays
 
 H PAM DECIDES 
 
 it's a paraphrase, Pilly, it's a joke ! I only meant to make 
 you laugh. And you know Ratty isn't a very pleasant young 
 anything. He's a great big, lumpish, hulking, pestiferous 
 goose of a youth. And you know you used to loathe him, 
 ' bef o' de wah ' ! Do you remember the time he put a toad 
 in your bed? And how he used to pounce on you in the 
 passages? I know what you want, you old fraud. You 
 want me to marry him ! Years ago you would have stabbed 
 me at the very altar if I had accepted him, but now, in the 
 decline of my powers, in the wreck of my beauty, in the 
 autumn of my youth, you think him good enough for me! 
 Oh, shame on you ! " the girl went on, looking, in her 
 amusement, much younger than she had when serious ; " out 
 upon you, you scheming old jade! Besides, though I'd do 
 anything to oblige you, Miss Pilgrim, he tells me in this 
 letter that he no longer wants to marry me, so your plotting 
 is in vain, and you must resign yourself to my fading un- 
 plucked on the parent bush." 
 
 Pilgrim did not answer. Adversity had soured and em- 
 bittered her, but her heart was faithful to its last drop of 
 blood, and the cruellest pang that heart had to bear was 
 the one caused by what she considered the failure in life 
 of her beloved child. To her, as to most people of her class, 
 a husbandless woman was indeed a failure to be sneered at 
 by all proud possessors of legitimate tyrants, idlers, drunk- 
 ards, maltreaters, though they might be, and the thought 
 that her idolised (though much tormented) Pam would soon 
 have passed her youth without being sought in marriage by 
 any but the objectionable Ratty Maxse and one other hurt
 
 PAM DECIDES 15 
 
 the old woman in a way the girl was far from realising. So 
 in silence Pam finished her breakfast, set the tray on the 
 floor outside the door, and then taking a big needle and 
 stout thread sat down by the fire and, dragging the rug over 
 her knees, began to mend the hole in a rather boggling but 
 efficient enough fashion. 
 
 " How did you sleep, Pilly ? " she asked, presently drawing 
 the thread through the heavy carpet with a grating noise. 
 
 " Bad, Miss Pam, thank you ; them pains gets worse and 
 worse." 
 
 " Oh, no, they don't. If they had got worse you'd have 
 been dead long ago. They are getting better and better, as 
 the doctor will convince you when he comes. Poor, young 
 man, he seems to come oftener than he need," she continued, 
 with a sly face ; "it is very evil of you to lead him on in this 
 way! But I'm going to pay him to-day, for you really don't 
 need him any longer. You are going out for a walk to-mor- 
 row, too." 
 
 Pilgrim sniffed. She had enjoyed the excitement of her 
 recent illness, and Pam's concentrated attention had delighted 
 and flattered her vanity. And now she resented the cutting 
 short of her convalescence. " I'm quite sure I shan't be able 
 to walk for another week. My knees are that weak, what 
 if I fainted in the street ? " 
 
 Pam cut her thread and eyed her darn critically. " We 
 ought to have a garden-roller to flatten down that bump," 
 she observed ; " you used to fall into the hole, now you'll 
 stumble against the hummock. However " she went on, 
 rising and putting away her thimble and needle, " you won't
 
 1 6 PAM DECIDES 
 
 faint, and if you did, Mildred could carry you upstairs quite 
 easily." 
 
 Pilgrim shuddered fastidiously, and before she could 
 answer, the doctor came in. 
 
 This gentleman was a curly-haired youth, with a round 
 face sprinkled with a richness of rural-looking freckles. He 
 had a reddish moustache, small milky teeth and an innocent 
 and boyish smile. 
 
 He had left the sheltering wing of Bart's only a few 
 months before, and was leading a jocund life with other 
 medical youths and terpsichorean fays from eight at night 
 until three in the morning, and then, after four hours' dream- 
 less slumber, arose and pursued, as he put it, the profitable 
 patient until the hour of release again sounded. On the 
 whole an honest, kindly, conscientious young medico, with, 
 under a stratum of enthusiastic frivolity, the budding germ 
 of devotion to his profession and pity for suffering humanity. 
 
 Pam liked Dr. Anglin, who was a year younger than her- 
 self, and as he was a gentleman, and because no other gen- 
 tleman had came her way for years, had enjoyed her frequent 
 talks with him during Pilgrim's illness. 
 
 And she was sorry, now, to have to ask him not to come 
 again. When he had, a curious, shadow-like gravity settling 
 down on his young face while he did so, examined his pa- 
 tient, and pronounced her to be progressing to his entire 
 satisfaction, Pam sent Pilgrim out of the room. 
 
 " I must thank you for being so kind to my poor old 
 nurse," she said, " and will you please send me your bill? I 
 think there is no longer any necessity for your coming,'
 
 PAM DECIDES 17 
 
 Hon't you ? If she should have a relapse, I could always send 
 for you, " 
 
 He nodded, his blue eyes solemn. " Yes. I I hope you 
 don't think I have come too often, Miss Yeoland ? " , 
 
 She hastened to convince him that she did not think this, 
 and then shook hands with him. 
 
 " You you aren't looking up to much yourself," he com- 
 mented, ingenuously. " I'm not trying to drum up another 
 patient, you know, but you are very pale." 
 
 She laughed, and liked him so much that she would have 
 enjoyed stroking his unmanageable, ruddy curls. 
 
 " I have been in the house too much, of late, that's all ; 
 I have never been ill in my life." 
 
 He went away, thinking with delight of the money she 
 was to send him, and of a supper to which he was going that 
 night, and of a certain votary of Terpsichore. Pam had 
 grown really fond of the friendly boy with his little affec- 
 tations of wisdom and his conscientious care for the in- 
 valid, but he had not given her a thought, because he had 
 considered her plain and passe, and rather like his eldest 
 sister. 
 
 When he had gone, Pam went and told Pilgrim, whom 
 she found inspecting the grey-looking linen just brought 
 from the wash, that she was going out. 
 
 " I'm going to see the Duchess, Pilly. She is so very kind, 
 and she was a very old friend of my grandfather's. You 
 are glad, aren't you? I suppose I'd better put on my new 
 hat and dazzle her? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, Miss Pam. You owe respect and obedience
 
 i8 PAM DECIDES 
 
 to 'er Grace. I'm sure 'is Lordship would have wanted you 
 to do whatever she says." 
 
 "Not he," laughed Pam, pinning on the new hat, an 
 eight-and-sixpenny confection from the Tottenham Court 
 Road ; " they used to fight like anything. Do I look nice, 
 Pilly?" 
 
 Pilly surveyed her critically. " Yes, Miss Pam, very nice. 
 And if you keep your arm down she'll never see the patch." 
 Kissing her good-bye, Pam left the roorr, and feeling her 
 way to the stair-head, plunged into the narrow abyss with 
 the recklessness born of long habit. 
 
 -The sun was trying to come out, and the thick yellow fog 
 which had long since disappeared from the upper windows 
 of the houses in Huntley Street was now clearing reluctantly 
 from the street itself, whirling in big curves back from the 
 slippery and gleaming pavement against the dingy houses, 
 whence it slowly ebbed away into nothingness. Turning 
 into Guilford Street, Pam made her way to Russell Square, 
 whence, striking off to her left, she passed along Montague 
 Place, past the back of the Museum, up Great Russell 
 Street, Charing Cross Road, and Shaftesbury Avenue, to 
 Piccadilly.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 PAM was a human greyhound, if she was a dog at all, and 
 surely all of us have doggish affinities. She loved walk- 
 ing, and her years of poverty had taught her how to walk. 
 
 Her short skirts safe from the mud, her small feet in 
 stout shoes, the very hat on her head, were all adapted to 
 pedestrianism and helped to make her advance along the 
 crowded ways the easy progress it was. Slim, alert, graceful 
 and gracious she sped westward, jostling no one, accepting 
 the jostlings of others with good humour, avoiding with skill 
 the small accidents that beset less knowing wayfarers, cross- 
 ing crowded streets fearlessly and with daring good judgment. 
 
 She was happy that morning; Pilgrim was pronounced to 
 be, humanly speaking, out of danger; when she went home 
 her room would be sweet with the scent of Monks' Yeoland 
 flowers, her new story was progressing and she was to have 
 ten pounds for it, she would, now that Pilgrim no longer 
 needed her, have time again for long walks, the sun had 
 actually come out and the sky was blue, and she was going 
 to see the Duchess. At last she reached Berkeley Square 
 and stood looking up at the lace-hung windows that brought 
 out in such startling relief the blackness of the walls. 
 
 " Every bit as dingy as my palazzo," she told herself, as 
 she rang. 
 
 But if the outside of the house was shabby, inside every- 
 thing was deeply, softly luxurious, from the mossy carpets, 
 
 19
 
 20 PAM DECIDES 
 
 such as the girl had not set foot to for years, to the mellow 
 glow of the electric lights. 
 
 Yes, Her Grace was at home, and after a short wait in a 
 small room filled with beautiful things, chiefly, it seemed to 
 the girl's unaccustomed eyes, of silver and crystal and grow- 
 ing plants, she was ushered up the wide stairs past a huge 
 clock that chimed at her as she passed it, into Her Grace's 
 morning-room. 
 
 When, a few minutes later, the Duchess came in, she 
 found her visitor standing in a well-remembered attitude 
 before a life-sized portrait of a pleasantly cynical-looking 
 old gentleman, who smiled down at her with the slightly 
 hunched shoulders and the hands clasped behind his back 
 that, reproduced in the girl looking back at him, was so 
 characteristic of them both. 
 
 "Pam!" 
 
 Pam wheeled round with wet eyes, and the Duchess 
 rushed at her and embraced her. " Oh, my dear child, to 
 see you standing there by him, so absurdly like him, though 
 he was so fair, and you are so dark ! I wonder that you dare 
 to face him, after the way you have behaved since he 
 went!" 
 
 Pam wiped her eyes with the tip of a gloved finger and 
 then felt for her handkerchief. " I know he wouldn't have 
 bullied me," she returned, bursting into a smile, " and I am 
 so glad to see you." And they sat down on a perilously 
 fragile-looking sofa that bore the old lady's weight with sur- 
 prising fortitude. 
 
 " But tell me, where are you living ? "
 
 PAM DECIDES 21 
 
 " In a cave 1 dug under the Mansion House. We live 
 on nuts and bananas thrown to us by benevolent Italians 
 No, really, you needn't worry! We live in highly respect- 
 able lodgings, and I am an admirable chaperon for Pilgrim. 
 And we lead the most virtuous and harmless of lives, and 
 have marmalade for breakfast on Sundays " 
 
 " But where is it? Now that I've got you, I'm not going 
 to lose you," persisted the Duchess. 
 
 Pam kissed her. " Please don't tease me! If you do, I'll 
 be sorry I came, and it is such a nice birthday-party to see 
 you. And I do so like this colour for your hair." 
 
 " Do you, you villain! Good heavens, Pam, you said 
 that so like Oswald! Well, yes, it's a nice, quiet colour, 
 isn't it? A man in Wigmore Street does it, such a beauti- 
 ful street for a modern hair-dresser to live in, I always think 
 Well, have you really enough money to live comfortably?'" 
 
 " Plenty. And you know I had some jewels, too. I have 
 sold two rings, and have one left." 
 
 "Rings? Not from your grandfather, were they?" 
 
 " No. They were left me by Madame Ravoglit* 
 
 " The actress? Dear me, I saw her twice. Yes, I remem- 
 ber Oswald's telling me that you had known her when you 
 were with your father and mother. I am glad to know 
 you had the rings. Oh, you little brute," continued the old 
 lady, patting Pam's hands with her cushiony one, " you 
 might have told me long ago. I owe many a sleepless night 
 to your obstinacy about that little sum of money I wanted to 
 give you." 
 
 " Dear Duchess, I couldn't ! I really couldn't."
 
 22 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " And your grandfather and I were punished with the 
 same birch when we were children and would probably have 
 married when I was eighteen and he twenty, if I had not 
 been so poor. Though, to be sure," she added, with the 
 quaint frankness of which the incidents of a long and varied 
 life had never robbed her, " I don't think he ever was a bit 
 in love with me. He just thought he was, you know, as 
 boys so often do. You ought to have had the generosity to 
 have let me know where you were, at least, even if you 
 wouldn't let me help you. However, it was perfectly in 
 character, your disappearing like that. How's Caliban ? " 
 
 " Dead. He only lived a year aftei we came to London, 
 poor Cally!" 
 
 " And what do you do? Do you slumt 
 
 Pam laughed. " Oh, dear, no. I just live along from 
 day to day. Oh, if you will swear not to tell I'll tell you 
 a secret." 
 
 "I swear!" 
 
 " Well, I write. I have written twenty-two novels in 
 the last six years!" 
 
 " Twenty-two " 
 
 "Novels. Yes." 
 
 " Then perhaps you wouldn't mind giving me some money ? 
 My luck at Bridge is infamous. But seriously, child, what 
 do you mean ? " 
 
 Pam laughed. " I mean just that. I really have written 
 twenty-two novels, and they come out in a sky-blue periodical 
 called but that I shan't tell. And they are eagerly read 
 by a large circle of admirers! I get letters about them.
 
 PAM DECIDES 23 
 
 And now," she continuedj peremptorily, " tell me about 
 yourself." 
 
 " Oh, there's little to tell about me. I am very well, 
 all but my eyes, which trouble me a good deal. I am grow- 
 ing old, my dear." 
 
 " And Lady Henrietta," Pam went on, with an effort, 
 "and Mr. Peele?" 
 
 The old lady sighed. " Poor Henny, she has lost her 
 looks. I always told her she would, it was chiefly colour, 
 you know. And Manny, her boy, is very delicate, a wee 
 weak thing. She is in a constant state of anxiety about him. 
 As to James, oh, well, James is James, and no more need 
 be said ; you know what that means. I never wanted her to 
 marry him, you may remember, and I never thought that he 
 really cared for her, but she would have him, and I must say 
 she never complains." 
 
 " But, surely he is not bad to her? " 
 
 The Duchess laughed. " Oh, dear, no ! He is on the 
 contrary much blander and easier to get on with than he 
 used to be. He is most agreeable, even. Only, well, you 
 know Henny comes of a race of political fighters, and she 
 was more disappointed than anyone but me even suspected 
 when he gave up all his ambitions and settled comfortably 
 down as a rich woman's husband." 
 
 Pam flushed, a little angrily. " He never would have 
 done that if his health had not given way," she protested. 
 " I read about it in the papers at the time, and I was dread- 
 fully sorry for him. It must have nearly killed him ! He 
 was the most ambitious man I ever knew, and I am sure "
 
 24 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " My dear child, this is a new role for you! You nevet 
 liked him, as I perfectly well remember." 
 
 "That needn't prevent my trying to be just, need it? 
 You see, I knew him that time in Derbyshire, when he 
 was ill the first time, and he used nearly to despair " 
 
 The old lady nodded. 
 
 " Well, well, of course you are right, and it was hard on 
 him, but his health has been quite excellent for the past five 
 years, but he has made no effort to make UD for lost 
 time." 
 
 " I am sorry," murmured Pam, absently, " a lost ambi- 
 tion seems a pitiful kind of thing, he should have been 
 fighting," she half closed her eyes and seemed to be men- 
 tally watching the foregone battles in question, her face 
 Intent and eager. " However, a weak heart is a terrible 
 handicap. Now tell me about Lady Yeoland. Why is she 
 lying about me? " 
 
 The Duchess laughed. " Because she's ashamed of having 
 treated you as she did." 
 
 " Well, but that was nine years ago! " 
 
 " I know. It was at Evelyn Chesney's, I dined there 
 the other night, and the Pocklingtons were there. We were 
 talking about old times, and he suddenly asked, quite audibly, 
 what had become of you. I didn't answer, just to have the 
 pleasure of seeing Julia wriggle, and she wriggled." 
 
 " I saw Evelyn about a year ago, and I have always 
 sent her a Christmas card, to say that all was well with 
 me, " 
 
 " Evelyn was talking to her latest admirer and didn't
 
 PAM DECIDES 25 
 
 hear, and then Sir Henry turned to Julia and asked her 
 outright where you were." 
 
 "Poor Julia!" 
 
 "Yes. She didn't exactly cover herself with glory, I 
 must say. She stammered out that she really knew nothing 
 about you, that you had behaved very queerly at the time 
 of Oswald's death, etc. Then he said he had been so fond 
 of you, and that as Oswald had loved you more than anyone 
 and had fully intended making some provision for you, of 
 course Fred Yeoland had done so. At that I explained with 
 a sweet smile that nothing had been done for you, and that 
 you had refused to let even me help you." 
 
 " Oh, you dear," murmured the girl. 
 
 "And at that the creature lost her head and came out 
 with the stupid lie that she could not look you up as she 
 would have wished to, because she had heard that you were 
 singing or dancing at the Halls! The Fat Boy, who was 
 there, denied this loudly, and of course I did too, but hav- 
 ing hatched her story she'll take good care to keep it going, 
 you may be sure." 
 
 " She always was a cat ; not that I knew her, but my 
 G.F. never could bear her. She refused to know me, you 
 know, but didn't Evelyn speak up ? " 
 
 The Duchess hesitated. 
 
 "Yes, but not forcefully. She didn't say that she had 
 heard from you." 
 
 "Then she lied just as much as Lady Yeoland. And I 
 must say I prefer a nice courageous, outspoken lie to an 
 unsaid one. However, Evelyn of course likes being on
 
 26 PAM DECIDES 
 
 good terms with the Yeolands, and she always was a coward. 
 Ratty was always odious, but he had more pluck than she." 
 
 As she finished speaking the clock on the stairs chimed 
 the hour. It was one o'clock. Pam started up. "Oh, 
 I had no idea it was so late. I must be off, or Pilgrim will 
 be frightened." 
 
 " But you will stay to lunch, surely! I have two such 
 nice people coming, Marietta Wynn, the one who whistles 
 so beautifully, and Evelyn's admirer, one of the Russian 
 secretaries, quite the most delightful man in town." 
 
 " I can't stay, dear Duchess." 
 
 "But you are not going to disappear again? Pam, I 
 am old, and lonely, and I always loved you." 
 
 There was regret, and something like pity in the girl's 
 face as she bent and kissed the youthfully blooming, delicately 
 scented cheek of the old woman, but there was no hesitation. 
 
 " I must disappear," she said, " I must go back to my 
 cave. You see cave-dwellers can't stand the broad light of 
 the surface-world. It dazzles their eyes and shows the 
 patches on their clothes." 
 
 "Pam!" 
 
 " Yes. And I am poor, you know, quite ridiculously poor 
 and I can't live with rich people. You must let me go." 
 
 " But, will you come to me for a visit, then, say only 
 for a week? Then I'll promise to let you go, I will put 
 up Pilly, and you can do just as you like, " 
 
 The too-red lips of the kind old woman were trembling, 
 and Pam took her hands gently in her own. 
 
 " Dear Duchess, listen what R.K. says:
 
 "GOOD-BYE, G. F.* "
 
 PAM DECIDES 27 
 
 " Cave-Right is the right of the father, 
 to hunt by himself for his own: 
 He is free of -all calls to the pack, 
 He is judged by the Council alone." 
 
 " But you are not a father ! " 
 
 "Yes, I am; I am the father of my own independent 
 thoughts, and of my own independent life, I am poor, and 
 shabby, and of no account, but I am freed by circum- 
 stances, freed of all calls to the pack, don't you see? So 
 you must let me go. It isn't that I don't love you dearly 
 for wanting me, or that I don't love to be with you, only 
 I must go back to my cave in the jungle." The Duchess 
 understood. 
 
 " Very well, my dear. As you like. But come to see 
 me sometimes for his sake, and I will not torment you to 
 stay. I never understood why you deserted us all, but I 
 suppose you had reasons, and I see what you mean about 
 your cave-right." 
 
 Pam kissed her affectionately. " Thank you. Good-bye." 
 Then she turned and looking at the portrait, added gravely, 
 " Good-bye, G.F." 
 
 And the Duchess, studying the living face and the 
 pictured one, marvelled again at the likeness between them; 
 the whimsical set to the corners of the mouths, and the 
 contrasting, but by no means contradictory, almost tragic 
 expression in the deep-set eyes, the one pair so blue, the 
 other so dark. 
 
 " How like him you are," she commented, thoughtfully, 
 " and yet he was a much gayer nature than you."
 
 28 PAM DECIDES 
 
 "Yes, he was gay, but I too am gay in the jungle. 
 Your civilised magnificence oppresses my savage spirit, 
 well, good-bye again. And I promise that if ever I need 
 help of any kind I will come to you, and I will come again 
 some day." 
 
 A moment later she left the house and came out into 
 a thick fog that had crept unseen by her over its patient 
 victim, the city. 
 
 As she started across the square a caprice of the aerial 
 monster brought her suddenly face to face with a man 
 who apparently had sprung at her out of the earth. They 
 both laughed, and then he raised his hat, showing her beauti- 
 fully smooth yellow hair, and said with a curious distinct- 
 ness of enunciation, " I beg your pardon." Then the fog 
 closed down again, and she was alone, the picture of his 
 face remaining with her as clear and distinct as his own 
 utterance. 
 
 He looked, with his delicate features, beautiful, firm-cut 
 mouth and prominent chin, like someone, or some picture 
 she had recently seen. Who, or whose picture was it? 
 
 Then, as she climbed to the top of her 'bus, she remem- 
 bered. Lamartine. Lamartine with a glass in his eye, a 
 most beautiful and glossy hat, a baroque pearl in his black 
 satin tie.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 ONE day, some four weeks after her visit to the DuchesSj 
 Pam walked along a broad street near Buckingham Palace, 
 and pausing at the windows of an attractive-looking shop> 
 stood studying the multifarious and strikingly heterogeneous 
 array of articles spread before her on the velvet-carpeted 
 inclined plane behind the beautifully clean plate-glass. 
 
 There were bits of old silver, delightful shagreen boxes, 
 several pairs of diamond earrings, an inlaid ebony and 
 ivory chest with silver handles, a pair of field-glasses, a 
 miniature of Lady Hamilton, poor woman, bequeathed by 
 her and its hero to the nation, only to die in a foreign garret, 
 a magnificent gold-embroidered chasuble, a gold-mounted 
 dressing-bag, a French doll attired with doubtful taste in 
 pink silk and yellow lace, and a pair of old paste shoebuckles. 
 
 A very wonderful shop-window, and a very wonderful 
 shop. After a leisurely survey of the treasures in the 
 window, Pam went in and stood looking round her with 
 the air of one perfectly at home in a familiar though queer 
 place, until one of the two men behind the crowded counters 
 should be free to wait upon her. 
 
 A smartly dressed woman with a dotted veil drawn taut 
 over her vivid complexion had taken from a travelling-bag 
 some silver salt-cellars and a big candelabra of the same 
 metal. 
 
 " What will you give me for these ? " she was saying, 
 
 29
 
 30 PAM DECIDES 
 
 with an airy grace evidently aimed at the presumably sus- 
 ceptible heart of the youth who was waiting on her. " All 
 family things, my husband's family, and I shouldn't 
 think of giving them up, only my flat is so small that every 
 inch of room is precious." Catching sight of Pam she re- 
 peated more loudly, " Y yaus, my flat is so absurdly 
 small, and we are going to the Riviera for the winter, this 
 weather is so abominable ! " 
 
 The fashionably dressed young man listened unmoved. 
 Little he recked whether the flat was large or small, or 
 simply, as he strongly suspected, non-existent. Impassive as 
 the little Indian idol at his elbow, he made his tests, weighed 
 the silver, made certain entries in a certain large book, and 
 paid a certain sum to the Riviera-bound lady, who cast it 
 carelessly into her purple velvet chatelaine-bag and sauntered 
 absent-mindedly out into the crisp December afternoon. 
 
 Then the youth, whose superior was still busy displaying 
 a set of ivory chessmen to an old man who himself looked, 
 Pam thought, strikingly like one of the yellow-visaged kings, 
 turned to the girl. 
 
 " Good-morning, Miss." 
 
 Pam nodded amiably. " Good-morning. Is Mr. Corn- 
 wall in? I want to pawn a ring." 
 
 Mr. Cornwall, when dragged from his lair behind the 
 shop, proved to be an elegantly-attired, middle-aged man 
 whose hair was sweet and glossy with precious ointments, 
 and whose nails though not quite clean, showed unmistake- 
 able signs of having been submitted no later than yesterday 
 to the manicure's gentle arts. And his nose turned up as
 
 PAM DECIDES 31 
 
 if declaring almost blatantly the Christianity of his origin. 
 Pam had known this gentleman for several years, and from 
 the first moment of their acquaintance had been deeply sure 
 that not for the most beautifully Greek feature in the world 
 would he have exchanged his so obviously unhebraic nose. 
 
 " Good-morning, ah, Miss Yeoland ! I I was sorry 
 you could not redeem the emerald," he began, as he recog- 
 nised her, " an American lady bought it; it was a pity." 
 
 "Yes, I was sorry, but I could not help it. I have a 
 ruby for you this morning, Mr. Cornwall." 
 
 Stripping off her glove she gave him the ring. Then she 
 listened, as did the two now unoccupied young men, for the 
 sound of approval. 
 
 It came, this sound of approval, but not from Mr. Corn- 
 wall's mouth, as might have been expected by any uninitiated 
 onlooker. It came from his nose, for when this Christian 
 was pleased with an object, he snored at it. 
 
 And now Mr. Cornwall snored loudly at the ring once 
 given to a great actress by a man who loved her, and the 
 snore was the nearest approach to a purr that Pam had ever 
 heard from a human being. 
 
 " This is a very fine ruby," began the Christian Grimalkin 
 with a certain air of discriminating benevolence peculiar to 
 him, " a very fine ruby, indeed." 
 
 "Yes," returned Pam, "I want sixty pounds on it." If 
 it had been her first visit to the place, she would have said 
 " for it." 
 
 Grimalkin purred again. Then he mewed out that sixty 
 pounds was a very large, a very large sum of money.
 
 32 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " And I want large sums," returned the girl, coolly. As 
 she spoke the door opened, and someone came in, but she 
 went on without looking round, " Come, Mr. Cornwall, 
 you know it's worth the money. At fifteen per cent, for 
 two years. I I shall try very hard to redeem this one, 
 
 but if I am not able to " She shrugged her thin shoulders 
 
 with the inborn philosophy that had stood her so often in 
 such good stead. 
 
 Then while Cornwall, snoring and mewing alternately, 
 as the beauty of the ruby or the enormous value of the 60 
 dominated his mind by turn, produced his large book and 
 filled in the certificate, Pam studied the countless little 
 knickknacks in the glass case before her. 
 
 Times had been very hard of late, for the doctor's bill 
 had had to be paid, and the chemist's, and shoes and a dress 
 for Pilgrim, as well as odds and ends of tempting food to 
 help on the poor woman's delicate appetite. Christmas 
 usually brought a cheque from Japan, but this year Sachev- 
 erel had sent his dear daughter, instead, a beautiful pale-blue 
 kimono embroidered all over with redlegged storks and 
 lotus-flowers. Over this magnificent but bitterly disappoint- 
 ing gift the girl had all but wept, and to rectify matters had 
 been forced to part with the one ring she had hoped always 
 to keep. 
 
 At length Grimalkin opened a drawer and counted out 
 sixty beautiful golden sovereigns, and Pam dropped the 
 warm money into her cold and hungry little purse. " Now 
 
 will you just sign here? " While the girl filled out the 
 
 blank she listened while the newcomer to the shop talked
 
 PAM DECIDES 33 
 
 to one of the shopmen about a shagreen case he was 
 examining. 
 
 " Thirty-five shillings? It is a most excellent box, but 
 very small." 
 
 " It's a real antique," responded the youth, and the 
 would-be buyer laughed, a quiet, well-bred, amused laugh. 
 
 " I know that quite well," he answered. 
 
 Then, as Cornwall tore from the book and gave to Pam 
 her half of their contract, the girl turned to look at the man 
 whose voice was so pleasant. It was Lamartine! The man 
 she had met in the fog on leaving the Duchess's that day. 
 
 Lamartine splendid in clothes straight from Savile Row, 
 the most beautiful of top hats, the slimmest and glossiest of 
 boots, the newest and most exquisitely cut of gloves. 
 
 His faintly-marked eyebrow pounced down on his glass 
 as he recognised her, and he stared hard, but quite inoffen- 
 sively as he made way for her to pass, and held the door 
 open until she had disappeared round the corner, wondering 
 how it was that such flagrant dandyism was not disagreeable ; 
 how it was that his small, delicate face so utterly dominated 
 the rest of him that even now, with the impression of his 
 perfection of attire so fresh in her mind, she could not 
 remember the colour of his trousers or the kind of flower he 
 wore in his coat. 
 
 It was his face that she remembered; the large, light- 
 ^reen eyes, so beautifully cut, so luminous, so almost brow- 
 less and lashless; the serenity of his broad brow, the bland 
 beauty of his beardless mouth. 
 
 It was a face to be remembered, and she remembered it
 
 34 PAM DECIDES 
 
 with the most amazing distinctness, but in the meantime 
 60 sang in her pocket; sang of new stays for Pilly; of a 
 dozen oranges for the same dear person; of new gloves and 
 new stockings for herself; of a hat with a feather for Mil- 
 dred the slavey; besides the deep-noted hymn-of-thanksgiving 
 for solid pounds in Filly's double-locked keeping. 
 
 So Lamartine faded away into that limbo of memory 
 where haphazard impressions store themselves until they 
 are wanted in the foreground. 
 
 When she reached home she found a letter from Japan, 
 and sitting by the fire, after the transfer of fifty of the sixty 
 pounds to the old woman, she opened it. 
 
 " My dear Parri," she read, in the neat, artistic hand she 
 had as a child tried, and for inner reasons, failed, in trying 
 to copy, "I hope the kimono reached you all right? I 
 thought it would please you instead of the eternal ten 
 pounds, and as I chose it myself, I hope it suits you? I 
 was sorry to hear that you still persist in living apart from 
 all your old friends, but of course you know best, and of 
 course, comparatively poor as you are, it would be hard 
 for you to live with rich people. 
 
 " Your grandfather, when he wrote your mother of his 
 intention to provide for you, mentioned the above reason 
 as his for putting you down in his will. I have always 
 thought the sum must have been an unnecessarily small one, 
 as you have never mentioned it in your letters, but I am 
 grateful to him for leaving you anything, for more than 
 one reason, for it would, as you know, have come hard on
 
 PAM DECIDES 35 
 
 me to have to give you an allowance, after my incredibly 
 asinine performances that autumn on the Bourse, just before 
 we sailed. 
 
 " So let us be thankful, cara figliuola mia, that you have 
 enough to live comfortably, and no doubt you enjoy life 
 quite as much, and have made quite as pleasant friends as 
 if you had clung to the Duchess and the Fred Yeolands. 
 
 "News I have none. Your mother is amazing. When 
 I look at her I cannot believe my own absolute knowledge 
 that she is nearly fifty years old. I am having her portrait 
 done by a little Italian out here for his health, and it will 
 not surprise you to hear that he has fallen madly in love 
 with her. It amuses us both, but she is so exquisite that I 
 quite understand and pity the poor wretch. 
 
 "By the way, Burke has been with us! Poor old chap, 
 I pitied him, too, he is lonely and half-ill, and bored by 
 everything. He was here a month, and I was very glad 
 to see him again. He told us about his first meeting with 
 you, at Aix. What an imp you were, little daughter ! 
 
 " He enquired about you, of course, but he did not ask 
 for your address, though he was going to London, via New 
 York, on business. He told me of his promise not to 
 ' bother ' you. Sometimes I wish you had married him, 
 Pam. In spite of what you say, I fear you must often be 
 lonely, and he would have been very good to you. However, 
 no doubt you know best, as I always gave you credit for 
 doing. 
 
 " And here you are twenty-eight years old and still un- 
 married! I should have thought my daughter and hers
 
 36 PAM DECIDES 
 
 would have had humanity enough to love some mart by this 
 time. Have you not? Perhaps you used to be a deer, ages 
 ago, and once Diana chased and caught you, and then with 
 a long look into your big eyes set you free but kept your 
 spirit captive forever? 
 
 " It is late at night, my dear, so forgive your old father 
 his little rhapsody. Your mother sends you her fondest 
 love, and so do I. Some day you must come out and visit 
 us. Japan is the only country left to the lover of the' 
 beautiful. I hope poor old Pilly is quite well ? Many kind 
 messages from us both, and to you my love. 
 " Your affectionate father, 
 
 "Guv SACHEVEREL." 
 
 For a long time the girl sat musing over this extremely 
 characteristic communication. Its key-note " you know 
 best " had always been that of her father's attitude towards 
 her. At ten years old he had assumed that she knew best, 
 and had allowed her to go her own way. And in his turn, 
 he and her beautiful mother had gone their way under their 
 perennial honeymoon so entranced by its golden light that 
 they almost forgot the child in the shadow. 
 
 And the child had grown to girlhood and to woman- 
 hood, always " kmnving best," making up her innocent mind 
 ?n all sorts of less innocent matters, following her instinct, 
 drawing on her small stock of experience for guidance, run- 
 ning into horrible danger, suffering, blundering, and then 
 escaping the danger at the cost of infinite disillusionment 
 and pain, only by reason of a certain purity of heart that
 
 PAM DECIDES 37 
 
 by some merciful dispensation had survived the appalling 
 perils it had run. 
 
 And at this crucial time the Honey-mooners had lightly 
 sailed away in a friend's yacht to see Japan, and when old 
 Lord Yeoland was found to have neglected adding to his 
 will the codicil that would have provided for Pam, the 
 girl had never told her parents, and liking Japan they had 
 stayed on in that delectable country, their harmony undis- 
 turbed by one conscience-prick about the girl who knew 
 best. 
 
 And being now much older, in ways that count, than 
 her light-hearted children of parents, the girl sat by the 
 fire and smiled a tenderly indulgent little smile over her 
 father's letter. 
 
 For she was of strong fibre, and it had resisted the tests 
 to which it had been put, and they had not hurt her. And 
 when, after her hour of disaster, her world had stopped 
 whirling over abysmal horrors, a gift given to her at her 
 birth by a benevolent old fairy with a crooked smile, had 
 again resumed its temporarily deadened powers, and gone 
 on developing until she was, so to say, doubly armed. 
 
 For a sense of humour is to a lonely citizen of the world 
 what is to a shipwrecked sailor on a desert island the knife 
 with which he hews the logs to make his hut, and cuts the 
 fruit by which he lives. And, therefore, Pam sat that 
 afternoon smiling over the affectionate selfishness of her 
 father's letter. 
 
 And her thin face was very pleasant when she smiled the 
 smile of the girl who knew best.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 DECEMBER wore away; a mild saffron month moist 
 with thick misty rain and thin-coated, slippery mud. 
 
 As it advanced and Christmas crowds thronged the streets, 
 it was marked by increased difficulties in getting both in and 
 out of the bun-and-milk establishments, greater danger in 
 crossing the streets, and augmented peril of death by crush- 
 ing, in the crowded but genial 'bus. 
 
 Pam went to a play or two, sitting contentedly in the 
 second gallery and chatting as a friendly matter of course 
 with her neighbours, to the frosty indignation of Pilgrim 
 whose cup nearly overflowed when on one of these occasions 
 of mirth and jollity Pam was offered, and accepted, a pink 
 peppermint lozenge by a young man in checked clothes and 
 a beautifully oiled fringe. 
 
 Pam and Pilgrim ate their Christmas dinner, as they had 
 eaten so many, quite alone, and the pudding weighed several 
 pounds and gave the old woman a violent indigestion which 
 necessitated a sporadic outbreak of visits from Dr. Anglin, 
 and added to the excitement if not to the comfort of the 
 holiday atmosphere. 
 
 January came in colder than December, but speedily 
 weakened into a muggy imitation of its predecessor, and 
 while people who are always warm grumbled over the 
 unseasonable mildness of the new month, Pam, if always 
 fairly warm herself, lived too near to those who can be 
 
 38
 
 PAM DECIDES 39 
 
 so only when the air warms them, was glad of the mildness 
 and watched the thermometer anxiously, fearing the delicious 
 invigorating cold that she loved. 
 
 One morning when there was for a wonder no rain, and 
 a certain luminousness in the yellow air offered a faint hope 
 of sunshine, the girl decided to go to the National Gallery 
 and spend an hour among Turner's water-colours. 
 
 It is significant, perhaps, of the appreciation of an artistic 
 nation of its greatest colourist, that never, in the many morn- 
 ings Pam had passed in these quiet rooms, had she met 
 anyone she knew, or been disturbed by the chatter of a 
 crowd. 
 
 The wonderful little pictures live in a dignified retire- 
 ment, and sing their silent music chiefly to the ears of shabby 
 little artists and dreamy middle-aged people who walk quietly 
 so as not to disturb the harmonies. 
 
 For Turner painted for those people who have not lost 
 all belief in fairyland, and who sometimes, trembling and 
 thrilling, can even yet get half-way back to it over the azure 
 bridge before the clouds close down again and hide it. 
 
 There was a fire in the second room, that morning, and 
 nodding to the custodian, Pam unbuttoned her jacket and 
 sat down opposite the little picture of a breaking wave. The 
 room was quiet and but for her empty. Moments passed 
 before the girl moved. 
 
 And this is the great wonder and power of the barber's 
 son, who spent his Saturdays and Sundays in horrible rioting 
 out Ratcliff way. He not only feeds one's eyes with nectar 
 and ambrosia, but he touches one's imagination with his
 
 4 o PAM DECIDES 
 
 finger, and away that capricious and delicate bit of mental 
 machinery goes, weaving pictures of its own; pictures of 
 things forgotten, and things never seen ; writing poetry with- 
 out words that send down the spine of its possessor the most 
 amazing and exquisite thrills; it puts an end to time and 
 leads one back through centuries that never began and never 
 ended; and then one finds oneself on the azure bridge in 
 mid-air, facing a whirl of golden and rosy clouds that show 
 glimpses of the faery-land forlorn that, alas! must always 
 disappear before one reaches it. 
 
 And Pam was standing on this bridge, breathless and 
 poised like a butterfly, when the custodian came in, keeping 
 an eye on a suspicious-looking individual in a greasy hat and 
 a long cape adapted to the felonious carrying away of small 
 masterpieces. 
 
 " Going in to 'ear the sunsets, Miss? " the custodian asked 
 with the comfortable smile of one repeating an ancient and 
 sympathetic joke. 
 
 She laughed. " Yes. What a good memory you have ! " 
 
 " Well, I don't know, Miss, but I've never forgot your 
 
 saying that, though it must 'ave been nearly ten years ago, 
 
 i 
 
 I should think." 
 
 "Eight. Oh, look, the sun!" 
 
 The suspicious-looking cloak having been removed, the 
 custodian returned to the first room, to pull the curtains, 
 and Pam went on. 
 
 The wall here is a blaze of colour; sunsets golden and 
 sunsets brazen; Venice all aglow; shining stretches of the 
 Rhone, black-bridged against an apricot sky.
 
 PAM DECIDES 41 
 
 For a blissful hour Pam lived in this enchanted land, 
 quite alone but for the unobjectionable presence of the man 
 with the greasy hat, and then at last while she was, under 
 the guidance of sketch No. 668, in Lucerne, in a black, wet 
 night, gazing out over the water, chilled, and lonely and 
 miserable and rapturous, came the blow. Two ladies and r 
 man came in. 
 
 " Oh, these are rather ducky, aren't they ? " cried a pretty 
 soprano voice, and the man laughed. 
 
 Pam started and turned, and as the man saw her a 
 crimson flush spread over his fat face and he rushed at her. 
 " I say, Pam, this is luck, " 
 
 Resignedly, but with flight in her eye, she gave him her 
 hand. " How do you do, Ratty." 
 
 " I say, Pam, you didn't answer my letter, you look 
 seedy " 
 
 " Shabby, you mean ; I'm perfectly well. Don't let me 
 keep you, Ratty." But he set his jaw in a way she re- 
 membered, and though his chin was soft and dimpled the 
 bony structure underneath looked obstinate. 
 
 " Rot, do you think I'm going to let you get away 
 now? Well, I'm not." 
 
 Appalled, she dashed at the door, but before she could 
 reach it he had made a hurried excuse to his friends, and 
 caught her up. 
 
 " I didn't come with *em," he explained as he hurried 
 along, " I met 'em as they were coming in, and they bagged 
 me Americans doing the sights. I say, Pam, do be decent 
 to a chap, can't you? And tell me things."
 
 42 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " I'll tell you one thing. It's abominable of you to follow 
 me when I don't want you." 
 
 " But I do so want to to hear about you," he returned 
 piteously. 
 
 " Well," she paused on the steps and gazed resignedly 
 at the nearest lion as if regretting its stony inability to come 
 to the rescue by bolting her oppressor, " hurry up, then. 
 What do you want to know? I am very well, Father and 
 Mother are very well, Pilgrim is very well." 
 
 Maxse stuck out his chin again. "As if I cared about 
 your father and mother. Tell me where you live and I'll 
 let you go." 
 
 She opened her umbrella, for the sun had gone, and a 
 fine rain was falling. " Shall I give you a false address? I 
 am much tempted, you know, just to get rid of you." 
 
 " Not you. I know you better than that. Where do 
 you live ? " 
 
 " In a house." 
 
 " You will let me look you up, won't you ? I'll only come 
 when you let me, honour bright. When may I come?" 
 
 Suddenly a spirit of hilarity bobbed up in the girl and 
 she burst out laughing. " Never, Ratty dear, never. I live 
 in a tenement house in the Mile End Road with some 
 Italians. You'll usually see me sitting on a hurdy-gurdy 
 in a red jacket, but this is my day off " 
 
 " Rot ! I tell you I will see you," insisted the young man, 
 his heavy face red with a mixture of anger and admiration. 
 
 " And I tell you you shall not. Listen, Ratty, let me go, 
 And don't bother. I am poor, but perfectly respectable, as
 
 PAM DECIDES 43 
 
 you can see by my clothes, and if I wish to remain in ob- 
 scurity, surely that's my own affair. I wouldn't tell the 
 Duchess where we live, and I will not tell you. So let's 
 part friends, shall we ? " 
 
 Ignoring her hand, he put up his umbrella. 
 
 " I've been looking for you for years, and now I've found 
 you I mean to keep you. Give me your address and I'll 
 let you go. Refuse, and I'll follow you." 
 
 " I will not give you my address," she retorted, now 
 thoroughly angry, " and you are perfectly atrocious, as you 
 always were, to torment me. You might at least try to re- 
 member that you are a gentleman." 
 
 But the days were not far behind him when Ratty had 
 teased for a disinterested love of teasing, and he now fol- 
 lowed her down the steps with a malicious grin under his 
 big moustache. 
 
 " I've nothing on earth to do, to-day," as she turned to 
 the right and hurried on through the rain, "so I can devote 
 myself entirely to you. You must go home when night 
 comes, I suppose ! " 
 
 She did not answer, but hurried on at such a pace that 
 she was at length obliged to pause to take breath. Then 
 she turned. 
 
 " I ought to be vastly flattered by this devotion," she 
 began, her lips curling wickedly, " but you are such a 
 cumbersome admirer, Ratty. Your methods are so clumsy ! 
 Are you really going to pursue me all day ? " 
 
 " Yes," he answered, his face changing to sullenness, 
 11 1 am."
 
 44 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " Then, remembering your pleasant wooing ways of old, 
 I am forced to the conclusion that you are once more going 
 to honour me with an offer of your heart and hand. As 
 usual, I refuse." 
 
 "Better wait till you're asked, hadn't you?" he growled, 
 turning up the collar of his light topcoat, as a raindrop 
 trickled gladly down his heated spine. " I'm not going to 
 ask you to marry me, I got over that nonsense long ago. 
 But you're my cousin " 
 
 " I am now," she interrupted, closing her umbrella, and 
 pointing to the shop before which they stood, " going into 
 this place for a glass of milk and a bun; my humble mid- 
 day meal." 
 
 " Then I go too." 
 
 " Good. Prepare to be torn to bits, and to smile at the 
 tearers." 
 
 They fought their way into the crowded, over-heated 
 room, and after a prolonged struggle Pam succeeded in 
 possessing herself of the desired refreshments and consumed 
 them standing, her wet umbrella under her arm. 
 
 "You are my cousin," pursued Maxse, angrily, as some- 
 one stamped on his foot, " and I have a right " 
 
 " I am not your cousin at all, in the Eyes of the Law, 
 which, meaning as it does that I have no cousinly rights 
 over you, also means that you have none over me." 
 
 Wiping from her sleeve a sudden libation of coffee poured 
 on it by a red-faced priestess in a white apron, she was 
 about to go on speaking when he interrupted her. 
 
 " You used to be so keen on my grandfather, can't you
 
 PAM DECIDES 45 
 
 realise that he would want me to to protect you from er 
 this?" 
 
 Pam set down her glass and, the heavier for about a 
 pound of what she vulgarly called " fly-bun," paid for her 
 dainty meal, and began insinuating her way towards the 
 door. After all, Ratty was amusing in his very absurdity ! 
 
 " Now, Ratty," she said, as they emerged triumphantly 
 into the rain, " good-bye. I know you mean to be kind, and 
 I really am h'ml grateful to you. Only, you know, I am 
 a savage and you must not try to track savages in the bush." 
 
 " Tell me your address, I say, Pam, for the sake of the 
 old days in the country, you know, when we were kids " 
 
 His dogged obstinacy was too much for her scant patience. 
 
 " I'll not tell you, you horrid little " 
 
 41 Then 111 follow you." 
 
 " If you do," she cried, white with helpless anger, " I'll 
 lead you such a dance that you'll wish you had never been 
 born!" 
 
 " Lead away, you little devil," he growled. And she led.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 AS she sped along, untiring, graceful, fleet as a deer, the 
 heavy, hard-breathing Ratty close on her heels, it must be 
 said that Pam, angry though she undoubtedly was, enjoyed 
 herself. 
 
 Years ago when he and she were children together at 
 Monks' Yeoland, their roles had been much the same. The 
 boy in him despising the mere girl in her, while her quick 
 mind compelled from him a certain grudging, captivated 
 admiration, he had always been the pursuer, she the pur- 
 sued. Bigger, older, stronger than she, he had, as a lamen- 
 tably fat boy, been infinitely her inferior when it came, as it 
 often did, to questions of speed and endurance, but her 
 quick temper, flaring up as some final straw of idiocy or 
 spite on his part broke the back of her patience, had fre- 
 quently, contrary to the expectations of them both, given 
 the victory to him. 
 
 There was, too, a stodgy obstinacy about Ratty, and a 
 certain cunning that had more than once outmatched the 
 girl's weapons, so that now, as she rushed up the Mall, re- 
 volving in her mind all sorts of plans of escape, she ex- 
 perienced again the old thrill of excitement she had so often 
 felt in her childhood. 
 
 At Hyde Park Corner she would dart away among the 
 crowd of carriages and 'buses and with a little luck ought 
 to be able to outwit him. 
 
 46
 
 PAM DECIDES 47 
 
 The distance between them was slowly increasing, too, 
 she saw with a quick backward glance, and he was wiping 
 his face with his handkerchief! 
 
 " He's pretty well blown," she told herself with satis- 
 faction, as she put on a little more speed. 
 
 But at Hyde Park Corner she was obliged to stop to tie 
 her shoe, and as she stooped he came up. 
 
 " Upon my word, Pam, you are the most utter Cotter 
 I ever knew in my life," h^ began, still mopping his 
 face. " I suppose you think you're being funny, but you're 
 not." 
 
 " Indeed I don't think I'm being funny. I never was in 
 greater earnest in my life, Ratty. My word, but you must 
 be out of condition," she added, getting up, and inspecting 
 his heated face with cruel minuteness, " you look like a 
 boiled lobster. Aren't you afraid of apoplexy?" 
 
 " No, I'm not, as it happens. You look like the Witch 
 of Endor, yourself," he returned, "and your hair's coming 
 down. Come, drop this nonsense, and behave like a human 
 being. I take it for granted that Julia Yeoland's story about 
 the Variety stage is not true ! " 
 
 " Yes it is, oh, anything is true, Ratty, that would dis- 
 gust you! Can't you see that you bore me to tears, and 
 can't you let me alone ? " 
 
 " No, I won't. You are my well, most girls would be 
 glad enough to be called cousin, under the circumstances, 
 and as I happen to want to know where you live, -really, 
 Pam, I don't see why you're so horrid to me ! " 
 
 Pam, whose eyes were wet with helpless vexation, but
 
 48 PAM DECIDES 
 
 whose sense of justice would not allow her to overlook the 
 pathetic side of this afflicting devotion, held out her hand. 
 
 " Look here, Ratty," she said, suddenly gentle, " I am 
 really very much obliged to you for your for your interest 
 in me, but I do not want to give you my address, and am not 
 going to do it. Can't you be reasonable, and admit that 
 I must have good reasons for living as I do? I've told you 
 that even the Duchess has given up trying to find out. I 
 am quite happy living alone with Pilly, and I don't want 
 ever again to get into touch with the people I used to know 
 when when I lived with Grandfather. I can't go into 
 details, but it's because I am poor, and for other reasons, 
 and all those people are dead to me." 
 
 But Ratty was unmoved by her appeal. " I ain't dead," 
 he observed stolidly, still holding her hand, " and I promise 
 not to tell Evy or the Duchess " 
 
 " No, you're not dead ! You're one of the awful dead who 
 will not die, one of the bores who never stop boring, 
 Very well, then," jerking her hand from his warm clasp, 
 " if you insist on being an imbecile, run me to earth if you 
 can ! " And away she flew towards Apsley House, dodging 
 horses, 'buses, even an indignant policeman, and on re- 
 gaining the safety of the pavement almost ran down 
 Piccadilly. 
 
 Her plan was fairly subtle, though simple. On reaching 
 the Burlington Arcade she slipped lizard-like through its 
 crowd, and then, turning to her right, doubled back through 
 the Royal Arcade to Piccadilly. 
 
 Oh, joy, she had foiled him I His burly figure, as she
 
 PAM DECIDES 49 
 
 looked back, was nowhere to be seen, and as she reached the 
 Piccadilly entrance she stood still for a moment to get 
 breath before her contemplated pounce into a 'bus. And 
 then, her hand arrested in its work of smoothing back a 
 loosened lock of hair, she saw him, lumbering along towards 
 her through the crowd. Despair filled her heart, for in ne 
 moment he must see her, and she was at last tired, and 
 evening was coming on, and for Pilgrim's sake she must 
 go home. One more second and he would have seen her, 
 when turning the other way her eyes fell on the large form 
 of an old lady climbing into her brougham, three feet away. 
 The Duchess! 
 
 The footman mounted to his place, Ratty drew nearer, 
 he saw Pam and put on speed almost in one spring Pam 
 reached the carriage, tore open the door and was borne away 
 sitting helplessly in the Duchess's lap, before her pursuer's 
 very eyes. 
 
 " Pam ! Good Heavens child, how you frightened me ! " 
 
 Pam tumbled to the seat of the carriage and sat shaking 
 with laughter. " Oh, did you see him, did you see his 
 face ? " she cried, wiping her eyes, " and you don't mind my 
 bouncing in on you like that, do you ? " 
 
 The Duchess, very bulky but elegant in a toilette composed 
 chiefly of ermine and lace, did not mind at all, it appeared. 
 On the contrary she was delighted to see the reprobate 
 Pam under any circumstances, and kissed her affectionately, 
 while she asked " But who was it? And what can you ex- 
 pect if you go to the Burlington Arcade at this time of 
 day?"
 
 50 PAM DECIDES 
 
 Pam straightened her hat and corrected obvious im- 
 pressions. 
 
 " Oh dear, you're all wrong. It was Ratty Ratty 
 Maxse. For my sins I met him at the National Gallery 
 this morning and he has literally been chasing me all over 
 town, trying to find out my address." 
 
 "The Fat Boy?" 
 
 " The Fat Boy. Oh, Duchess, he is the most awful person. 
 I should never have had another moment's peace if he had 
 found out where I live, and I've been positively running 
 for hours, he after me hot foot. I haven't laughed so hard 
 for years, to see his silly face as we drove away. And 
 to think of your appearing just at the right moment like 
 an angel in a chariot " 
 
 The Duchess looked at her shrewdly. 
 
 " He used to want to marry you, I remember," she ob- 
 served, " does he still want to? " 
 
 " Yes. He thinks he doesn't, but he does." 
 
 " Well, my dear, such faithfulness is very unusual, and 
 very beautiful. When I think of the trouble Agatha Ben- 
 nington had to keep Wanwick and Toby Bell up to the 
 scratch! The girls look very well at night, and managed 
 the proposals all right, but Wanwick went off yachting 
 the very next day, and Bell behaved frightfully. They very 
 nearly escaped, I can tell you, both of 'em, and here is this 
 boy sticking to you for years." 
 
 " That's just the word ; he does ' stick,' " assented Pam, 
 drily. " Faithfulness when it isn't wanted, becomes a vice. 
 The way that wretched youth has bored me amounts to a
 
 PAM DECIDES 51 
 
 social crime, and if he had tracked me home I'd have packed 
 up and decamped in the night to escape him. Surely you 
 don't want me to marry him ? " she added. 
 
 " Of course I don't, but, well, my dear, you are seven- 
 and-twenty and you have a delicate skin." 
 
 " What has my skin, oh, where are we?" 
 
 The carriage had stopped and the footman opened the 
 door trying to look as though he were used to having ladies 
 get out of his carriage who had not to his knowledge, got in. 
 
 " Green Street, my dear, at Kenny's. James and she 
 have gone to the country for the day, and I promised to come 
 for a look at Marmy, who has had a cold, poor laddie." 
 
 Pam withdrew her arm from the old lady's. " I must 
 be off home now," she said, " or Filly will be frightened. 
 Thanks so much for rescuing me." 
 
 " No, no, I want you to come in with me. I shan't stay 
 more than two minutes and then I'll drive you anywhere 
 you say. I have several things to tell you." 
 
 " I I can't go in." 
 
 The Duchess turned, as the door opened. " My dear 
 Pamela," she said a little sharply, in French, " don't be 
 absurd. I know your ideas, and I will not tell Henrietta 
 that you have been here. So come in and behave yourself." 
 
 Thus Pam went into James Peele's house.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 IT was a house of "fair and gorgeous building," ornate 
 with carton pierre and delicate gilding, rich with brocades 
 and silks, gay with glossy floors and fine rugs. It looked 
 new, though the Peeles had lived in it for eight years. 
 
 While they waited in the drawing-room, the Duchess 
 asked Pam how she liked it. 
 
 " It looks expensive," answered the girl truthfully. 
 
 " So it is. Too new, too, don't you think ? That's Henny, 
 she hates shabby things, so ill-bred of her, I always think, 
 though she is my daughter ! She never had much taste, poor 
 dear, except for dress. And as for Jim, he never says a 
 word, and I think if she chose to furnish the house in 
 barley-sugar he wouldn't care." 
 
 " Is he so good-natured ? " Pam stood ajt the far end 
 of the long room, looking at a portrait lighted by clusters 
 of electric water-lilies. 
 
 " Well, not exactly what I should call good-natured, 
 but it amounts practically to the same thing. I sometimes 
 think she'd like it better if he were not quite so easy-going." 
 
 " H'm! This is a beautiful portrait of her. When was 
 it done ? " 
 
 "The winter before last. Sargent. Aren't the pearls 
 amazing. Oh, yes, it's good, but you remember her when 
 she was younger, though not when she was quite young." 
 
 " When I knew her she was the most beautiful woman 
 
 52
 
 PAM DECIDES 53 
 
 I ever dreamed of," cried Pam, " and everyone said she was 
 the most beautiful woman in England ! " 
 
 Pam had not seen Lady Henrietta Peele for nine years, 
 but the memory of her and her amazing loveliness was so 
 interwoven with her own most poignant joy and pain, that 
 her voice quivered as she spoke. " I am sorry it is going " 
 she added, to cover her own emotion. " The beauty, 
 I mean." 
 
 " Ah, yes. It is sad," returned the old lady. " One of 
 the many advantages of plainness is that the tragic waning 
 of beauty never comes to its possessor." 
 
 " Does she mind ? " asked Pam, in a low voice. 
 
 The Duchess rose and waddled to her with the graceless 
 speed of a seal on land. " My dear, yes, she does. For 
 him. That is the tragedy. She thinks he minds, and he 
 doesn't even notice ! " 
 
 Before Pam had time to answer a fresh-faced woman in 
 the costume of a trained nurse came into the room and in- 
 forming Her Grace that Master Marmaduke had already, 
 because of a slight cold, been put to bed, Pam found herself, 
 a moment later, going upstairs in this house she had never 
 thought to enter. 
 
 Her hand slid up the broad balustrade his so often 
 touched, her feet trod where his trod nearly every day of his 
 life. She passed doors he opened daily, and followed the 
 nurse and the Duchess into the big, airy, up-to-date night 
 nursery. 
 
 Behind a green paper screen on which, in oval white 
 panels rosy-faced children consumed bread-and-milk, prayed,
 
 54 PAM DECIDES 
 
 and slept, stood the bed, and it was James Peele's child, 
 this little, pale, big-eyed creature who politely sat up at 
 their approach, and did the honours with weary dignity. 
 
 " How d'you do, Granny dear." 
 
 " How d'you do, my love? I hope Granny's boy is well," 
 answered the old woman sitting down and taking his hand 
 in hers. 
 
 " I. am not very well, thank you. I have caught another 
 cold, haven't I, Miss Arnott?" 
 
 Pam stood at the foot of the bed looking gravely at the 
 child. 
 
 " Whom does he look like, Pam? " asked the Duchess. 
 
 "Like his father." 
 
 "Who is that lady, Granny dear?" Marmy's deep-set 
 grey eyes were fixed on Pam's face. 
 
 " A friend of Granny's, dear love, who is very fond of 
 little boys ! " 
 
 "Are you an aunt?" pursued Marmaduke, mildly bent 
 on following out his investigations. Pam laughed. " No, 
 not an aunt, nor even a cousin," she said gently. " Will you 
 tell me how old you are?" 
 
 Marmy was six. Yes, he liked dolls, and he liked soldiers. 
 No, he was not going to be a soldier, because walking made 
 him tired. 
 
 He answered her questions most civilly, and asked Miss 
 Arnott to get her a chair, but Pam walked away to the fire 
 and left him alone with his grandmother. 
 
 " He's a dear little boy," she said to the nurse, " I am 
 sorry he has a cold."
 
 PAM DECIDES 55 
 
 " Yes, I am very fond of him. This cold is nothing, but 
 we have to be very careful of him." 
 
 Pam was silent, and stood looking sombrely into the fire, 
 which threw strange flickering shadows over her face and 
 splashed her dark and muddy skirt with crimson. 
 
 Suddenly the Duchess, who had wrapped the child in a 
 blanket, and taken him on her lap, called out with a laugh, 
 " Pam, your hair is tumbling down and you show other 
 signs of your turbulent day. Miss Arnott will take you into 
 Kenny's rooms for repairs." As the door closed behind 
 them Pam heard the old woman's voice raised in a funny 
 uncertain kind of singing. 
 
 " It's ' Old Uncle Ned,' " explained the nurse, turning 
 the lights on and flooding the room with a soft light ; " he's 
 very fond of it, and always makes Her Grace sing it." 
 
 And this was Henrietta Peele's room, this big room hung 
 in pale blue; this dressing-table glass in which her own 
 haggard little face was reflected was the one in which she 
 looked every day; the jewelled hat-pin on the sf>f'" cushion 
 was hers; the comb Pam had taken up combed her hair. 
 
 As if in a dream the girl took off her hat, and taking a 
 big silver brush, smoothed with it the glossy dark hair that 
 grew so neatly on her blue-veined temples. 
 
 " There was an old nigger, and his name was Uncle Ned," 
 came the old voice from the next room. 
 
 The face in the glass was so wan and monkey-like that its 
 owner started and began to talk without a very clear idea 
 of what she was saying. "Is he really so delicate, little 
 Marmaduke? "
 
 56 PAM DECIDES 
 
 The nurse, who had opened a door and lighted the 
 dressing-room, hesitated. " Well, he's not strong. No 
 organic trouble, you know, but great constitutional deli- 
 cacy. Would you like to wash your hands?" And then 
 while Pam washed her hands in Henrietta Peek's basin 
 and dried tkem on Henrietta Peele's lace-trimmed towel, 
 the nurse went on, " I very much doubt the wisdom of 
 keeping him in town these next three months. Of course, 
 it's no business of mine, and I can't say anything, 
 but February and March are dreadful months for del- 
 icate children. The doctor says there will be no danger, 
 but " 
 
 " But you think there will be ? " 
 
 Pam was pinning on her hat, well down over her tell- 
 tale eyes, at the dressing-table. 
 
 " I think he would be safer, in a better climate. Please 
 do not say I said so, because I have no right to express an 
 opinion but if the Duchess could be made to see, she might 
 convince Lady Henrietta." 
 
 " But I thought Lady Henrietta was always so anxious." 
 
 " She is. But, they did think of going to the south of 
 France, but Mr. Peele can't get away, and I fancy Lady 
 Henrietta would dislike going without him, 
 
 " I understand. But I fear I can't do anything in the 
 matter. I very rarely see the Duchess, and I have not seen 
 Lady Henrietta for years. If I were you I should speak 
 quite frankly to either her or Mr. Peele." 
 
 The Duchess had put the little boy into bed, when Pam 
 went back to her, and the concert was over.
 
 I 
 
 PAM DECIDES 57 
 
 " Good-bye, my darling," the old lady said, kissing the 
 child, " Granny dear will come again to-morrow." 
 
 " Good-bye, Granny dear. Good-bye," he added to Pam, 
 giving her his hand, and putting up his face for the kiss 
 he did not want. She shook hands with him, but did not 
 kiss him. 
 
 Twenty minutes later on top of a homeward-bound 'bus, 
 next a lady with an uncorked gin-bottle under her shawl, 
 she sat full of the misery of memory.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 AFTER thus having brought Pam, within a few weeks, in 
 touch with Ratty, the Duchess, and, indirectly, with Peele 
 and his wife, Fate withdrew his finger from the girl's 
 particular pie, and a month passed unmarked by any event 
 whatsoever. 
 
 Haunted for days by memories of Peele's house and his 
 child, tormented by the persistent recurrence of things that 
 for years had lain fallow in her mind, forced by a malicious 
 demon to go over old scenes, recall old words, reconstruct 
 dead-and-gone events, she plunged herself, as was her wont 
 in such circumstances, headlong into an environment as 
 different as possible from that from which she wished to turn 
 her thoughts. 
 
 During the dull days while Pilgrim sat frowsting over the 
 fire, the pirl, with a set face and sternly watchful eyes, 
 tramped about the lowly streets of the neighbourhood and 
 tried to interest herself in the humble affairs of their in- 
 habitants. 
 
 And of course, little by little, she succeeded in her honest 
 endeavour, and won back the contented calm out of which 
 her visit to Green Street had shaken her. 
 
 She had never hoped to be able to forget James Peele and 
 the events connected with him, but time had dimmed and 
 taken the bitterness from those memories, to such an extent 
 that she had not only been distressed but terrified by the 
 
 58
 
 PAM DECIDES 59 
 
 strength with which they had revived, and it had taken all 
 her courage to fight, and conquer the obsession. But when 
 the ghost again lay silent, and she had given herself a last 
 lecture on the subject, she went her way watching life among 
 the poor people with the sympathy and forbearance that 
 lay in her, and that would always prevent custom from hard- 
 ening, or frequent disillusion embittering her. 
 
 She was no slummer. She was shy of asking questions, 
 and shrank from hard words, and there were many things 
 that seemed to her the exclusive right of others than her- 
 self. But in spite, or possibly because of these things, she met 
 with no rudeness in her wanderings, and had several ac- 
 quaintances, almost to be ranked as friends, in the purlieus 
 of Seven Dials, and had long ago learned a good many 
 things that, assimilated unconsciously, without pedagogy, 
 give to an intelligent mind that quickness of understanding 
 and breadth of view the peculiar quality of which is best 
 expressed as " knowing how to put yourself into another's 
 place." 
 
 As nearly as may be for a childless woman Pam knew, 
 one wet January evening, what must be the agony of a 
 mother whose child had just died of starvation, and also 
 how a sorrow-crazed brain can come to the point of con- 
 ceiving revenge against those brutal rich people who could 
 help and do not. 
 
 It was she who helped a neighbour hold the mad-woman 
 until ropes could be brought, and later, when the poor 
 creature's dangerous despair had dwindled to a moaning 
 lethargy, it was Pam who rushed away and came back with
 
 60 PAM DECIDES 
 
 empty pockets, and a white frock for the dead child, and 
 flowers to close into its little fingers. The mother did not 
 thank her, the neighbours rather ignored her, but they 
 suffered her presence as an equal, and she knew that that 
 was much. 
 
 For years she had lived among people who, poor as she 
 was, looked on her as rich, and she had learned, quite un- 
 consciously, to treat each man as a man, each woman as a 
 woman, and not as a more or less respectable suit of clothes 
 or dress, and little by little they learned to treat her in the 
 same way. 
 
 By nature fastidious, she disliked evil smells and un- 
 pleasant sights as much as the finest of fine ladies, but it lay 
 in her to love life, and anything that is real is life, and 
 anything that is real is endurable, so that without any dis- 
 tinct bias towards good works, she had gradually lost certain 
 educated horrors and hatreds, and got in touch with her 
 neighbours. 
 
 And now they had unconsciously helped her in her hour 
 of very real need, by occupying her mind and turning her 
 thoughts outward. Inbreeding is as bad in things mental 
 as in things physical, and this she escaped. 
 
 Late in February arrived a false and deceiving, but for 
 the time very delightful period of Spring weather, and then, 
 forcing the lazy Pilgrim to go with her, the girl made long 
 expeditions on 'buses, " everybody's carriage " as "de 
 Amicis" calls the tram. And while Pilgrim* grimly re- 
 spectable in her beaded mantle and bonnet with a bunch 
 of pansies on it, sat as silent as what she called the
 
 PAM DECIDES 61 
 
 Pam amused herself by talking to any of her neighbours who 
 might look promising. 
 
 They went to Camden Heath, they went to Islington, 
 they went to Hampstead. They drank tea at those delightful 
 suburbs, Pam once even disgraced Pilgrim by eating a bun 
 on the 'bus coming back from Ealing. And for all practical 
 purposes a 'bus is as good as a four-in-hand. 
 
 It was on the way to Kilburn that she made friends with 
 an old man who had been in the charge at Balaclava. And 
 friends they remained until he died, and she went to his 
 funeral at Lower Tooting and was snubbed by his sour- 
 faced daughter-in-law who audibly referred to her as " fa- 
 ther's lady friend." 
 
 Thus, by the end of February, Pam had again settled down 
 into her way's quiet tenor, and was contented and happy. 
 Her absurd novelettes which appeared, as she had told the 
 Duchess, in a pale-blue periodical, brought her ten guineas 
 apiece, and she was enabled, by long practice, to reel them 
 off as fast as she could write. 
 
 Her method was simple. First came the list of names: 
 
 Elfrida Bellingham Heroine. 
 
 Sir Lionel Beaufort Hero. 
 
 Dowager Countess of Wandsworth Bullying villainess, 
 
 Dr. Kane Her tool, in love with Elfrida. 
 
 Countess de Preaux Adventuress, in love with Lionel. 
 
 Retainers, cottagers, guests, etc., ad. lib. 
 
 Wise enough to employ all the old tricks that invariably
 
 62 PAM DECIDES 
 
 delight the public to which The Lady's Own caters, she 
 would thus begin. 
 
 Elfrida, always beautiful and usually blonde, was of 
 either giddily high or pathetically humble origin. 
 
 Sir Lionel, a Greek God in knickers, his broad chest a 
 perfect storehouse of noble sentiments, always fell in love 
 with Elfrida at first sight, and his love, though fiery, was 
 ever divested of the slightest touch of the earthy. Then there 
 was the purse-proud and ambitious dowager and her vile 
 slave, the doctor (learned in poisons and utterly unscrupu- 
 lous), and the adventuress, almost invariably, in conform- 
 once with the good old English superstition that no English- 
 woman ever was anything so base, French or Italian. And 
 the tale worked out to the worsting of the wicked, the 
 glittering triumph of the good characters. Alas, that life is 
 not so simple ! 
 
 Then, while Lionel clasped Elfrida in his manly arms, 
 quick curtain. 
 
 Utter rubbish, these stories, ridiculous in plot, faulty in 
 construction, in a word devoid of all but one of the char- 
 acteristics of the real novelists. The people described, impos- 
 sible and absurd as they were in act, were in their manner 
 and conversation, alive. 
 
 The first story, written to amuse herself, after reading 
 a similar tale in the same paper, lent Pilgrim by the land- 
 lady in Montague Place, and sent to the Editor as a wild 
 experiment, in a sudden hour of need, had, to Pam's great 
 surprise, been accepted, and finding it an easy matter to 
 ring the necessary changes on the primary plot, and a pleas-
 
 PAM DECIDES 63 
 
 ant one to get at first six and then ten guineas for the stories, 
 she had naturally enough continued writing. 
 
 And writing for a particular public she had wisely kept 
 strictly to her model, but her sense of humour was so keen 
 that even as she wrote her preposterous pot-boilers she poked 
 fun at herself and indulged in quips and gentle jeers in a 
 way that in time had grown to be a distinct and very popular 
 mannerism. And not many people can boast of having writ- 
 ten twenty-two novels in six years!
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 ;< GOOD evening, officer." 
 
 " Good evening, Miss." 
 
 " How is your old church to-day? " 
 
 Officer Brown, huge, and bland with the sweet atmospheie 
 of authority that hung over him, smiled at the question and 
 the questioner. 
 
 " My old church is very well, thank you, Miss, and the 
 new grass is beginning to come up in the Cloisters. You 
 'aven't been round for a long time, Miss. Not been ill, I 
 'ope?" 
 
 " No, thanks, but the winter has been long. I am glad 
 spring is coming." 
 
 Pam had come through Old Dean's Yard, after a long 
 prowl in Great Peter Street, where she had some banana- 
 selling friends with whom she enjoyed an occasional chat 
 in their own tongue. She had also stood for half an hour 
 in Vincent Square, watching the Westminster schoolboys 
 playing football, and then, suddenly tired, had come for a 
 rest in the old Cloister. 
 
 It was the middle of March, and a mild, warm day; the 
 kind of day that insidiously encourages in one and all the 
 poor, wee sprouts of summer sentiments that the next cold 
 night will nip in the bud. 
 
 As the girl disappeared through the old black door, Officer 
 Brown looked after her. " That's a very pleasant lady," 
 
 64
 
 PAM DECIDES 65 
 
 he remarked to a friend who had come in to see him. " I've 
 known her for years, and she always 'as a pleasant word." 
 
 " She must ha' been pretty, too," returned the friend, who 
 had an eye for a woman, and had liked Pam's way of walk- 
 ing. But the policeman shook his head. 
 
 " Well, no ; not pretty. Too pale for my taste, and too 
 thin, too. A waist as I could take in my 'and, and I don't 
 like that. But very pleasant, very pleasant, indeed," he 
 added, unconsciously quoting the newest of our immortal 
 Williams. 
 
 " Married ? " asked the friend, chewing a blade of grass. 
 
 " You've got me there, 'Enry. I'm blest if I know. I 
 never seen 'er with any man, nor with any woman, neither, 
 for that matter. She's always alone and always civil; that's 
 all I know, except that she looks lonely as well as alone, 
 don't she? Comes every two or three months and prowls 
 about like a mouse, reading the inscriptions, and so on. And 
 always very pleasant." 
 
 Meantime Pam had gone part way down the side of the 
 Cloister by which one enters, and then, very tired, leaned 
 against the stone-work, her back to the quadrangle, to rest. 
 
 At her feet slept Nuzio Clementi, called the father of the 
 pianoforte, as the tablet attested. 
 
 It was cool and damp under the blackened arches, and so 
 quiet. Tke immense rhythmical quiet of the great abbey 
 is a wonderful thing, and it seemed to the girl that she had 
 reached in a sea of noise an island in beating against whose 
 shores the waves were struck dumb. Where was London 
 and its clamour ?_
 
 66 PAM DECIDES 
 
 She was overtired and nervous, and there was a plaintive 
 loneliness in the moist spring air. Suddenly her eyes filled 
 with tears, and with an impatient shake of her head she 
 rose and walked on. 
 
 " You need a tonic," she told herself, scornfully, " iron 
 and cod-liver oil ! " 
 
 Turning to the right, she had just passed the Chapter 
 House door, when a soft whirring of most melodious bells 
 rilled the air like a sound of angelic wings, and she stood 
 still, gazing out on the young greenness of the grass. It 
 was, then, three o'clock. 
 
 " No wonder I felt tearful," she thought, shaking her 
 head to clear away the tears; "I forgot all about lunch! 
 Oh, for a bun ! " And she walked on blindly, for she had 
 no handkerchief, and her gloves were not clean. 
 
 And when her eyes were dry, she looked up to find herself 
 face to face with a man: with Lamartine! Lamartine of 
 the foggy day in Berkeley Square, Lamartine of the pawn- 
 shop. He had recognised her as soon as he saw her, and 
 while she tried to look as though she had never before seen 
 him, he took off his hat, only a bowler, this time, but a 
 beautiful, beautiful bowler, and said, quietly, " I have 
 not seen you for a long time." 
 
 Before she could summon up an appropriate answer, he 
 went on : " The first time, you know, was in a beastly fog 
 in Berkeley Square, near Mount Street, and the second time 
 was at Cornwall's, where you were pawning a ring." 
 
 Somehow his simple facing of the ring affair seemed to 
 set Pirn instantly at her ease.
 
 PAM DECIDES 67 
 
 " Yes," she returned ; " and you were looking at a little 
 shagreen box; did you buy it?" 
 
 He smiled, and the peculiarity of his smile was that it in 
 no way disturbed the serene beauty of his mouth, though it 
 was a genuine expression of feeling and no mere muscular 
 contraction. 
 
 " Yes, I bought it ; it is a delightful little box, very ex- 
 cellent shagreen. You like this place?" waving a slim 
 hand in a dogskin glove with a little proprietary air that did 
 not escape the dark eyes watching him. 
 
 "Yes, I love it. And you?" 
 
 " I, too," he answered, simply. " I love old quietude like 
 this, and I come here very frequently. It is strange that we 
 have not met before, for you, too, come often? " 
 
 She shook her head. " Not very, for I live far away, but 
 I love this old Cloister." 
 
 His dark-blue clothes were faultless, she saw, the ends of 
 his turned-down collar met with an accuracy which surely 
 no other collar on earth could boast, and under it a bit of 
 scarlet silk flashed in the gathering dusk. Boots? Of 
 course, the most perfect brown ones ever seen. And yet she 
 could not set him down as a dandy as, his glass in his eye, 
 he stood leaning towards her with a near-sighted eagerness. 
 And again she realised that it was because his face so abso- 
 lutely dominated the rest of him, and standing close to him 
 as she did, she had to deliberately measure him with her eye 
 to learn that he was barely, if quite, as tall as she herself. 
 
 " Jane Lister, dear childe," he was murmuring, as she came 
 to this conclusion, and for a moment she stared at him,
 
 68 PAM DECIDES 
 
 thinking that he had mistaken her for someone else, until 
 he continued, turning toward the wall, " I am very fond of 
 dear Jane Lister ; are not you ? " 
 
 And she, following his eyes, understood. " Jane Lister, 
 dear childe," was cut into a tablet opposite them. 
 
 For a moment she did not answer; not because there was 
 any constraint between her and the little exquisite with the 
 high-bred pink and white face, but because there was not. 
 
 It seemed so absolutely natural that he and she should be 
 standing there in the gathering dusk, dreaming a little dream 
 about the child buried a hundred years ago. 
 
 Presently their eyes met, and he spoke. " I am Jean de 
 Lensky, of the Russian Embassy," he said, " Second Secre- 
 tary. You will let me know your name ? " 
 
 " Pamela Yeoland, Miss Yeoland." 
 
 He laughed. " Ah, yes, Miss, of course. I knew that." 
 
 " Did you? " asked Pam, bluntly; " how? " 
 
 " How can I tell ? An atmosphere, perhaps, an aura. 
 You know the Duchess of Wight well ? " 
 
 " How do you know that I know her at all ? " 
 
 " Because the first time I saw you you had just come from 
 her house." 
 
 " Do you know her? " 
 
 " I was on my way to lunch with her that day," he ex- 
 plained, adding, patiently, " Do you know her well? " 
 
 " No, yes. That is, I very rarely see her, as I daresay 
 she told you." 
 
 Neither of them noticed that she was assuming an interest 
 in her on his part, but he answered emphatically, raising his
 
 PAM DECIDES 69 
 
 almost invisible eyebrows in delicate protestation, " I asked 
 the Duchess nothing. I did not mention you to her." 
 
 " There would have been no harm, surely, if you had. It 
 would have been quite natural, if if you wanted to know 
 my name." 
 
 " I did ; but I preferred that you should tell me yourself." 
 
 " How did you know," they had turned and were going 
 slowly back towards Old Dean's Yard, and she finished her 
 question in silence. 
 
 " Ah, yes, I knew. You mean how did I know that we 
 should meet ? " Leaning towards her, so near that his face 
 almost touched hers, he smiled. " I was sure. And I was, 
 right, as you see. Didn't you know? " he added, naively. 
 
 She laughed. " No. But I remembered you, and recog- 
 nised you at once, that day at Cornwall's." 
 
 " Yes. London is small," pursued M. de Lensky, as he 
 followed her, to the open-mouthed astonishment of Officer 
 Brown, into the Yard. 
 
 "Small!" 
 
 " Yes. We others, nous autres, we go always to the 
 same places, and meet always, sooner or later." 
 
 Pam burst out laughing, as they walked towards the dooi 
 leading into the Broad Sanctuary. 
 
 " But I am not one of ' vous autres'" she declared ; " 1 
 am very poor, and live quite beyond the pale, and know no 
 one." 
 
 ;t Except the Duchess of Wight," he amended, walking 
 sideways, the better to see her. 
 
 " Except the Duchess of Wight. And I hadn't seen her,
 
 70 PAM DECIDES 
 
 until that day, for years. And I shall probably not see her 
 again for ages! " 
 
 " That is of course just as you choose, Miss Yeoland." 
 
 They had reached the gate, and he took off his hat. 
 
 " You will let me come to see you ? " 
 
 There was in his perfect manner not one trace of con- 
 sciousness that their relations were unusual, or that his 
 request might possibly be refused, and after a barely per- 
 ceptible hesitation she answered in the same way. "Yes, I 
 shall be very glad to have you come. 43 Huntley Street, 
 Russell Square. Can you remember ?" 
 
 From his pocket he produced a small leather book, with 
 his initials and a small coronet on it in gold, and wrote 
 down the address in the most minute and accurate of hands. 
 
 " At what time shall I be most likely to find you at 
 home," he asked. 
 
 " After five, almost any day." 
 
 " Then, au plaisir." 
 
 Gravely they shook hands and separated.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 FORTY-THREE Huntley Street, Russell Square, was 
 to put it mildly, a very queer place to which to invite a 
 secretary to a great Embassy. And when the secretary was, 
 like Jean de Rensky, a dandy, a man of habits as dainty as 
 those of some petted Persian cat, a member of a great family 
 and an habitue of that portion of English society whose lives 
 are the most luxurious lived by any people on this broad 
 earth, the queerness of the place seemed positively grotesque. 
 
 The house was worse than shabby, for in its far-off best 
 days it had never risen to anything higher than the cheap 
 tawdry, and now, in its decadence, was piteously unpleasant, 
 with its torn carpets, its stained walls, its stale air, and its 
 all-pervading odour of food. 
 
 On the ground-floor dwelt one Mr. Bingle, who travelled 
 in whisky, and as, unfortunately, whisky with lamentable 
 frequency also travelled in him, he was not the kind of 
 person one would choose to introduce to an immaculate 
 young swell. 
 
 There was also a Mrs. Bingle, whose appearance, it was 
 to be hoped, was against her. 
 
 Upstairs were to be found two ladies in the millinery-line 
 in Tottenhian Court Road: Miss Vesey, and Miss Greene- 
 with-an-E. 
 
 Mrs. Kingdom, the landlady, was no doubt in possession 
 of convincing private information regarding the morals of
 
 72 PAM DECIDES 
 
 these ladies, otherwise they could never have forced the 
 sacred portals of 43, for 43 was very respectable, but 
 Miss Vesey had highly peroxided hair and a manner of sus- 
 picious dignity, and Miss Greene-with-an-E's elaborately 
 painted face was somewhat awful in its affability. There 
 'were, besides, a gentleman who travelled in hygienic flan- 
 nels, another who marcelled heads in an Oxford Street shop, 
 a girl who did typewriting for a firm in Queen Victoria 
 Street, and a young man by the name of Hodge, whose 
 avocation was a mystery. 
 
 Now if Pam had held herself proudly aloof from contam- 
 inating contact with her fellow-lodgers they would not have 
 mattered so much, but it was not in her to hold herself aloof 
 from anyone, so she knew all of these objectionable people, 
 and even a good deal about their private affairs. 
 
 Mrs. Single, Miss Greene-with-an-E, and the gentleman 
 who travelled in flannels, came occasionally to her rooms and 
 confided their troubles to her, and in return -she had visited 
 the two ladies, admired the photographs on their mantel- 
 pieces, and guessed the price of their new frocks. 
 ( She had also been told by the mysterious Mi. Hodge, a 
 /gentleman who took all his meals out, and whose shoes, in 
 striking contrast to the rest of his belongings, were invaria- 
 bly almost new and beautifully cared for of his engagement 
 to a lady temporarily in service in Hastings, and she had 
 once had a very hilarious tea-party, in honour of the coming 
 of Mr. Tavistock's three little boys, who, being motherless, 
 lived with an aunt in Mida Vile. Mr. Tavistock was the 
 traveller in hygienic flannels.
 
 PAM DECIDES 73 
 
 "You are as friendly as a puppy," Pilgrim used to tell 
 her mistress, " and 'ow you can stand their vulgar ways I 
 can't see, when I think of your mamma." 
 
 And then Pam would laugh and remind her that her 
 father, before he had discovered his voice and become Guy 
 Sacheverel, had, as George Kennedy, lived in a Bloomsbury 
 boarding-house, very contentedly. 
 
 Thus, things being what they were, Pam had known per- 
 fectly well, when she told de Lensky that he might come to 
 see her, that he would, if seen, awaken great excitement and 
 curiosity among the boarders, and that there was every 
 chance of one of the young ladies coming into her room 
 during his visit on some artless errand, such as the loan of 
 some bird-seed, or the return of a borrowed reel of silk. 
 
 As a rule, of course, the house was pretty well empty until 
 evening, but Saturday was coming, and on that afternoon 
 Miss Vesey and Miss Greene-with-an-E were much given 
 to loose-attired repose against the dissipations of the evening. 
 So probably, permission to call having been given to him on 
 Wednesday, he would come on Saturday and encounter one 
 or both of these ladies as he came upstairs. Pam, however, 
 gave this horrid contingency only the tribute of a smile. 
 
 She knew he would come, and that she would be glad to 
 see him ; she knew that she liked him extremely, and that he 
 liked her. 
 
 And these were the things that mattered. The circum- 
 stance of her living in a third-rate boarding-house was an 
 external detail that did not deserve a thought, he being what 
 she instinctively knew that he was.
 
 74 PAM DECIDES 
 
 So on Saturday she expected him, and when he did not 
 come on that day, or the next, she was surprisingly disap- 
 pointed. Monday passed, and Tuesday, and then, on Wed- 
 nesday afternoon, just a week from the day when she had 
 met him, he came. She had quite given him up, and was 
 kneeling by the fire toasting a muffin when he arrived. 
 
 Black-armed Mildred flung open the door and announced 
 the fascinating stranger, who might have come straight from 
 the pages of Miss Yeoland's latest story, in a voice husky 
 with excitement. 
 
 " 'Ere's a gentleman, Miss." 
 
 And then in her agony of delight she shut the door on a 
 bit of his beautiful coat-tail and bolted downstairs, leaving 
 him to extricate himself as best he could. 
 
 Pam burst out laughing and he joined her quite unem- 
 barrassed as he opened the door and liberated his outraged 
 garment. Then they shook hands and sat down. 
 
 " I hope I haven't come too soon ? " he asked. " I was 
 very keen on seeing you again ! " 
 
 And with an inward blush she realised that the time that 
 had seemed so long to her had quite naturally seemed to him, 
 with his pleasure-crowded days, very short. 
 
 " I am glad you have come," she answered. " Do you 
 like muffins?" 
 
 " I do. I was dining with the Duchess the other night," 
 he went on, watching her gravely as she bent over the fire, 
 " and Lady Chesney was there. I had not known before 
 that you were her cousin." 
 
 " Our mothers were sisters."
 
 PAM DECIDES 75 
 
 " So she said." 
 
 " Have you known Evelyn long ? " 
 
 " Yes ; for about a year, that is. She is very beautiful, I 
 find." 
 
 " Yes ; she is really lovely. Is she well ? " 
 
 " Oh, very, I should say. C'est le plus pur type Anglais. 
 She was telling about the times when you were children in 
 the country; about your monkey, what was his name? Ah, 
 yes, Caliban; about the actor whom you loved; about your 
 reciting poetry, and about your running away with your old 
 nurse " 
 
 Pam frowned, as the door opened, and Pilgrim came in 
 with tea. 
 
 " I wish Evelyn wouldn't tell about me," she said, impa- 
 tiently. Lensky inspected Pilgrim as she prepared the table 
 and put the kettle on the fire. " She was not talking to me," 
 he remarked, as the old woman left the room, with no signs 
 of the violent perturbation into which his unexpected pres- 
 ence had thrown her. " She was talking to Mr. Peele. I 
 wish I could have seen Peek's wife in her youth," he added, 
 as she buttered the muffin, " she must have been surpassingly 
 beautiful." 
 
 Pam looked up, her eyes glinting in the firelight, her 
 cheeks pink. 
 
 " She was wonderful. You seem to be very keen on good 
 looks." 
 
 " I am. A beautiful woman is the most perfect feast in 
 the world for my eyes." 
 
 She made the tea and poured it out; he drank his slowly,
 
 76 PAM DECIDES 
 
 leaning over towards her, his elbow on his knee, his eyes 
 fixed on her face, which, in consideration of his recent decla- 
 ration, she wished were less plain. 
 
 " Was that Pilgrim ? " he asked, presently. 
 
 " Yes. She was very ill in the summer, and I was so 
 frightened! If she had died I should have been altogether 
 alone!" 
 
 His face changed, as if he were about to speak, but he 
 said nothing, and after a moment rose and walked to the 
 table where the photographs stood. " The Duchess men- 
 tioned your mother," he said, taking up the crimson frame. 
 " You are not at all like her." 
 
 Pam burst out laughing as Pilgrim came in and began 
 clearing away the tea-table. " I should think I was not ! 
 She was not perfect, like Lady Henrietta, but ah, she was 
 just exquisite. Such hair, such tender eyes, such a mouth, 
 Lady Henrietta took everyone's breath away, but everyone 
 fell in love with my mother." 
 
 "Yes; I understand. I find you a little like your father, 
 though. He is dark ? " 
 
 "Yes. But I'm not really like him; I'm a freak; am I 
 not, Pilly?" 
 
 But Pilgrim, whose tongue was very free indeed before 
 any one of the boarders who might come to see her mistress, 
 had too good old servant's blood in her not to recognise 
 Lensky for what he was, and Pam's familiar question met, 
 to her amusement, merely with a prim " I'm sure I can't 
 say, Miss Pam," before the old woman left the room. 
 
 " Poor old Pilly! " Pam opened a window, for the day
 
 PAM DECIDES 77 
 
 was warm, though wet, and sat down in the arm-chair, her 
 glossy hair gleaming against the flowered chintz. 
 
 Lensky drew his chair very near hers, and, leaning for- 
 ward so that his face was only a few inches away, studied 
 her with serious intentness. He was so near that she could 
 observe tbe delicate texture of his white skin, the silky fine- 
 ness of his straw-coloured hair ; there was in his large, smooth- 
 lidded eyes an expression of almost angelic sweetness and 
 simplicity. 
 
 For what seemed a long time he sat in silence, looking at 
 her, and then, as she moved uneasily, he drew back a little. 
 
 " You will not mind my coming so close to you," he said, 
 gently, " for I am so near-sighted that even with my glass 
 I see very little, and without it I am quite blind! " 
 
 Taking the glass, to which there was no string, from his 
 eye, he turned his gaze on her again. " So ! Now I see 
 nothing." 
 
 From the street below came a sudden burst of music, a 
 piano-organ, jocund and soulless, playing an elaborately 
 syncopated cake-walk. 
 
 Pam rose and went to the window. The rain had ceased, 
 and a barrow of yellow flowers seemed to have caught a ray 
 of sun and held it fast. 
 
 " Is that your hansom? " she asked, suddenly. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 It had occurred to her that she had not been in a hansom 
 
 *w 
 
 for over five years; that she would like to put on a pretty 
 frock and go softly jerking along the wet street through the 
 kindling lights
 
 78 PAM DECIDES 
 
 Lensky had come up behind her and stood looking down 
 into the street, as she was doing. 
 
 "Did Caliban die? "he asked. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " I was wondering, afterwards; when I got home, I 
 mean. Wondering how, if he did die, you managed to bury 
 him." 
 
 Pam turned. " How kind of you to think of that," she 
 cried, as the music, with a final arabesque of glittering notes, 
 ceased. "Well, I drowned him. I carried him to West- 
 minster Bridge and dropped him in " 
 
 The piano-organ was now playing " Bill Baily," and in an 
 opposite window an old man sat listening, a curly-headed 
 child on his knee. 
 
 When Lensky had gone, Pam stood for a long time look- 
 ing out into the dusk.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 LENSKY came once more before March had moistly melted 
 into April, and then, towards the middle of the latter 
 month, he sent a big box of roses, with a note explaining that 
 a sudden illness of his mother was calling him to Poland. 
 
 " It will console me to think," he wrote, in his beautiful 
 little hand that was so like Thackeray's, " that you have 
 honoured me with your friendship, and that when I come 
 back I shall find you sitting in your room so high above the 
 street, just as I left you. You will have read La Tache 
 d'Encre and the other books, and we will discuss them, and 
 you will make tea, and Pilgrim will come in and out, all 
 just as before. 
 
 " You are English, and I am a Pole, yet you will know 
 what I mean when I say that we are of the same nationality, 
 and I shall always remember with felicity that day when, 
 through the fog, I first saw your face. 
 
 " Until my return, I hope in the middle of May, I beg 
 you then to hold in kind remembrance 
 
 " Yours affectionately, 
 
 " JEAN DE LENSKY/' 
 
 That he signed himself, without permission, in this way 
 was, she told herself, quaintly characteristic of him. It was 
 quite evident that his feelings for her were of an affectionate 
 
 79
 
 80 PAM DECIDES 
 
 nature, and therefore it never occurred to him to use any 
 other formula. 
 
 For his absolute truthfulness did not stop at the truthful- 
 ness of mere words, but was the very mainspring of his 
 nature, thus directing his every act. 
 
 Pam had once been greatly amused when, on the occasion 
 of his second visit, Mrs. Single had come in on some flimsy 
 pretext, and on being civilly received had sat down and pro- 
 ceeded to try to find out from Lensky certain things that 
 had, since his first appearance in the house, greatly exercised 
 the minds of its inhabitants. 
 
 " Very pleasant for Miss Yeoland to 'ave 'er friends run- 
 ning in to see *er," she began. 
 
 Lensky bowed. 
 
 " An old friend, too, as Mrs. Pilgrim was saying " 
 
 Lensky smiled. 
 
 " I dessay you used to know 'is late Lordship, the 
 Earl?" 
 
 Lensky spoke. 
 
 " No," he said. 
 
 But Mrs. Bingle possessed a considerable amount of deter- 
 mination, and her pride forbade her returning to Miss 
 Vesey's room unfilled with the information she had volun- 
 teered to get. 
 
 " 'Ow do you like London ? " she pursued, playing with 
 her watch-chain. Lensky was devoted to London, and said 
 so, without adding any further remarks. 
 
 " French, aren't you? " 
 
 Pam, much diverted, refused to help him out. There
 
 PAM DECIDES 81 
 
 was, after all, no harm in Mrs. Bingle's questions, and if 
 he did not choose to answer them he might evade them for 
 himself. 
 
 " No, I am not French." 
 
 "German?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 Now Mrs. Bingle, though deeply respecting Pam's connec- 
 tion with a deceased Earl, and given to vague boastings about 
 her intimacy with her aristocratic fellow-boarder, knew that 
 Pam was very poor, and lived, for whatever reason it might 
 be, quite cut off from her former West-End friends. 
 
 So when Lensky refused to gratify the good woman's 
 curiosity, she grew very angry. 
 
 " I ain't useder being treated like dirt under people's 
 feet," she exclaimed, rising, " and though you look like a 
 swell, you can't be much of a one or you wouldn't be a-com- 
 ing 'ere. Them as put on airs better stick to Park Line and 
 not come where they're not wanted ! " 
 
 Lensky, foreseeing in her anger disagreeable consequences 
 for Pam, smiled bewitchingly at the outraged matron, and 
 after a moment's hesitation she smiled back. 
 
 " Not Ey<?-talian ? " she persisted. 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 "Rooshian?" 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 "Polish?" 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 "Spanish?" 
 
 He smiled.
 
 82 PAM DECIDES 
 
 And seeing that he succeeded, without saying one word 
 except good-bye, in smiling her downstairs in a state of per- 
 fect good humour, could diplomacy have gone further? 
 
 And Pam knew instinctively that whereas he might not 
 always, in the face of impertinent questioning, find it wise 
 to smile, he would invariably present to the questioner as 
 impenetrable a front as he had to the indomitable Mrs. 
 Bingle, and come out of the engagement without either hav- 
 ing given any information or having uttered a single mis- 
 leading word. 
 
 Pam enjoyed his flowers, missed him, and, as he had asked 
 her to do, held him in kind remembrance. 
 
 May came; a long, vaguely homesick month, as it often is 
 to the imaginative, and one afternoon, a week past the date 
 when Lensky had hoped to return, she went to see the 
 Duchess. The old lady, whom she found in bed with a 
 headache, was delighted to see her. 
 
 " I am glad you have come, dear. I have been wretched 
 for weeks, with my eyes, I am sure, though they say I am 
 bilious. I have these headaches continually, and might as 
 well have been in Timbuctoo for all the good I've had of the 
 season. How are you ? " 
 
 Pam sat down by the bed and took off her hat. It was 
 very cool and pleasant in the big room, and the walk had 
 been long. 
 
 " I am well, only I hate the Spring. How is Evy? I 
 passed her the other day in Regent Street, and thought her 
 looking ill." 
 
 " Yes, she had the measles, poor dear, but she's going
 
 PAM DECIDES 83 
 
 about again now. I was to dine there last night, but 
 couldn't. Have you seen the Fat Boy lately ? " 
 
 " No, thank heaven." 
 
 " The last time I saw him he told me you were a little 
 cat, and he hoped he'd never see you as long as he lives." 
 
 1 He lies," returned Pam, calmly. 
 
 The Duchess laughed. " Well, I hope he won't take to 
 gambling in his despair." 
 
 "Gambling?" 
 
 "Yes. It appears that he was taken up with Willy 
 Elphinstone, the Hetley men, and that lot. They all gam- 
 ble, and as for Jack Lensky, everybody knows that he'd 
 stake the coat on his back if he had nothing else." 
 
 "Jack Lensky!" 
 
 "Yes. He's one of the Russian Embassy men, an en- 
 chanting creature, too. I met him about a year ago and have 
 bean in a mild way very attentive to him ever since. Delight- 
 ful ! He has a way of whispering a naughty story and look- 
 ing too good for this world while he does it ! And then he's 
 clever, has been everywhere, seen everything, and done 
 everything, too, no doubt, if the truth were known. An 
 entrancing young man, in a word, but by no means a good 
 friend for poorish youths with a taste for extravagant 
 amusements." 
 
 For a moment Pam was silent. If she avowed her 
 Acquaintance with Lensky, not only would her old friend's 
 amazement and outcry be great, but Pam would be for the 
 future unjustified in keeping her way and place of living a 
 .jecret. The Duchess would with much logic ask her: "if
 
 84 PAM DECIDES 
 
 this young man comes to see you, why can't I ?" So she said 
 nothing, and listened silently as the old lady went on : " But 
 he wouldn't hurt you, my dear, and I wish you knew him! 
 With all his wildness and wicked ways, he's such a gentle- 
 man! Fast Englishmen are so apt to be boorish, and this 
 man is so exquisite, in everything he does and says. Lady 
 Hoagland, you know, the pious Lady Hoagland, with the 
 huge wart on her nose, told me that once he was let into 
 her house by mistake when she was out, and only Ursula, 
 the youngest girl, was at home. When she, Mary, came in 
 she found him at the piano, singing the most fascinating 
 French nursery songs to the child ! " 
 
 "Oh!" said Pam, absently. 
 
 " He is very devoted, in his way, to Evelyn," pursued the 
 old lady innocently, " but he is also devoted to Alys Comp- 
 ton and the second Hammersley girl. There were also 
 tales but they wouldn't interest you. I heard one yester- 
 day," she added, with a chuckle, " that I mean to ask him 
 about to-night." 
 
 " Oh, he is in town, then? " 
 
 The Duchess did not notice the slip of the tongue. 
 
 "Yes; he has been in Poland, but got back last week. 
 Oh, Pam, if you weren't such a little idiot, you'd dine here 
 to-night and meet him ! " 
 
 But Pam only laughed, and shortly afterwards took her 
 departure.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 A BREATHLESS day in mid-August; a day when the 
 humid air hung heavy over the town, when people walked 
 wearily, children cried with feeble querulousness, and the 
 backs of the suffering horses gleamed as if varnished m the 
 pitiless sun. 
 
 Pam, with whom funds were distressingly low, had been 
 unable to get out of town at all that summer, and only by 
 the greatest economy had she managed to send Pilgrim for 
 a fortnight's sea-air at Margate, where a friend of the old 
 servant had married a green-grocer and took lodgers. 
 
 So for the last two weeks Pam had been entirely alone, 
 and Pilgrim had returned only the day before, much improved 
 in health, but inclined to be scornful of town and impatient 
 of its August discomforts. Her tales of the delicious breezes 
 at Margate, the moonlit sea, even of the shrimps she had 
 had with her tea, seemed to Pam to make the heat, the lassi- 
 tude, the hopelessness of London almost unbearable. 
 
 The girl herself was not well, though she did not know it, 
 and set her querulousness and lack of energy down to an 
 unworthy discontent and idleness. 
 
 The sitting-room, which in summer suffered from the 
 southern exposure that was its boon in winter, was stiflingly 
 warm, and Pam sat, with her blouse open at the throat, at 
 the window, while Pilgrim, without any front hair, dis- 
 coursed about Margate. 
 
 85
 
 86 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " I used to 'ave to close my window by six," she said, 
 proudly; " it got so cool." 
 
 "Did you, Pilly? How nice." 
 
 " And we used to 'ave bits of ice on the tomatoes. 'El 
 brother is a butcher." 
 
 " How nice." 
 
 "And never no smell of cooking!" continued the old 
 woman, with a curious expression of triumph. " Never! " 
 
 Pam pushed her damp hair wearily back from her 
 face. 
 
 " Mrs. Kingdom can't be frying meat at this time of day," 
 she remarked, " but it certainly smells like it." 
 
 " Every evening at six I 'ad to shut my windows," began 
 Pilgrim, over again, and Pam lost patience. 
 
 " I wish you'd shut your oh, Pilly ; don't talk about 
 
 it," she cried, nervously; "I can't bear it. I'm positively 
 sick with the heat." 
 
 " Of course you are, you poor child, but what do you 
 think of me, fresh from them sea-breezes " 
 
 Pam rose. " I'm going out," she declared, fastening her 
 collar; " it can't be worse than this. I'll go to the Abbey 
 and sit in the darkest corner I can find." 
 
 " You'll get a sunstroke." Pilgrim was appalled, and all 
 unwitting of the fact that it was her own repetitive elo- 
 quence that was driving her mjstress to take such a desperate 
 step. But Pam held to her plan. She must go somewhere, 
 she must be alone, and she had not been to the Abbey since 
 May, just after her last visit to the Duchess. 
 
 So she went into her bedroom and put on a very ancient
 
 PAM DECIDES 87 
 
 but shady hat, and came back with a little cotton sunshade 
 in her hand. 
 
 Pilgrim was fanning herself with a newspaper she had 
 bought in the train, her mouth pursed in ostentatious dis- 
 approval, and a faint smile stirred the girl's lips as she stood 
 pondering whether she should or should not force gloves on 
 her limp fingers. 
 
 "Good-bye, Pilly." 
 
 " Good-bye, Miss Pam, I'm sure." Then the old woman 
 raised her eyes from the flabby Daily Mail. " Oh, Pam, 
 you do look so bad; are you sure you're not ill? I can see 
 the bones right through your cheeks, and your eyes are as big 
 as saucers." 
 
 " How dangerously attractive I must be! Of course I'm 
 not ill, you old goose; it's only the heat, the last fortnight 
 has been pretty bad." 
 
 " And me away enjoying the sea-br " 
 
 " Jane Pilgrim, if you say the word ' breezes ' again I'll 
 kill you! Good-bye." 
 
 And the old woman, deeply offended, took up the paper 
 and began to read. " If you 'adn't been so foolish" she 
 remarked, as Pam turned to the door, " you could have gone 
 yourself. It would be just as well, Miss Pam," she con- 
 tinued, acidly respectful, " if you 'ad remembered that charity 
 begins at 'ome." 
 
 "Oh, Pilly, please don't be nasty when I come in! I 
 know it's only because I look pale, but I'm perfectly 
 well." 
 
 Pam stood in the doorway, her brows knit beseechingly.
 
 88 PAM DECIDES 
 
 Pilgrim was to her father, mother and friends all in one, 
 but she grew cantankerous as she grew older, and Pam was 
 very tired. 
 
 " Well, I'm sure I don't mean to be cross. Only, 
 that woman would have got on all right, they always do, 
 and " 
 
 " And the baby would have died. Really, Pilgrim, I am 
 ashamed of you. That four pounds literally meant the poor 
 little thing's life, and to me it would have meant only a few 
 days where it is cool. Now, good-bye, dear. It's after 
 four, and must soon get better." 
 
 She turned and was closing the door when a sound, best 
 described as a whoop, recalled her. 
 
 "Pilly!" 
 
 " Pam, listen. 'E's back in town, the little blind gentle- 
 man. ' Among others dining at the Savoy last night I saw 
 Lady Ribbesford looking very handsome in white, the Maha- 
 rajah of Jaipore, Sir William Tarpendale, and M. de Len- 
 sky of the Russian Embassy, whose engagement to a beauti- 
 ful widow is said to be about to be announced,' and 'e 
 'asn't been to see you ! " groaned the old woman. " Just 
 like 'em all." 
 
 Pam shrugged her shoulders. " The beautiful widow is 
 probably Evelyn," she said; "the Duchess told me he was 
 very devoted to her." 
 
 Pilgrim's eyes filled with tears. " Oh! " she said. " Even 
 if engaged, 'e might 'ave called!" 
 
 Pam came back and kissed her. " Don't bother, Pilly, 
 dear; he'll come some day, you'll see. You must remember
 
 PAM DECIDES 89 
 
 how busy young men are, particularly young men on tb<- 
 verge of becoming engaged to beautiful widows! " 
 
 Then, at last, she got away, and went out into the stale 
 heat. So Lensky was in tovf doubtless on his way North. 
 And he was going to marry his plus pur type Anglais. 
 
 She reached the Square, and stood leaning against the wall 
 of a house, waiting for the 'bus. 
 
 He had not come to see her in May, and he would of 
 course not come now. She had been so disappointed in May, 
 for she had been sure that he would come, and she should 
 have been so glad to see him! He was such a dear. He 
 was so entirely pleasant to her, with his quiet voice, his 
 steadfast eyes, his quaintly precise accent. Even his perfect 
 clothes and the small seal ring on his little finger added to 
 her complete satisfaction in him. 
 
 The men she saw every day were so different: Mr. Hodge 
 and Mr. Tavistock, with their carefully creased trousers 
 that bulged at the knees, their cheap ties, their too thick 
 watch-chains. 
 
 Mr. Bingle, whose appearances were only semi-occasional, 
 was, though loudly vulgar, infinitely better than his two 
 juniors, with their awful gentility. 
 
 He at any rate was genuine, whereas they were painfully 
 bad imitations of that thing, indefinable and unmistakable, 
 of which Jack Lensky was the perfect flower. 
 
 If she had been living the life of other women of her 
 breeding, surrounded by men of her own class, Lensky's 
 clothes would have made little or no impression on her, but 
 as things were, her mind turned, now that she believed him to
 
 9 o PAM DECIDES 
 
 be lost to her, again and again to the memory of his perfect 
 attire; even the fineness of his handkerchief and his silk 
 socks, the delicate scent of Russian leather, Russian cigar- 
 ettes, and some unknown toilet-water that hung about him. 
 He was the one gentleman left to her, and now she had lost 
 him. And no 'bus was in sight, and her very knees shook 
 under her with heat-exhaustion. 
 
 Perhaps all the 'bus-horses had had sunstrokes! 
 
 He might have come once more. Miss Greene-with-an-E 
 had already asked why he never came, and had shrugged her 
 shoulders at Pam's truthful avowal of ignorance. He should 
 have not escaped so easily from her, she was thinking, and 
 at the moment the transparent reflection had amused Pam. 
 
 Even Mrs. Kingdom, the landlady, had asked Pam why 
 the beautiful young gentleman no longer came. Poor Mrs 
 Kingdom, who was, in her inexpressive dourness, a mystery 
 to Pam; for the woman was even yet handsome, her dreary 
 face still retaining some faint spark of the charm that had 
 years ago won for her one glimpse of the joys of life. 
 
 Kingdom, a fireman, and a devout worshipper of a devil 
 he called God, had been her refuge when .that joy had failed 
 her, and as long as he lived she had taken her fading beauty 
 regularly to the temple where his ominous deity was wor- 
 shipped, and submitted her will unmurmuringly to his. But 
 since he died, someone had told Pilgrim, she had sat in 
 neither chapel nor church, and no one knew what thoughts 
 crept through her stifled mind as she went about her work. 
 
 And even this poor creature had wondered why Lensky 
 no longer came toiling up the long stairs !
 
 PAM DECIDES 91 
 
 Pam took off her gloves. She could not bear them. And 
 the 'bus was coming. 
 
 She would go inside ; it might be cooler ; no, she would go 
 outside, for there would be more air. 
 
 And then, suddenly, there he was, in a small brown vic- 
 toria, poking his coachman in the back with his stick, jumping 
 out almost before the big horse had stopped, holding her 
 hand in his, while the sun on his glossy hair almost dazzled 
 her eyes. 
 
 " I am so glad," he cried, " so glad. I was just coming to 
 see you." Without in the least intending to do so, horrified 
 by the sound of her own words, Pam answered, abruptly, " I 
 don't believe it." 
 
 The next moment she was sitting beside him in the 
 brown chariot, and he was saying to the coachman, " Go on, 
 Sampson, to the address I gave you "
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 AS Miss Greene-with-an-E met them on the stairs, Pam felt 
 her face burst into a glow of colour. The girl must have 
 confessed, had she been asked during her dreary wait for 
 the 'bus, that it would have pleased her vanity, quite apart 
 from her pleasure in seeing Lensky, to have him call again 
 at 43, but now that he had come her nerves seemed to have 
 regained their balance, and she blushed for what she called 
 her snobbery. 
 
 Miss Greene-with-an-E stopped her, on the pretence of 
 enquiring for her health, and as Lensky waited, shot more 
 than one glance at his gently blank face, and, when she had 
 released Pam, crossed the passage and went into Miss 
 Vesey's room to tell her the news. Pam blushed again, but 
 Pilgrim's delight in Lensky 's reappearance was so openly 
 shown in her old face that both he and Pam laughed, and 
 all embarrassment fled. 
 
 " How do you do, Pilgrim?" he said, kindly; "you look 
 much better than when I last saw you." 
 
 " Yes, m'lord ; yes, sir, thank you. Shall I boil the kettle, 
 Miss Pam?" 
 
 Lensky took off his gloves and sat down, looking round 
 the room with a well-pleased air. " Boil no kettles," he 
 said, " for I have come to take Miss Yeoland and you out 
 to dinner." 
 
 " To dinner ! " Pam was so glad to see him that her 
 
 92
 
 PAM DECIDES 93 
 
 voice had a queer little thrill in it, and she felt as though 
 her smile were widening to a boundless grin. " People don't 
 dine at half-past four, do they?'" 
 
 " No," he answered, seriously, rubbing his glass on his 
 handkerchief ; " but they drink tea iced tea, with lemon in 
 it, and then they talk, and when eight o'clock has come 
 they dine. Don't they?" 
 
 "They do, those who have the proper clothes, which, 
 alas, Pilgrim and I have not, Mr. de Lensky! " 
 
 His glass was back in its place, and his troubled frown at 
 her words gave him an almost ludicrously piteous air. 
 
 " Oh, don't talk to me of clothes," he pleaded, clasping 
 his hands ; " I don't mean a restaurant ; I knew you wouldn't 
 do that; I just want you to come to my rooms in St. James 
 Street for tea and dinner. I know Pilgrim would like to, 
 wouldn't you, Pilgrim? It is cool there, and there are 
 flowers " 
 
 Even in her determination to refuse his invitation, Pam 
 appreciated the delicacy of his trying to tempt poor Pilgrim 
 with the coolness and the flowers, instead of dazzling her 
 with the recitation of a menu. 
 
 " We really can't, Mr. Lensky," the girl said, firmly, but 
 smiling in deprecation as she spoke. " It is very kind of you 
 to think of it, but we really can't go." 
 
 He bowed his head in polite acceptance of her fiat and she 
 turned to ring the bell, when Pilgrim's face caught her eye. 
 Quite noiselessly, standing by the door in the proper attitude 
 for a well-trained servant, Pilgrim was crying. 
 
 Her mouth was drawn down at the corners, her big nose
 
 94 PAM DECIDES 
 
 wrinkled and red, and from her tightly-squeezed eyes 
 trickled two small tears. 
 
 " Oh, Pilly! " Pam rushed at her, as the poor old woman 
 tried to leave the room. " Don't ! Don't cry ! I can't 
 bear it." 
 
 But Pilgrim pushed her way towards the door. She could 
 not stop crying; the sudden joy and the bitter disappointment 
 were too much for her, and Pam knew, what Lensky did not 
 suspect, that the sorrow had an origin deeper than the obvious 
 one. 
 
 " Oh, Pilly, do you care so much ? " 
 
 Pam stood caressing the old servant, her eyes involuntarily 
 seeking Lensky's in a mute prayer for counsel. 
 
 " I think, Pilgrim," he said, quietly, his face not betraying 
 the slightest sign of even kindly amusement as he spoke, 
 " that Miss Yeoland has changed her mind. And if you 
 will put on your hat we might as well go, as my horse dis- 
 likes standing in the heat." 
 
 When Pilgrim, without a word, had left the room, Pam 
 turned to him, holding out her hand. " You are a dear to 
 do that," she said, impulsively; "she is old, and there are 
 other reasons why she is so unlike other servants. Some day 
 I will tell you." 
 
 " Thanks." He said no more, but she realised that no 
 matter whom he married, no matter what happened, he and 
 she understood each other once and for all. 
 
 Pilgrim, grilling in her winter mantle which, being deco- 
 rated with beads, she had put on to do honour to the occa- 
 sion, sat proudly in the victoria, glancing with disdain at the
 
 PAM DECIDES 95 
 
 pedestrians they passed. And Pam, in a white blouse and a 
 hat with a red rose on it, was happier than she had been for 
 weeks. In spite of herself this man's homage gratified her, 
 besides which she greatly liked him, and she was to pass the 
 next four or five hours in his company. 
 
 Lensky's rooms, over the shop of a fashionable boot-maker 
 in St. James Street, were extremely characteristic of him. 
 
 The sitting-room, with its brown-leather chairs, models 
 of form and comfort, its dull green walls, its valuable and 
 beautiful etchings and engravings ; the large, orderly writing- 
 table with its Empire fittings ; the fineness of the embroidered 
 napery on the ready tea-table ; the gleaming old samovar ; the 
 low oak book-shelves laden with well-bound books, many of 
 them, judging from the small coat-of-arms on their backs, 
 brought from Poland; the Bechstein Grand in the corner; 
 the exquisite low-toned rugs on the highly-polished floor ; the 
 Chippendale cabinet filled with old china; the flat bowls full 
 of roses; the antlers over the mantel-piece, the trophies of 
 other kinds of hunting, all these things combined to make 
 a shell every convolution of which was exquisitely fitted to 
 its owner. 
 
 When he had seated Pam in a low chair by the fern-filled 
 fireplace, and she had decided for hot tea, and Pilgrim had 
 removed her mantle and discreetly disappeared behind a 
 faintly-gilded old leather screen at the far end of the room, 
 Lensky made tea deftly, gracefully, clashing no cups, 
 dropping no spoons, his slim hands doing their work better 
 than do those of most women. 
 
 And when the samovar was singing its Russian folksong
 
 96 PAM DECIDES 
 
 he looked up and asked the girl, with the most radiant of 
 smiles, to take off her hat. " Even here it is warm," he 
 added. She did as he suggested. " Have you always roses 
 here?" 
 
 " No. Only when I have ladies coming to see me. The 
 last time it was the Duchess of Wight and your beautiful 
 cousin." 
 
 " I hear you are going to marry my beautiful cousin." 
 
 He set down the tea-caddy. " Who told you that? " 
 
 "The British Press! Is it not true?" 
 
 For a moment he was silent, and then, again opening the 
 tea-caddy, he answered, " No, it is not true." 
 
 " I am rather glad," commented Pam, absently, leaning 
 back in her chair and enjoying the scent of some crimson 
 roses near her. 
 
 "Why are you glad?" 
 
 " Because, well, Evy's not the wife for you." She 
 seemed to know him so well that her remark appeared to her 
 a quite natural one. 
 
 He laughed. " Look at the portrait behind you, Miss 
 Yeoland." The portrait, a small one in pastel, represented 
 a young woman in voluminous pink satin skirts. On her 
 smooth yellow head rested, delicately, as if about to fly away, 
 a wreath of pink roses, and under the roses smiled sweetly 
 down at the English girl, Lensky's face. 
 
 " How much you look like her! " 
 
 "Yes; it is really rather absurd, isn't it? Alas, it is no 
 longer so strong, the resemblance, for she is old, ma mere, 
 and ill. I nearly lost her in May."
 
 PAM DECIDES 97 
 
 " Does she never come here ? " 
 
 " Oh, no," he returned, pouring out the steaming tea, " it 
 was Paris that she loved. I was born in Paris, and my sister, 
 who is dead. London she says is foggy and cold." 
 
 " She couldn't call it cold to-day! " 
 
 " No, that she couldn't. But she has had much trouble ; 
 too much, even for a woman," he went on gravely, as he 
 brought her tea to her, " and she no longer leaves home." 
 
 " She must miss you very much," remarked Pam, when 
 Pilgrim had been given tea and cakes, which she insisted 
 on consuming in the next room. It seemed to the girl that 
 if this dear youth had been her son she could not have borne 
 parting with him. 
 
 " She does. And she is like you; she thinks of a suitable 
 wife for me. She wants me to marry and settle down in 
 the old house." 
 
 "Well, why don't you?" 
 
 He set down his cup, and drew his chair near hers. 
 
 " It is what she asked me, in May. And I told her I 
 could not marry until I loved. And she said, ' Est-ce bun pos- 
 sible, mon petit, que tu n dimes personnel ' Et je lui repondis 
 ' Oui, ma mere, cest qa. C'est que je naime personnel JJ 
 
 Pam nibbled at a bit of almond. " It seems a great pity," 
 she observed, " for it would be a comfort to her. Only how 
 would you like living in the country? " 
 
 " I could never do that. The country bores me to death. 
 After a month of it I can stand no more." 
 
 "Why didn't you come to see me when you came back 
 in May?"
 
 98 PAM DECIDES 
 
 He rose and rang the bell. Then he opened the window 
 and they stood looking out, while his servant cleared away 
 the tea-things. 
 
 " I was in town only a fortnight, and I was very busy." 
 Not a word of excuse, not even an expression of regret! 
 She laughed. " I missed you," she said pathetically. " It 
 was horrid of you." 
 
 " I am sorry, but what does it matter now ? Gregoire ! " 
 He turned and the servant came towards him. 
 
 " Miss Yeoland and her maid will dine with me, Gregoire. 
 Do you like cold consomme, Miss Yeoland? And an aspic? 
 Cold consomme, then, Gregoire and game and salad, and 
 ices. At eight." 
 
 " Bien, M'sieu'." The servant left the room and Lensky 
 turned to Pam. 
 
 " I very often have little dinners brought in. Lady 
 Hoagland and her youngest and prettiest girl came just be- 
 fore I left town in June. I like them so much." 
 
 "So the Duchess told me! But then, you like so many 
 people, don't you ? " Pam's eyes danced. " I am greatly 
 grieved by the bad account the Duchess gave me of you ! " 
 
 "Were you? Such as?" 
 
 His eyes, so innocent-looking, were fixed on hers in serene 
 questioning. 
 
 " I really couldn't tell you." 
 
 " You mean cards? " 
 
 " Yes. Are you really such a gambler? " 
 
 Still he did not smile. " Yes," he answered, gravely, " I 
 am. Do you like music? I will play t<" you."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 SHE did not see him again for months. The next day 
 he left home, going to Scotland and later for a yachting-cruise 
 with some people named Compton, of whom Pam had heard 
 the Duchess speak. Pam missed him abjectly. 
 
 He did not write, consequently she knew nothing of his 
 movements, and his silence awoke in her something very 
 like resentment. 
 
 During September, which luckily was a rather cool 
 month, she wrote a new novelette and tried her hand at some 
 short stories, which she sent to the best magazines, the editors 
 of which politely returned them. 
 
 Then she tried writing a serious novel, broke down in the 
 middle because she could not think of anything to make her 
 characters do, and burnt the manuscript. 
 
 She haunted the Abbey a good deal at this period, and 
 used to walk in St. James Park, besides resuming her coach- 
 ing-parties on the 'buses. 
 
 But in spite of these diversified amusements, time dragged 
 and she found to her infinite disgust that Lensky had become 
 a very disturbing element in her life. 
 
 She had made a mistake in going to see the Duchess, she 
 had made an even greater one in admitting this wanderer 
 from her former world to her intimacy, for philosopher as 
 she believed herself, and as she indeed to a certain extent was, 
 her own life, since her brief glimpse at the luxuries she could 
 
 99
 
 ioo PAM DECIDES 
 
 no longer have, had grown to be harder to bear and to 
 seem more sordid than ever. 
 
 It disgusted her to find herself longing for leather easy- 
 chairs and mossy carpets, and she sincerely despised her- 
 self for feeling that a chop can be more than a chop if eaten 
 s>n a porcelain plate, but nevertheless the longing and the 
 feeling were indisputable, and not to be ignored. 
 
 And being as she was, more than half ill, and very nervous, 
 there were times when her courage nearly gave way, and 
 life seemed unfairly hard on her. 
 
 And Lensky did not write. He was of course amusing 
 himself on his round of visits, eating all his chops off porce- 
 lain in every sense of the word, and of course he was busy. 
 But she no longer suspected him of forgetting her. She 
 knew he had not done that, and that he never would, but 
 with a sort of self-pity quite new to her, she felt that he might 
 have realised how lonely she was, and written to cheer her. 
 
 Often she recalled the afternoon and evening spent in his 
 rooms, hours long in the pleasure they held, short in their 
 passing! How they had enjoyed the delicious little dinner 
 near the balcony- window, how pleasant had been to her 
 unaccustomed fingers the very feeling of the linen and the 
 silver. How like two children they had laughed and talked. 
 
 There was, in the girl's never-to-be-forgotten memories, 
 that of another tete-a-tete meal, a far-off supper in a far- 
 off southern garden where nightingales sang and stone-pines 
 stood black against a moonlit sea. 
 
 But it had been in Arcadia, that other meal, eaten, or 
 rather neglected, when she was not yet twenty, and the man
 
 FAM DECIDES 101 
 
 opposite had been the wonderful faery knight of the inef- 
 faceable memory, whereas the dinner at Lensky's had taken 
 place, for all its delights, in Everyday land, and Lensky 
 himself no Arcadian Prince, but a charming friend and 
 comrade. 
 
 The Arcadian supper had dimmed with time and looked 
 to her memory's eye as if seen in a soap-bubble, iridescent and 
 fleeting, but it was as undying as are certain pictures even 
 when the beautiful blues and greens have faded; there was 
 no magic about the St. James' Street dinner, but she clung 
 to the reality and warmth of her new experience, and often 
 recalled the incidents of the evening. 
 
 After dinner Lensky had again played to her. 
 
 He had the soul, if not the fingers, of an artist, and his 
 piano sobbed and sang at his touch in a way that the girl, 
 unmusical as she was, hardly appreciated. 
 
 Scraps of Chopin he played, and modern French songs 
 Faure, Hahn, and Cesar Franck; a stately old contre-danse 
 of Lalli's, some ancient Spanish chorals, a Pastorale of 
 Scarletti, bits of La Boheme and Aida, longer passages of 
 Grieg, Sinding, Beethoven, and Schumann, all played with 
 a kind of loving respect if without great technical skill. His 
 fine profile clear-cut against a dark curtain, his head slightly 
 thrown back, he sat like a young monk Pam had once seen 
 in a picture, and the girl smiled as she recalled the Duchess's 
 remark, that he would gamble away the coat on his back 
 if he had nothing else to stake. 
 
 "You like music?" he asked her once, without stopping 
 playing.
 
 102 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " I like yours." And he had apparently understood. 
 When her new novelette " Dorothy's Destiny " was paid for, 
 Pam went to a print-shop in Holborn and rummaged about 
 until she found the picture of the young monk at the organ. 
 It was a cheap reproduction, and she bought it, to the great 
 mystification of Pilgrim, whose admiration was concentrated 
 on the scantily attired inspiring angels entwined among the 
 organ pipes. This picture she had framed and hung on the 
 wall in her sitting-room. 
 
 Sometimes Pilgrim, who had enquired as to the veracity 
 of the report about Lensky's engagement, and whose delight 
 on learning that it was false was amusingly apparent, would 
 lead the conversation round by some cunning detour to the 
 subject of Lensky, and Pam who knew that in her old nurse's 
 mind she herself was already Madame de Lensky, living in 
 that brown-leather paradise over the bootmaker's, played up 
 to her with an innocent face. 
 
 " A lovely young gentleman," Pilgrim began once, " and 
 'as such beautiful manners. If I was a Spanish Hinfanta 'e 
 couldn't have been more courcheous to me." 
 
 And even when nearly three months had passed without 
 bringing any news from the courteous one, Pilgrim kept 
 up her courage. 
 
 " Remember how it was before," she told herself, 
 though she believed herself to be telling Pam. " Some day 
 'e 11 just come in, as smooth as cream, and explain all 
 about it." 
 
 Late in October Pam caught her heel in a hole in the 
 stair-carpet, and twisting her ankle badly, was obliged to
 
 PAM DECIDES -103 
 
 submit to be carried upstairs by the gallant Mr. Tavistock, 
 and for three weeks could not leave her room. 
 
 During her term of imprisonment, Pilgrim, forgetting hei 
 crotchets and the uncomfortable ways that had grown as 
 she grew older, became again by a miracle of love the tender, 
 patient nurse who had mothered the lonely child so many 
 years, and to whom she had stuck, as the saying goes, through 
 so little of thick, and so much of thin. 
 
 And Pam, consoled by this sudden change, her nerves no 
 longer racked by the old woman's fretfulness and unreason- 
 able ill temper, really enjoyed her little illness. 
 
 So when she could walk again, she found herself, to her 
 surprise, better than she had been for months, as well as less 
 nervous. 
 
 It had rained most of October, but November was, though 
 dark, fairly dry. 
 
 One day, towards the middle of the month, Pam set out 
 to pay a visit in Seven Dials. The woman to whom she had 
 given the five pounds that cost her her holiday in the summer, 
 had just presented her sovereign with another patriot and the 
 glad news having been conveyed to Pam by a ricketty mes- 
 senger of eight, the girl was obliged to go and see the new- 
 comer, and to condole with the reluctant mother. 
 
 After a stifling quarter of an hour in the Coptic Street 
 cellar, during which the baby had shrieked loudly and refused 
 to be comforted, even by a bit of banana administered to it 
 by a stolid elder sister, Pam went back Shaftesbury Avenue, 
 past the Baptist Church, and along the High Street. 
 
 Within the brown railings of St. Giles' Church the grass
 
 io 4 PAM DECIDES 
 
 and the dishevelled shrubs were still green, and behind the 
 church there was, she knew, an open space in which the 
 air ought to be better than elsewhere in the neighbourhood, 
 and a bench on which she might sit. 
 
 Limping rather badly by this time, for she was tired, she 
 went up the steps into the churchyard and was about to go 
 in when she heard someone call her name, and turning, found 
 herself face to face with Lensky.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 lt PILGRIM told me you had come in this direction," he 
 explained, shaking hands with her, " but she didn't know 
 where, and I have been on the point of giving you up and 
 going back to Huntley Street to wait for you " 
 
 " I am glad to see you," she returned, heartily. It was 
 good to feel her hand in his again. " We were talking about 
 you only to-day! Come on to the bench there, I've got a 
 lame ankle and must rest." 
 
 Their arrival disturbed a semi-intoxicated lady with modest 
 violets on her bonnet, who had come into that quiet place 
 for the purpose of a short nap. 
 
 " 'Ow'd you like it if you 'adn't 'ad a cup of tea since 
 yesterday morning ? " enquired this lady, who was apparently 
 possessed by a thirst for information as well as by that more 
 material one. 
 
 Pam looked at her. " Do you know," she answered, " I 
 was sure the minute I saw you that you hadn't had any tea 
 since yesterday ! " 
 
 "Was you now, Miss?" 
 
 " How is William ? " pursued the girl. 
 
 "William? Whose William? Oh, my William! Well, 
 fcank you, Miss. Williamshwell." 
 
 Pam gave her sixpence, and then explained her undis- 
 nplinary act to Lensky by telling him that the poor creature 
 had been sober and comparatively industrious until two years 
 
 IPS
 
 io6 PAM DECIDES 
 
 ago, when her two children had been burned to death while 
 she was out charing. 
 
 " William is only her husband 1 " 
 
 Lensky laughed. 
 
 "Only her husband!" 
 
 " Well, I mean, he's an awful old creature who always has 
 drunk, and the children were her children. She'll buy 
 gin with that sixpence, I suppose." 
 
 " And you don't care? " 
 
 " Not . much," she returned, frankly, " if it makes 
 her forget those poor little things being roasted alive. 
 B'r r r! " She shuddered. " But don't let's talk about 
 it. Tell me about your doings. Did you have a good time in 
 Scotland?" 
 
 " Very excellent indeed." 
 
 "Where were you?" 
 
 " With the Hetleys, in Inverness, with the MacKenzies, 
 and a lot of others. Scotland is a ripping place." 
 
 His scraps of slang, so accurately used, so exquisitely 
 enunciated, always amused Pam. And he looked so fresh, 
 so healthy, the slightest touch of sunburn on his delicate 
 skin, that she felt an almost maternal thrill of satisfaction 
 in the fact that his health was so good. 
 
 "And the yachting?" 
 
 "Ah, yes, the yachting! I am such a lazy little brute 
 that of all things I love yachting. The Mawvette is a perfect 
 little craft, shipshape and comfortable. Do you like being 
 on the water ? " 
 
 Pam laughed. " I do. And in the days of my youth I
 
 PAM DECIDES 107 
 
 could sail a boat and row, as well as a boy. We lived a 
 great deal on the Riviera when I was a child." 
 
 " I know. Lady Chesney told me. She was at the Het- 
 ley's while I was there, and she talked about you." 
 
 " Then you must have made her," declared Pam, uncere- 
 moniously. " She hasn't seen me for ages, and I don't 
 believe she thinks of me more than once in a year ; I am sure 
 I don't of her." 
 
 " She is very handsome," he explained, unruffled, " so 
 I talk a great deal to her. But she does not know that I 
 know you, and when she talks about you it is in connection 
 with her own childhood." 
 
 Pam glanced at him. " Oh, she talks to you about her 
 own childhood, does she? She never had a real one, poor 
 Evy; she was always grown-up inside, but I suppose she 
 doesn't know that." 
 
 "You don't like her, then?" 
 
 She hesitated. " No, I don't, particularly," she answered 
 truthfully, wondering if he would be mannish enough to 
 think that her avowal betrayed a jealousy of her cousin's 
 beauty. 
 
 Evidently, however, he understood. 
 
 " I daresay she bores you," he commented, poking the scant 
 gravel with his stick. " She would bore me if she were not 
 so beautiful." 
 
 " I wish you could have seen my mother, ten years ago. 
 Only you would have fallen in love with her! That's one 
 reason why I never particularly admired Evy, I suppose; 
 because she is a sort of bad copy of Mother."
 
 io8 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " So the Duchess told me. The Peeles were at the Mao 
 Kenzies, by the way. They are going to make him Chan- 
 cellor of the Duchy of I forget what." 
 
 "No!" 
 
 " Yes. They were all talking about it." 
 
 Pam flushed. " I am glad," she cried, " Lady Henny will 
 be delighted." 
 
 " I don ? t think she was, though. I suspect Lady Henrietta 
 of great ambition for her husband," answered Lensky, 
 thoughtfully, " and this will be being a minister without a 
 department, and with a very good income." 
 
 " A sinecure, then ? " 
 
 Lensky laughed. " Heaven forbid. There are no sine- 
 cures in this free land. But, I fancy she wants him to go 
 down into the arena and fight, and the Chancellor of Chose 
 will do no fighting. However, it's a very good position " 
 
 She frowned, drawing her thick brows nearly together. 
 
 " Poor fellow," she said, softly, " he was born for big 
 battles; I knew him years ago and I think he was the most 
 ambitious man I ever saw in my life. Then, his health 
 gave way. It is a great pity." 
 
 There was a short silence, after which with a slight effort, 
 she asked briskly, " And how is the fair Lady Alys? " 
 
 " Lovelier than ever, in spite of a sunburnt nose. Ah, 
 people may say what they like, but there are no women in 
 the world like Englishwomen! Other countries are nicer 
 than your foggy island, but the people, men and women, 
 are wonderful. Awf fully jolly 1 " 
 
 " Bravo, Lamartine."
 
 PAM DECIDES 109 
 
 He looked puzzled. " Lamartine? " 
 
 " Yes. You look exactly like him, in profile. I called 
 you Lamartine until I knew you ! " 
 
 She rose as she finished speaking. " It is getting late ; 
 will you go back with me ? " 
 
 He hesitated. " No, I cannot do that, I mean to 
 
 say " Slowly they walked towards the gate, and as 
 
 they reached the big square tomb of Richard Pendrell, he 
 stopped. 
 
 " Miss Yeoland," he said, gravely, " I love you. Will 
 you marry me?" 
 
 For a moment, in her overwhelming amazement, she stared 
 at him in stupid silence. He had taken off his hat and stood 
 before her, bareheaded, something indescribably chivalrous 
 in his attitude. 
 
 " You you cant love me," she stammered. 
 
 " I do. At first," he went on deliberately, " I did not 
 know what it was. And then, the evening you and Pilgrim 
 dined with me, I understood." 
 
 ' The preserver of the Life of King Charles the Second ' 
 horrid little wretch " she read on the tomb and reflected, 
 before she could answer. Then she said slowly, " I am 
 sorry, so very sorry, but I do not love you." 
 
 " I know that," he answered, " of course you do not ; but 
 you would later. I should be very good to you." 
 
 " No, no I never could. And, oh, I don't see how 
 you &ui ! I am so ugly ! " 
 
 " I admire beauty, but I love you," he answered gravely. 
 ** Will you marry me? "
 
 no PAM DECIDES 
 
 " Mr. de Lensky, I cannot. Please believe me at once. 
 I am very fond of you, indeed I am, but I cannot marry you." 
 Her voice in its painful sincerity was almost piteous. 
 
 " Do you love someone else? " 
 
 She looked into his face with wet eyes. " No. Not now. 
 But I did once, and I can never forget him. And I shall 
 never marry." 
 
 After a long pause Lensky laid his hat and stick on tht 
 tomb of the King's preserver, and took her hands in his. 
 
 " If you love no one now," he asked evenly, " may I try 
 again, later? " 
 
 " No, no. Please! I never could, never in the world. 
 But, oh, please," she added gripping his hands hard, " please 
 keep on being my friend." 
 
 He kissed her grimy gloves as though they had been those 
 of his sovereign, and then gently dropped her hands. 
 
 "I am always your friend," he said, simply, "always; 
 and I shall come to tea, if I may, on Monday." 
 
 The serene beauty of his face had never struck her so 
 forcibly as it did at this moment, as, after a formal bow he 
 hurried to his hansom and left her standing in the dusk, by 
 the old tomb.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 WHEN she had reached No. 43 and toiled up the dark 
 stairs, the door was opened by a little old man who, when he 
 saw her, nearly burst into tears, and whom she promptly 
 and warmly embraced. 
 
 "Cazzy! My dear old Cazzy! I never was so glad 
 to see anyone in my life. What are you doing in this wicked 
 metropolis, and how long are you going to stay? Tea, 
 Pilly, much tea, and ortolans and pistachio-nuts, let's be 
 extravagant and send Mildred out for a shilling seed-cake ! " 
 
 Pam flung her hat and jacket on to the sofa and still 
 chattering with delight, attacked the fire, whose subdued 
 glow was altogether unworthy of so great an occasion. The 
 old man wiped his eyes as he watched her. 
 
 "My dear Miss Pam, have you not been well? You 
 look thinner than the last time I saw you, and pale " 
 
 She laughed. " Older, Cazzy, that's all ! Age, and 
 Pilly's ways of going on. I shall be twenty-eight two weeks 
 from yesterday, and the bloom of youth has departed. Oh, 
 it is nice to see you again ! " 
 
 Old Cazalet, for many years her grandfather's steward, 
 and now serving, in the same capacity, the present Earl, 
 sat by the fire, nursing a gouty foot and watching the girl's 
 every movement with the pathetic delight of the old in the 
 young. 
 
 " How's Mrs. Hamp ? And Mary Rud ? And have any 
 
 ITI
 
 ii2 PAM DECIDES 
 
 more horrible improvements been made to the old house? 
 And was the ruin kept in order, and Grandfather's tablet 
 bright?" 
 
 The old man blew his nose again and again in the emo- 
 tions engendered by her faithful memories. 
 
 At last Mildred brought the cake, and tea was made, and 
 Pam had stopped bombarding him with questions. 
 
 " Oh, Miss Pam, how well I remember the day you came 
 to Monks' Yeoland! His Lordship was in his wheel-chair 
 on the terrace, and I pointed him out to you and then stood 
 and watched you go up to him, your monkey in your little 
 arms! And he loved you at first sight, just as I just as I 
 had known he would." 
 
 She nodded. " Yes. We understood each other at once. 
 And understanding is so much rarer than loving, Cazzy. 
 And to think that if you had not come to the Villa to look 
 up Mother, that time, I should never have known my G.F. ! " 
 
 The old man beamed. " Yes ; I have always been glad 
 of that. Ah, the Villa! Mr. and Mrs. Sacheverel so happy, 
 and oh, how beautiful she was! Do you remember the 
 picnic ? And Madame Ravoglia ? " 
 
 "Don't I remember, poor old Cazzy, and how I scandalised 
 you by reciting some poetry, and then you made up your 
 dear old mind to tell my grandfather about me, and to 
 persuade him to send for me How are the Cunning- 
 hams, Cazzy ? " 
 
 " The Rector died last July, and Mrs. Cunningham, poor 
 lady, went away, I don't know where. The new Rector 
 is quite young, and is named Blood. Such an unpleasant
 
 PAM DECIDES 113 
 
 name, I always think. Have you news of Lady Chesney, and 
 of Mr. Ratty?" 
 
 " Lady Chesney is much admired, I hear, and very well. 
 Ratty is also very well, though I doubt," she added, laugh- 
 ing, " if he is much admired. What a pudding of a boy he 
 was, wasn't he ? " 
 
 But Cazalet was not listening. He sat staring into the 
 fire, an excited smile on his big mouth. 
 
 "What's the matter, Cazzy? You have something on 
 your mind ! " 
 
 He gave a little jump. " No, no. Nothing at all. What 
 should I have on my mind ? " 
 
 Pilly had gone out with the tea-tray, so they were alone, 
 and Pam, after a solemn stare at him, burst out, " Cazzy, I 
 believe you've come up to town to be married! You show 
 every sign of a young man about to commit matrimony ! " 
 
 " Me ! Oh, my dear young lady," he protested, flushing 
 vividly, and then when she burst out laughing he joined her, 
 rubbing his wrinkled old hands together in delight. After 
 a while, when they had discussed Pam's latest story, (the 
 old man read them all, and was vastly proud of her literary 
 genius), he asked her suddenly, "Miss Pam, have you 
 plenty of money? " 
 
 " Why, Cazzy, what a silly question ! As if anyone ever 
 had plenty of money. Of course I haven't." 
 
 " No, but I mean," he pursued with a lack of tact un- 
 usual to him, " have you quite enough for the coming winter? 
 Enough to buy yourself new clothes? Hats with feathers, 
 and velvet cloaks I'
 
 2i 4 PAM DECIDES 
 
 "Cazzy!" She stared at him for a moment, seriously 
 wondering if he were going out of his mind. ' ' Hats with 
 feathers, and velvet cloaks, ' 
 
 The old man rose excitedly, wringing his hands together. 
 " Yes, and gold shoes, and silk petticoats, and while gloves, 
 and scents," he continued. " Oh, Pam, have you enough for 
 these things? " 
 
 Pam put her hand on his shoulder. " You are positively 
 lyrical, dear old man," she said gently, " but you must not 
 get so excited. No, I certainly have not money enough to 
 buy gold shoes, whatever they may be, but I have a roof 
 over my head, and enough to eat, and I am contented. But 
 what is the matter?" she cried, now really alarmed. For 
 from his coat-tail pocket he had produced a pair of diminutive 
 gilt-leather slippers with preposterously high heels, and 
 pressed them into her hands. 
 
 " Put them on," he gasped, " I bought them on my way. 
 Put them on." 
 
 Sitting down she took off her right shoe, and squeezing 
 her toes into the slipper, held up her foot. " They are much 
 too small, you see," she said, soothingly, " but I shall always 
 keep them " 
 
 Tears streaming down his face he was clawing and tearing 
 at his tightly-buttoned old best black coat. 
 
 " It's there, it's all there," he sobbed, handing her a large 
 
 sealed letter, " the hats and the petticoats and the scents " 
 
 She took the letter. 
 
 " Will you please explain to me very quietly what is 
 wrong? " She asked, her voice cold.
 
 "THEY ARE MUCH TOO SMALL, YOU SEE,' SHE 
 SAID, SOOTHINGLY"
 
 PAM DECIDES 115 
 
 Dashing his shaking hand across his eyes he answered. 
 " I beg your pardon. It is this : Mr. Burke has died, leaving 
 you four hundred pounds a year and a house in West- 
 minster." 
 
 For a moment the girl sat staring silently at the absurd 
 little shoe dangling on her toes. "Charnley Burke 
 dead - " 
 
 " Yes. The letter is from his lawyers, and encloses one 
 from himself to you. Four hundred pounds a year." 
 
 After a long pause, during which the old man rent the 
 silence by a long blast on his nose, she opened the letter that 
 confirmed the ridiculous fairy-story she was asked to believe. 
 
 " It is true, Cazzy," she said at length. 
 
 "Yes. I am sorry I behaved so foolishly, but I was 
 so very glad." 
 
 She did not answer. She was opening the enclosed 
 letter, addressed to her in the big, bold, rather clerkly hand 
 she remembered. 
 
 " Melbourne, August I," said the letter, " My dear 
 I have got Bright's disease and am going to die, so yoi 
 won't look on this one letter in the light of a broken promise, 
 Many men would have tried again, in my place, but I knew 
 that your no meant no, and so I never bothered you. 
 
 " By the time this letter reaches you I shall be dead, and 
 I am leaving you my house in Westminster, just behind the 
 Abbey, and enough money to run it comfortably. I hope 
 you will live in the house sometimes, at least. When you 
 do, look at the portrait in the panelling over the fire-pla^f
 
 n6 PAM DECIDES 
 
 in the oak hall, and you'll see why I bought it of young 
 Wantage, one night after dining there, a year or so after I 
 last saw you. 
 
 " I saw your father and mother in Japan, and they are as 
 happy as ever. Ah, my dear, if you could have loved me (as 
 I could have loved you) in the way they love each other! I 
 have knocked about a good bit since I saw you, and have had 
 some pretty good times, but I never forgot you (women 
 never realise how utterly apart a man's ' good times ' are 
 from his love!) and I can still see your dear, plain little 
 face. For I never thought you pretty, you know. Do you 
 remember chasing Caliban round the garden in Aix until 
 he got palpitations of the heart ? 
 
 " It's wonderful how clearly I remember every little inci- 
 dent connected with you, and every word you ever said to 
 me. Well, good-bye, Pam. I loved you then, and I love 
 you still, somehow. I beg your pardon for being so rude 
 to you that time in Peek's house, but I was jealous of him. 
 Think of me sometimes, if you don't mind. God bless you. 
 
 " CHARNLEY BURKE: '
 
 PART TWO 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 " OH, Pilly, I have passed it dozens of times on my way 
 to and from the Cloisters! In the summer poor children 
 dance to the hurdy-gurdies in front of it, I've seen them ! " 
 
 " And a nice row they make, too, I'll be bound," returned 
 Pilgrim, sourly. 
 
 Pam did not hear, for she was standing in a quiet back- 
 water of Westminster, just without the reach of the ceaseless 
 ebb and flow of traffic, gazing up at her house. Oh, the 
 wonder of it, the rapture, that she the houseless should have 
 a house, that she the derelict should have been towed tc 
 honourable harbour. 
 
 The dingy old yellow-brick edifice, stained and blackened 
 with two hundred years of London smoke, could not hav? 
 looked more beautiful to her had it been built of gold. 
 
 A vagrant leading a dog drifted into sight from t'ne 
 direction of Great Peter Street, and seeing the lady standing 
 in the little cul-de-sac gazing dreamily at the house that 
 blocked it, decided to try for a penny and was given a shilling. 
 Pam's thin face glowed with colour and happiness; she 
 would have given the poor houseless brother half-a-crown 
 but that she was afraid of Pilgrim. 
 
 " Thank yer, lidy, thank yer. I don't drink, neither." 
 
 "Don't you," asked Pam, absently, "why not?" Then 
 
 117
 
 u8 PAM DECIDES 
 
 seeing his reproving stare she burst out laughing and went 
 on to the broad green door under the once-white portico. 
 
 As she touched the bell a voice rang out in the pale sun- 
 shine, a voice so great, soft, and musical that the girl paused, 
 holding up her hand to Pilgrim, who was about to speak. 
 
 " Hush ! ' Oh, Lord, our God, Be thou our Guide ' 
 Pilly, it is Big Ben ringing us in ! " 
 
 " I can't abide bells myself," returned Pilgrim, " they 
 give me the 'eadache " 
 
 The door opened, and a shuffling old woman appeared in 
 the dusk of the interior. 
 
 "You are Mrs. Pounder? I am Miss Yeoland, come to 
 see the house." 
 
 Mrs. Pounder smiled, a probably forced smile, for hers 
 had been a sinecure, and its days were no doubt numbered. 
 
 " Good-morning, Miss, I'm sure. I thought you'd be 
 coming by the Chimes Lane door; Mr. Wantage allus did, 
 and Mr. Burke too." 
 
 Pam whose heart was beating in the most disconcerting 
 way, stood peering about the dark-panelled hall in which she 
 found herself. " But surely this is the front-door? " 
 
 Mrs. Pounder turned on a blaze of electric-light. " We 
 'as three front-doors, Miss," she returned with not un- 
 natural pride, and a smile that was pleasant but dark-grey, 
 owing to defective teeth ; " it used to be three 'ouses, they 
 say. This is the oak-'all, Miss." 
 
 Pam did not speak. She was looking up at the picture 
 that Burke had mentioned in his letter, and there was a 
 queer feeling in her throat.
 
 PAM DECIDES 119 
 
 A dark-faced girl, she was, this girl smiling down at her 
 from her place in the panelling over the high chimney-piece. 
 She wore a red kerchief over her rough black hair, and a 
 black bodice with white kerchief and sleeves, as if in some 
 delicate travesty of gypsydom. Pam saw the resemblance 
 to herself at once, though the other girl, the long-dead un- 
 known girl, was far prettier than she. There were the same 
 shadowy eyes, the same long, flexible red mouth, the same 
 carriage of the head. And he had bought the house for the 
 sake of the picture! 
 
 Her pity for him welled up into her eyes. He had been 
 so big, so burly, so strong, so nearly fat; his face had been 
 so red, his hands so broad ; his voice, with its frank Colonial 
 accent, so loud. He had loved her, but she had never 
 pitied him much, and when he had gone out of her life she 
 had never given him another thought ; yet he had remembered 
 her like this. 
 
 " There ain't been a moth in the house the 'ole time I've 
 been in it," remarked Mrs. Pounder at this point in the girl's 
 reflections. " It's hair I believe in ; nothing is so good as 
 hair." 
 
 " Hair? " Pam stared at her. " What kind of hair? " 
 
 " Fresh hair, Miss. Every week I've 'ad the windows 
 open, year in and year out " 
 
 " Oh," said Pam. 
 
 The hall was like the inside of an old oak chest, dark 
 and plain; on the walls hung some portraits, and a huge 
 Cordovan leather screen hid the entrance-door. There was 
 a low divan by this screen, and leather chairs!
 
 PAM DECIDES 
 
 "Pilly," cried Pam, "are you happy ? '' 
 
 "Very happy, Miss Pam," returned Pilgrim, looking 
 supremely miserable and aspirating the " h " malignantly. 
 
 Mrs. Pounder stood with her hands on her figure, watch- 
 ing her new owner with a. relieved eye. " Would you like 
 to see the dining-room, Miss?" 
 
 The dining-room lay opposite the door by which Pam had 
 entered her kingdom, and from it, turning at right angles 
 to the left, a narrow passage led to where, at its rectangular 
 junction with a wider one, another house-door led into the 
 street behind Little Cowley Street. 
 
 " This is the Chimes Lane door, Miss, the one we 
 usurly, I mean the one the gentlemen usurly used," ex- 
 plained Mrs. Pounder, unbarring and opening the door in 
 question. 
 
 Pam looked out into the narrow street on the opposite 
 side of which ran a high black wall. 
 
 " Chimes Lane, what a pretty name ! " 
 
 " Yes, but it's narrow. Now you see, Miss, this 'ere 
 passage goes back in a line with the dining-room, and then 
 you go up the steps to the left back into the 'all. Just a 
 square circle as you might say. Them embroideries, and the 
 Japanese pictures belonged to Mr. Wantage's grandmother. 
 Poor lady, it's a good thing she didn't know of the goings-on 
 that was agoin' to go on 'ere after 'er death ! " 
 
 Pam stood in the narrow black stair-case looking up into 
 the hall. "What kind of goings on?" 
 
 "Oh, Miss! 'E was very wild, poor Mr. Cyril; very 
 vild indeed."
 
 PAM DECIDES 121 
 
 Pam tried to look sufficiently shocked to satisfy the good 
 woman's expectations. " How very sad ! And so he had to 
 sell his house?" 
 
 " Yes, Miss." 
 
 " Now we'll go upstairs." 
 
 Oh, the joy of going up the narrow stair-case of one's own 
 house! The joy of exploring one's own drawing-room, with 
 its white walls up which flaunted, in broad stripes, preening 
 peacocks; its glass cupboards filled with long-hoarded 
 treasures of old china; its delicately brocaded, spindle-legged 
 chairs ; its pictures of powdered beaux and beauties, in dulled 
 gold frames. That all these most beautiful and lovable things 
 were hers Pam could not, and did not, thoroughly realise, 
 until she saw Pilgrim pinching and scratching the yellow 
 satin curtains with an unmistakable air of proprietorship. 
 
 " But how could Mr. Wantage sell the house just as it 
 stood," the girl asked, suddenly, as Pilgrim, satisfied with 
 the result of her investigations, dropped the curtain and 
 turned to her. " Was he the last of the family? " 
 
 " Well, you see, Miss, it was like this. They wasn't 
 a great family, not to say great. They was in the law, and 
 there wasn't no entail. And Mr. Cyril, 'e was the last 
 male. There was plenty of females, they allers is, but 
 the things was 'is, left 'im by 'is grandfather, 'is father dying 
 young. So when 'e, Mr. Cyril, wanted to sell, 'e just sold, 
 and nobody couldn't say a word. 'E was very wild " 
 
 "Is he still alive?" 
 
 "Oh, dear no, Miss. We all think Vs dead. Miss 
 'Onoria used to have letters, but 'e stopped writing long
 
 122 PAM DECIDES 
 
 ago. I do 'ope," the old woman added, " that 'e wasn't 
 scalped." 
 
 " Scalped ? Why should he have been ? " 
 
 " Well, Miss, I don't know, I'm sure. But 'e was in the 
 west of America in Chicago and sometimes of an evening 
 I get quite low thinkin' 'e might 'ave been scalped." 
 
 " It's getting on, Miss Pam," interrupted Pilgrim, who 
 had opened the door corresponding to the one leading to 
 the dining-room one on the floor below, "shall we go on?" 
 
 The door led to a little passage, and the passage into a 
 small white-panelled room as much like a box as was the 
 hall, only this was a white box. The mantel-piece was of 
 delicately carved white marble mellowed to cream-colour 
 with age. To the right and left of the fireplace deep-carved 
 cupboards, laden with rich-hued Crown Worcester china, 
 sunk into the wall, and over the low divan covered with a 
 piece of crimson Indian silk, hung quaint old prints repre- 
 senting hunting-scenes. Pam sat down on the divan and 
 drew a deep breath. It was the most delightful room she 
 had ever been in, and even in its desolation of empty years 
 there hung over it an atmosphere, an aroma, that she could 
 not express even mentally. 
 
 It was as if the gentle ghosts of long-since-dead inhab- 
 itants of the little room still hovered about it, and blessed 
 their blissful successor. 
 
 " Pilly," she said, " this shall be my own room ; my study 
 where I shall never study, my boudoir where I shall never 
 sulk, my ' morning-room ' where I shall spend my 
 evenings."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 A WEEK later Pam and Pilgrim, together with a cook 
 and a housemaid, were installed in the old house in West- 
 minster as comfortably as if they had all grown up together 
 in it. 
 
 Mrs. Pounder, depressed but sympathetic, had shuffled 
 away to her native place by the sea, where she was taking 
 a small house in which Pam had promised to sojourn for a 
 few weeks in the summer. 
 
 It seemed to Pam very brutal to turn the old woman out 
 of the house in which she had lived so long, but on investi- 
 gation it transpired that Mrs. Pounder's pay as caretaker 
 had been so good, and her manner of living so simple, that 
 she found herself at this crisis very fairly well-to-do, and 
 delighted at the prospect of returning to Bumblemouth, a 
 village that appeared from her lively descriptions to the 
 sympathetic Pam, to be a very Paradise on earth. 
 
 So on Monday morning Mrs. Pounder departed and 
 Pilgrim greedily picked up the reins of government. 
 
 The house was so congenial to Pam that in coming to it 
 she almost seemed to be returning home after a long 
 absence. 
 
 For days she did not go out, except once when the de- 
 lighted Duchess insisted on taking her to a shop and buying 
 some clothes for her, and spent her whole time in exploring
 
 i2 4 PAM DECIDES 
 
 every inch of her new kingdom, turning out drawers and 
 chests, burrowing in old trunks in the garret, even examin- 
 ing the dark, vaulted cellar, in which to her joy she found 
 some lonely old bottles of wine that had been forgotten 
 Heaven only knows how long. 
 
 And one rainy morning she found, stuffed into a hideous 
 old Chinese vase, made awful by great dragons galumphing 
 over it, a tight roll of Malines lace. 
 
 And oh, the joy of washing with one's own hands the 
 treasures one had found; of polishing bits of dilapidated 
 silver; of joining with almost sacrilegiously modern Secco- 
 tine the long-divided body and handle of a Dutch jug; or 
 with one's own slow and clumsy needle mending the isnts 
 in a lovely piece of ancient church embroidery! 
 
 Covered with dust, excited and warm, Pam passed her 
 days in these blissful occupations, and one morning as she 
 was sitting perched on a ladder tenderly dusting the picture 
 over the mantel-piece in the Oak-Hall, Pilgrim appeared 
 from the short stairs leading to the Chimes Lane door, and 
 announced in a proud voice, '* Lady Chesney." 
 
 Pam turned and waited for her cousin to sweep into 
 daylight. " Hullo, Evelyn ! " she said. 
 
 Lady Chesney, a large, beautiful person, the apotheosis 
 of a poetically typical milkmaid, stood, all white and gold 
 and blue, staring up into the room through a long gold 
 lorgnon. 
 
 "Where are you?" she asked. "Oh, how like you 1C 
 receive guests on a ladder!" 
 
 Pam came down, laughing. " I didn't receive you, my
 
 PAM DECIDES 125 
 
 good girl; you just came! I'm glad to see you, Evy, and if 
 I weren't covered with dust I'd kiss you. Sit down." 
 
 Evelyn did so, but continued to look round the room with 
 civil curiosity. " I say, Pam, it's a quaint old place, isn't 
 it? Poor old Burke, how nice of him to give it to you, 
 wasn't it? I suppose he was in love with you, wasn't he? " 
 
 " It is, and it was, and it's none of your business, to an- 
 swer all your questions in orderly sequence. How splendid 
 you are, Evelyn. I never thought you'd be so good-looking." 
 
 Lady Chesney blushed with pleasure, and her blush was 
 one of her best assets. She was an amiable, stupid young 
 woman, who after a suppressed existence with a narrow and 
 tyrannical husband, had been more surprised than anyone 
 when her two years of mourning being over, she emerged 
 into the glory and eclat of beautydom. 
 
 "You look very nice, too," she returned, a little timidly, 
 for having always got on Pam's nerves, she was a trifle 
 afraid of her outspoken cousin. 
 
 " I always was beautiful, though," Pam said solemnly, 
 " so it's no surprise." 
 
 Evelyn smiled politely. 
 
 There was a short pause, during which Pam asked herself 
 what there was lacking in her, that admiring beauty as she 
 did, the radiant Evelyn already bored her, whereas Lensky 
 was known to be devoted to the blooming young widow 
 although he had frankly declared her to be stupid. 
 
 " You never answered my letter," Lady Chesney began 
 presently. 
 
 " No, I didn't have time. Who told you about this ? "
 
 126 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " De Rattrec. I believe old Cazalet told him. Pam, you 
 don't look well. Have you been ill ? " 
 
 "No; I'm all right." 
 
 " And you must get some decent clothes. That skirt is 
 absurd." 
 
 Evelyn's voice grew firmer, for she was sure of her ground 
 here, and enjoyed the sensation. 
 
 " Nice skirt," returned Pam, carelessly, " and very dear. 
 Cost twelve shillings! " Pam thoroughly understood, and 
 enjoyed, Evelyn's standpoint, and the inferior position she 
 herself occupied as an elderly, unbeautiful maiden, in her 
 cousin's eyes. 
 
 Lady Chesney raised her eyebrows, a new trick that she 
 had picked up from one of her friends. " Twelve shillings ! 
 My dear Pam. Well, will you dine and go and hear La 
 Boheme with me to-morrow?" 
 
 Pam rubbed her nose thoughtfully, leaving a black mark 
 on that undistinguished feature. " H'm! have me some time 
 when no opera's on, instead." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Well, I don't like music, you know, and then, I am 
 a dreadfully unsociable bird, and the thought of meeting 
 people terrifies my timid soul " 
 
 " Nonsense, your soul isn't a bit timid ! " 
 
 " It is. It's like an oyster, shy and retiring in its shell, 
 to say nothing of the pearl in it. Who are dining with 
 you?" 
 
 Evelyn blushed again, her peach-like face turned away. 
 
 "Well, Ratty, I mean de Rattrec, and Dolly Hetley,
 
 PAM DECIDES 127 
 
 and Tony Hetley and a man you don't know; a man 
 named de Lensky. All very nice people whom you ought 
 to know." 
 
 Now during Pam's long years of social annihilation, 
 Evelyn, though on the rare occasions of their meeting she 
 had been kind and cordial to her cousin, and offered her 
 tete-a-tete meals and even money, there had been from her 
 no remarks about people whom Pam ought to know. And 
 Pam, of course, remembered this, but quite without resent- 
 ment. Sir George Chesney had never approved of her, but 
 he would have helped her to live if she had been willing 
 to take help from him, and Evelyn had more than once 
 urgently pressed her cousin to take if not his, then at least 
 some of her own money. So Pam realised that they had 
 both treated her, as the world goes, uncommonly well, and 
 understood most clearly that Evelyn's present attitude was 
 natural and not at all to be objected to. 
 
 But whereas the old Duchess would any day have picked 
 Pam, dusty or muddy, up in her carriage no matter who 
 might at the moment be sharing it with her, and borne the 
 girl home in triumph, Evelyn would, if chance had brought 
 them together in the presence of other people, have been 
 ashamed of her cousin, and, if possible, would have avoided 
 speaking to her. 
 
 And because of the characteristic differences that lay at 
 the root of these two potential lines of action, rather than 
 the potential lines of action themselves, Pam loved the 
 Duchess and looked on Evelyn with a sort of benevolent 
 indifference.
 
 128 PAM DECIDES 
 
 "Will you come?" urged Lady Chesney, a little anx- 
 iously, " I have been thinking about it all, about how we 
 shall have to manage " 
 
 " Manage what ? " 
 
 " I mean socially. You see you disappeared so completely, 
 I daresay most people think you are dead " 
 
 " Most people don't know I ever lived. I was always 
 beautifully obscure " 
 
 " You know whaj I mean. And now you have this 
 really very nice little house you'll of course have to " 
 
 "To resurrect?" Pam frowned, and rising began to 
 prowl about the room, her hands behind her back, her head 
 bent. Until now all these things had not occurred to her. 
 Subconsciously, as she washed her china treasures and 
 mended her old pieces of embroidery, she had pictured the 
 future as very much resembling the past, but for the 
 blazoned facts of the house and what seemed to her plenty 
 of money. 
 
 She saw herself and Pilly living on alone, going to an 
 occasional play, enjoying a holiday every summer. She 
 would as usual take long tramps, spend mornings in picture- 
 galleries, and amuse herself in helping substantially those 
 of her friends to whom hitherto she had been able to give 
 only immaterial aid. 
 
 And now it appeared that hordes of people were going to 
 descend on her, wrecking her solitude, disturbing her habits, 
 jarring against the shyness that half unknown to herself 
 had grown up like a delicate shell between her and the rest 
 of the world.
 
 PAM DECIDES 129 
 
 " I am very poor, really, for the likes of you," she pleaded 
 feebly. " I can't give dinners and things " 
 
 Evelyn nodded with solemn importance. " Of course you 
 can't, he might just as well have made it five hundred 
 but you can enjoy life again, and you see I can chaperon 
 you." 
 
 Pam's frown disappeared and she turned to her cousin 
 with a laugh. " Ha-ha! I see now, you artful thing! You 
 want me to chaperon you. I understand that every smart 
 young matron needs a respectable-looking girl to take about 
 with her, nowadays! And you think I would answer the 
 purpose for you! Well, I won't. I won't be gooseberry, 
 and I won't go to three-cornered dinners and luncheons. I 
 am old and crusty and intend to spend my declining years 
 au coin du feu with a book ! " 
 
 " How horrid of you, Pam. You are just the same nasty 
 tease you used to be. And you are unjust. I thought you'd 
 be glad to have a good time again, and I wanted to help 
 you." Evelyn's blue eyes were wet with vexation, and Pam 
 relented. " All right, Evy, I'll come to-morrow. What 
 time?" 
 
 " Seven. And don't mention that you've been in town 
 always, will you? " 
 
 " Not unless I'm asked. I'll come late, and you tell 'em 
 all first that I'm just out of a private lunatic asylum, so 
 they'll avoid the delicate subject of my past. How's 
 Ratty?" 
 
 " He's very well. I call him de Rattrec now. Then you 
 won't tell about that place ? "
 
 130 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " Bloomsbury is certainly infinitely more respectable than 
 Great Peter Street ! " 
 
 " Oh dear," wailed Lady Chesney forlornly, " Ratty said 
 you'd behave like that ! " 
 
 " Did he tell you of our last cosy chat together? " 
 
 " Yes, he did, and I must say I think you behaved abom- 
 inably. However, he won't bother you any more. He is 
 really in love now, such a sweet girl, Dolly Hetley, a 
 great friend of mine." 
 
 " Oh, really? I am glad, Evy. Give him my love, will 
 you?" 
 
 * ^ }ien Lady Chesney had gone, Pam went upstairs and 
 sought out Pilgrim. 
 
 " Pilly," she said, " prepare purple and fine linen for me, 
 and myrtle to bind my brows, I am dining out to- 
 morrow ! " 
 
 " Well ! I am glad, Pam. The new black dress will be 
 just the thing." 
 
 " No, I must be very fine. Mr. de Lensky is to be 
 there and I want to dazzle him. I shall wear the pink one 
 the Duchess chose for me ! "
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 LADY CHESNEVS was one of those downy, silky, 
 dusky, drawing-rooms that have of late years become so 
 common in London. 
 
 One's feet sank into the rugs, one's body into the chairs, 
 one's eyes were met on all sides with pictures of languorous 
 drowsy women and children. 
 
 By day, filmy lace curtains behind the silk ones kept out 
 the light, and at night the room was rosily crepuscular under 
 the subdued glow of the dull electric bulbs. 
 
 Evelyn's favourite flower, tall white lilies, grew in brass 
 pots and spread on the air a thick scent that, mingled with 
 the more pungent odour of some oriental powder that she 
 strewed on her wood-fire, had a curiously enervating effect 
 on one's brain and disposed one to great physical lethargy 
 as well. When Pam, outwardly calm but inwardly quiver- 
 ing with excitement, entered this room on Wednesday even- 
 ing, she found that she was indeed, as she had jokingly 
 threatened to be, the last of the guests to arrive. 
 
 Evelyn stood by the fire, a little silver shovel in her hand, 
 digging from an inlaid box held to her by a tall man with a 
 very bald head, some brownish powder. 
 
 " Oh, Pam," she cried, coming forward, handing the 
 shovel to the man, " I was afraid you had understood half- 
 past seven " Kissing her cousin, Lady Chesney intro- 
 duced her to a dark woman dressed in flame-colour, who was
 
 132 PAM DECIDES 
 
 sitting on the sofa with Lensky, adding as she emptied her 
 shovel into the fire, producing thereby a loud spluttering 
 and smoke, and an almost overpoweringly strong scent, 
 something like that of incense, " and Mr. de Lensky and 
 Mr. Hetley " 
 
 The two men bowed, and rising from a corner where he 
 was sitting with a girl with a green and gold wreath in her 
 hair, Ratty came lumbering not without dignity towards the 
 newcomer. 
 
 "How d'you, Ratty?" 
 
 " H' are you, Pam." 
 
 It was all like a dream to the girl ; the informal going in 
 to dinner, the beautiful table, the flowers, the shaded lights. 
 It was so long since she had taken such things as a pleasant 
 matter of course. 
 
 She sat, as there was one man too few, between Evelyn 
 and Bob Hetley, the bald-headed man, whose chief charac- 
 teristic appeared to be an appalling stammer over which 
 everyone made merry, and opposite Lensky, whom she had 
 not seen since she left Huntley Street. 
 
 It was nine years since she had had on a low frock, and 
 she felt not embarrassed, but a little cold. It seemed to her, 
 too, that while Evelyn's milky shoulders were a joy to be- 
 hold, and Lady Alys Compton's jewels covered a multitude 
 of sins, the displayal of her own brownish bony structure 
 could add but little to the joy of the occasion. 
 
 For a long time she sat in silence listening to the chatter 
 of the othersj and studying her neighbours. 
 
 Ratty's devotion to little Miss Hetley was unmistakable,
 
 PAM DECIDES 133 
 
 but it amused Pam to see that the fat youth was not above 
 displaying it a trifle ostentatiously for her benefit, and that 
 he cast an occasional glance at her, in search of the pique 
 believed by the stronger sex to be felt by every woman in 
 the circumstances. 
 
 Miss Hetley was pink and soft, with a shrewd grey eye s 
 that looked with evident favour on her large admirer. 
 
 Lady Alys, the woman in the vermilion gauze frock, 
 nervous, dark, fine-featured, something like an East Indian 
 in type, watched Lensky furtively, but he had eyes for no 
 one but Evelyn, who looked like a big Mermet rose-bud in 
 her white frock. 
 
 Pam felt very old, as she watched her cousin and the little 
 Hetley girl. Evelyn looked not a day more than five-and- 
 twenty, though she was in reality Pam's senior by about 
 two years, and Dolly Hetley, if she lived to be a hundred, 
 would never grow to be other than a wrinkled old child, 
 whereas she, Pam, knew herself to bear ineffaceable signs of 
 her years of poverty and inferior food. 
 
 She had, too, forgotten the very language of these people. 
 They named names she had never heard, used slang phrases 
 she did not understand. 
 
 The dinner was excellent, and Pam being hungry and 
 still unused to table-luxuries, ate hers with great enjoyment; 
 her curious agitation gradually dying away and leaving 
 her inwardly as tranquil as she had looked from the be- 
 ginning. 
 
 " Have you heard La Boheme this year?" asked Lensky 
 suddenly, for the first time speaking to her.
 
 I 3 4 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " I have never heard it." 
 
 " My cousin is not a bit musical," laughed Evelyn. " As 
 a child she used to say it made her want to howl, like a 
 dog." 
 
 " Your rag-time p-p-p-performances would about 
 p-p-please her, then, Lensky," suggested Mr. Hetley ex- 
 plosively. 
 
 " What is rag-time? " 
 
 Hetley set down his glass " Syn-syn-syn " he began, 
 
 and Ratty burst into a great unlovely guffaw, 
 
 " We'll forgive you your sins, Tony," he cried, delighted 
 with his joke, " if you promise never to do it again ! " 
 
 " -copated dance-music, M-Miss Yeoland," pursued Het- 
 ley tranquilly, " is called rag-time. And Mr. de Lensky 
 is great at it, aren't you, Jack ? " 
 
 Lensky smiled without speaking, but Pam knew that 
 he did not give of his best music to everyone, as he had 
 to her. 
 
 Then he turned again to Evelyn, and a devotional smile 
 just stirring his beautiful mouth, leaned towards her, so 
 much nearer than any other man in the world could have 
 leaned without being obnoxious, and resumed his inter- 
 rupted conversation with her. 
 
 When dinner was over and the men had come into the 
 drawing-room there was a hurried donning of wraps and 
 dividing up for the drive to the opera. 
 
 " I'll take Dolly and Mr. de Lensky," said Evelyn to 
 Lady Alys, "and will you take Tony and Pam? My 
 brother is going in a hansom."
 
 PAM DECIDES 135 
 
 But Lady Alys returned between two puffs of her 1 cigar- 
 ette, " Thank you, my dear. I've had as much as I can 
 stand of Tony for one evening. You may have him, and 
 Jack will come with me. I have a very important secret 
 to tell him, too." 
 
 Evelyn flushed and bit her lip. " Very well, just as 
 you like. Will you go, then, Pam, and Mr. de Lensky, 
 with Lady Alys?" 
 
 Lensky who had stood smoking and apparently hearing 
 nothing of the discussion, threw away his cigarette and put 
 the two women into the roomy electric brougham, jumping 
 in after them. Pam was much amused. 
 
 As the carriage flew through the shafts of light that lie 
 like isolated patches of sunshine on the dark London streets, 
 she could see Lensky's face as he peered into Lady Alys' 
 and his expression was every bit as passionately admiring 
 as it had been half-an-hour before, when he gazed at 
 Evelyn. 
 
 " Do you speak German, Miss Yeoland ? " asked Lady 
 Alys suddenly. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Then, you won't mind my telling Mr. de Lensky 
 something in that hideous tongue, not my secret, but about 
 
 a third person " But Pam knew what " warum " 
 
 meant, and it was the burden of the song. Why, and why, 
 and again why? 
 
 And that Lensky was annoyed she could see by his slight 
 frown, and the shortness of his answers. 
 
 When they reached Covent Garden and they were going
 
 136 PAM DECIDES 
 
 up stairs, Lady Alys stopped to pick up her skirts and 
 Lensky and Pam were for a moment out of earshot. 
 
 " I have so wanted to see you," he said hurriedly, " may 
 I come to-morrow ? " 
 
 She turned and smiled at him. " Yes, do," she answered, 
 " I want to show you my house."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 DURING the performance of the beautiful little opera 
 Pam sat quietly in her place and laid plans for the future. 
 The music was to her merely a not unpleasant humming 
 accompaniment to her very important reflections, and Mimi, 
 Rodolfo and the rest of the actors disturbed her hardly at all. 
 
 It was pleasant in the box, pleasant to watch Evelyn as 
 she listened in dreamy delight to the familiar music; pleas- 
 ant even to study the other woman's dark face as she sulked 
 with the serenely oblivious Lensky, pleasant to observe the 
 progress of Ratty's so convenient and well-timed love-mak- 
 ing, but it was still better to decide that she herself would, 
 in the future, frequent but rarely her cousin's over-scented 
 house, that being so used to solitude she needed it, and 
 would continue to enjoy it. 
 
 " I shall be eccentric," she told herself, watching placidly 
 while Rodolfo recounted to Marcello the heart-breaking tale 
 of Mimi's illness, what time that unfortunate mome listens 
 from behind a snow-laden tree, " and then I can enjoy 
 life. I couldn't stand much of this kind of thing. I won- 
 der what these two poor dears would say if they knew 
 that the object of their rivalry wants to marry me! Wanted 
 to, rather, though. He doesn't look particularly ravaged, 
 I must say! Perhaps he's glad now he sees how ugly I look 
 in evening-dress! Although it could hardly have been my 
 beauty that beguiled him in the first place. 
 
 137
 
 138 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " Well, va pour la vie de foyer! I'm glad I have made 
 up my mind. It's been like a jelly-fish ever since I began 
 to think about all this. The Duchess will let me go to her 
 when I get lonely and want to be with people, and Evy, 
 who really isn't so bad, will ask me to dine occasionally, 
 but Pilly and I will stick to each other and I'll eat most of 
 my dinners at home. By the way, I'm going to get some 
 oysters lots of oysters, and eat till I drop " 
 
 At this point the curtain went down on the beautiful 
 duet between the reconciled lovers, and the house burst 
 into applause: Lensky did not move. Lady Alys spoke to 
 him and he did not hear. Evelyn turned towards him and 
 he did not see. His eyes were full of tears. 
 
 Pam watched him with a motherly longing to hide his 
 emotion from these people who would not understand it, 
 but Lady Alys burst out laughing. " Look at our Jacky 
 boy! Wazzums tender heart broken over the woes of a 
 wretched little cocotte!" 
 
 He wiped his eyes and put in his glass. " Oh, you poor 
 English who never feel music. You think you hear it with 
 your ears, but you don't," he answered, his slight accent 
 stronger than Pam had ever heard it, " you don't know what 
 loving it means." 
 
 For a moment the cosmopolitan in him was gone ; he was 
 the son of a susceptible Slavic race, frank in his emotion- 
 ality, facing a handful of phlegmatic islanders, scorning 
 them for their limitations. 
 
 Lady Alys shrugged her shoulders, and took up her 
 glass, while Evelyn shook hands with some men who had
 
 PAM DECIDES 139 
 
 come in, and after a moment Lensky went out, appearing a 
 moment later in an opposite box, where he sat chattering 
 French with the wife of the French Ambassador. 
 
 " Queer chap, Lensky," observed one of the newcomers, 
 " they say he speaks eleven tongues." 
 
 " He has been weeping over our friend Mimi," returned 
 Lady Alys, carelessly, "he is a sentimental little wretch. 
 Nerves, I dare say." 
 
 " Not he! I've seen him lose 5,000 without moving a 
 muscle of his face. And he's the best pistol-shot in town. 
 He's the hardest little beggar I know! " 
 
 " Then I must say I can't understand his getting so on 
 edge over this stuff! If it were Wagner now," commented 
 Lady Alys, who went to Bayreuth religiously and knew 
 nothing whatever about music. 
 
 Pam turned. " It's simply that he enjoys music and is 
 not ashamed of showing his feelings," she said. " Surely 
 that is perfectly understandable? He is absolutely unaf' 
 fected and natural, and therefore he is misunderstood ! " 
 
 Lady Alys stared. 
 
 "Is it! You seem to be very sure about it, though we 
 have known him for years " 
 
 Pam laughed. " I was brought up abroad and have seen 
 more than one brave man cry over music." 
 
 The man who had made the remark about Lensky's pis- 
 tol-shooting nodded solemnly. "Yes, he's brave enough. 
 Jack is. Queer little chap in some ways, but he's all 
 there " 
 
 Lensky came back a few moments later and wept again
 
 I 4 o PAM DECIDES 
 
 when Mimi died, and Lady Alys, apparently deciding to 
 change her tactics, wiped her own perfectly dry eyes and 
 murmured that it was too exquisite. 
 
 As they were leaving the box it was decided that they 
 should all go to her house and see what kind of a supper 
 they could get, and Pam very sleepy, and longing to get 
 home, found herself a little later sitting on a low chair by s, 
 fire with Bill Compton, while Lady Alys, Lensky, Evelyn 
 and Hetley were busy with a " chafing-dish " in the next 
 room. 
 
 Bill Compton had been drinking, and as usual, when 
 in that condition, was very confidential. 
 
 He told Pam that he liked her, that he trusted her, that 
 he knew the minute he set eyes on her that she was a good 
 sort. Then he added, fixing her with a watery stare, " that 
 chap Lesky Lensky is making love to my wife, and I'm 
 going to stop it, by Gad ! " 
 
 "How?" asked Pam. 
 
 This question he found worthy of the profoundest atten- 
 tion, and then, after a reflective pause, answered that all 
 women were beasts, and the Wentworth women the worst 
 of the lot. 
 
 " Poor's a rat when I married her," he continued, " and 
 look at her now ! And look at the way I treat her. I mean, 
 the way she treats me! He'll get sick of her, though." 
 Judging by her own observations that evening, Pam thought 
 this contingency an extremely likely one, but she did not 
 say so. " She's crazy about him," he resumed, while she 
 suppressed a yawn. " Not that I'm accusing her of any-
 
 PAM DECIDES 141 
 
 thing, you understand," with drunken dignity, " it's just 
 foolin', but it's disgustin' foolin'." 
 
 " It's only a manner," consoled Pam, her eyelids falling 
 over her eyes, " just a sort of modern mannerism." 
 
 Mr. Compton took her hand. " You're a sensible woman, 
 Mrs. Mrs. sensiblest woman I've seen for a long 
 
 time " At this point Lady Alys called them to supper 
 
 and Pam escaped, to her great relief. 
 
 Never, in all her years of poverty and loneliness, had she 
 been so bored as she was at that supper. Evelyn was dull, 
 Lady Alys, in the triumph of Lensky's renewed devotion, 
 noisy and silly, Ratty and his Dolly oblivious of everyone 
 and everything but themselves, and Bill Compton, as he 
 grew drunker, growing more embarrassing. It was a ghastly 
 meal to which no one brought even an appetite, and when 
 at two o'clock the depressing and depressed party broke up 
 with loud thanks for an awfully jolly evening, Pam, whom 
 Evelyn dropped in Westminster, vowed a vow to herself 
 that she would never again allow herself to be so bored. 
 
 " Pilgrim," she said, as the old woman who had heard 
 the carriage, helped her undress, " the world has changed 
 since my young days I"
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 LENSKY came to tea the next day, and Pam took him 
 all over the house, showing each individual treasure, and 
 listening with respect to his edicts regarding the china in 
 the cupboards, for he was, as he put it with one of his 
 quaint outbursts of slang, rather long on china. . 
 
 And to her delight she learned that she possessed some 
 Lowestoft, and some very good eld Chelsea, as well as the 
 bedragoned Crown Worcester that even her uneducated eye 
 had recognised. 
 
 " This teapot," he told her gravely, holding it in his hand 
 and bending his sleek head over it until he looked as though 
 he were about to kiss it, " is delicious. I have seen only a 
 little of this rose-colour. It is quite one of the most beauti- 
 ful bits I know." 
 
 Pam took it. "Do you really like it so much?" she 
 asked. 
 
 He flushed with enthusiasm. "But I tell you I know it 
 is good! Old Chelsea is my hobby. It is a wonderful 
 piece ! " 
 
 They went back into the white study and sat down, Pam 
 nursing the teapot in her arms. They had had tea, and the 
 fire glowed cosily. 
 
 " I have so often thought of having you here," she began 
 abruptly, and then paused, distressed by her own tactless- 
 
 142
 
 IT IS A WONDERFUL PIECE!
 
 PAM DECIDES 143 
 
 ness, but he apparently had not noticed it. Leaning forward, 
 his elbows on his knees, he smiled. 
 
 " How good of you! And I am so glad to come; I hope 
 you will let me come often ? " 
 
 She had rather dreaded his first visit to her here, fearing 
 the effect of her charming surroundings, but he seemed to 
 have entirely forgotten the episode in St. Giles' Churchyard. 
 There was neither the least embarrassment nor the least 
 sadness in his manner, so that she too was quite comfortable, 
 and began to feel that she might be as fond of him as she 
 liked, without danger of hurting him. 
 
 " Do come often. I'll tell you a secret. I was bored 
 to death last night." 
 
 "Were you?" 
 
 " Yes. I didn't mind the dinner and the opera, but it 
 was too awful at Lady Alys' ! " 
 
 He laughed. " Was it ? I am such a frivolous little 
 wretch, I suppose, I enjoyed it, rather." 
 
 " Did you enjoy the Honourable Bill? " 
 
 "Well, no; Bill is rather awful. But I hate going to 
 bed, and like fooling about with a lot of pretty women." 
 
 " I like pretty women, too ; but I'd like 'em better if they 
 didn't talk. The truth is, I'm old" 
 
 " How old are you? " 
 
 " Eight-and-twenty last week. By the way, how old are 
 you?" 
 
 " Guess." 
 
 For a moment she reflected, studying his smooth face as 
 he looked serenely at her. " Twenty-nine ? "
 
 144 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " I am thirty-four. I don't look it, do I ? Though 
 Heaven knows I haven't taken care of myself in any 
 way." 
 
 Pam was astounded. He really looked remarkably 
 young. 
 
 " It's your eyes," she announced, after a moment's 
 thought. 
 
 "My eyes?" 
 
 " Yes. You have no lines round them, and then " 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 " Well, they look good. Oh, I know you're not good, 
 that is, I know you are no saint, but your eyes haven't 
 got that horrid, swollen, fast look " 
 
 Lensky rarely laughed aloud, but he did now, and for the 
 first time she saw his teeth, small, and even, and white, with 
 one or two specks of gold. " Oh, you are funny," he 
 cried, "so funny! So I am not a saint, and yet I haven't 
 swollen eyes? I am glad. But who has been telling you 
 that I am a rake and a gambler?" 
 
 She shook her head. " A large, wise bird. Is it true ? " 
 
 Quite suddenly his face was grave. " Yes," he returned, 
 " it is true, but you must not like me the less. I do nothing 
 for which I must blush " 
 
 It was Pam who blushed. " Oh, I beg your pardon," she 
 cried, rising and standing before him, the rosy teapot held 
 to her breast, " I don't know what possessed me to say such 
 a thing! I like you more than anyone on earth except 
 don't laugh, Pilgrim, and I don't care a button what you 
 do, I shall always like you and always be your friend."
 
 PAM DECIDES 145 
 
 He rose and took her hand. " Thank you, Miss Yeoland. 
 I am very grateful, and very proud." 
 
 " Then, take the teapot as a a ratification of our 
 treaty, will you? I have wanted to give you some little 
 thing as a sort of souvenir. You don't know, you have no 
 idea, what your friendship meant to me when I was so alone. 
 I was not unhappy, you know, but I was lonely, and you 
 came, and didn't mind my living in that awful house, or 
 my clothes, or anything, and please don't say no," she 
 urged, pressing the teapot into his hands, " it will make me 
 so happy to know you have it." As she finished speaking the 
 door opened and the Duchess appeared. 
 
 "Jack! You here!" 
 
 Pam flew at the old lady, who, very mountainous in her 
 velvet and furs, could hardly get into the tiny room, and 
 kissed her. 
 
 Then Lensky, the teapot in his hand, approached and 
 kissed her glove. " I knew you two would like each other," 
 laughed the Duchess, " but I didn't expect to find you here 
 yet. What are you doing with that teapot, Lensky ? " 
 
 Pam shot a quick glance at him, and he answered quietly, 
 setting it down on the table, " It is mine, Duchess. Do you 
 like Chelsea?" 
 
 But the Duchess was full of a grand scheme for taking 
 Pam to a reception the next afternoon, and then home to 
 dine at her house. 
 
 " The Pockington's are coming, and Henry is crazy to 
 see you. He was always a great admirer of yours! Then 
 I've asked Evelyn and the Fat Boy, as cousins, and the Fat
 
 146 PAM DECIDES 
 
 Boy's Hetley girl, and one of the Japs, a very intelligent 
 little man, a marquis or something, in his own country," she 
 added, with insular condescension, " and several others. I 
 was so annoyed with Evelyn for getting you first, for you 
 were always ' my girl,' as children say, and I wanted to 
 have you under my wing. Can you come, Lensky ? " 
 
 The old lady had lived abroad at one period of her not 
 uneventful life, and called Continental men by their family 
 names, in the Continental fashion. 
 
 " I am very sorry, Duchess " 
 
 Pam sat quite still. The net was closing round her. Poor 
 and unbeautiful though she was, she knew that she would 
 not pass unobserved; and introduced to people by the most 
 popular Duchess in Great Britain, she was bound to be 
 invited to all kinds of things at all kinds of houses. 
 
 For one despairing moment she longed for the obscurity 
 of Huntley Street, and then summoning up her courage, 
 she answered, " Dear Duchess, I have lived alone for so 
 long, please let me come and lunch alone with you. I am 
 a savage, I sat as mute as a fish last night at Evy's, and 
 bored them all to death, didn't I, Mr. de Lensky?" 
 
 "Yes, you must have bored Lensky horribly; that's why 
 he has called the day after he met you! Nonsense, Pam. 
 You may do as you like afterwards, but you must dine with 
 me to-morrow." 
 
 " Very well." 
 
 "You promise?" 
 
 " I promise." 
 
 A moment later Lensky took his leave, carrying the tea-
 
 PAM DECIDES 147 
 
 pot, to which he made no further reference, and the old 
 lady sat over half-an-hour talking about him. 
 
 " They say Alys Compton is Tiaking a perfect fool of 
 herself over him. Was she there last night ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Of course. She and Evelyn used to be great friends, 
 and now that they are rivals Madame Evy doesn't dare 
 drop her! How did he behave?" 
 
 Pam laughed. " He seems to enjoy homage." 
 
 " He does, I dare say. They all do. But I am glad 
 that you and he like each other. I like him far the best of 
 all the young men about town." 
 
 When she rose to go, and Pam was hooking her sable 
 coat, the Duchess remarked casually, " Henny will be glad 
 to see you again, my dear, and so will James." 
 
 "James!" 
 
 " Yes. He wasn't coming, to the dinner to-morrow, I 
 mean, but when I told him you were coming he at once 
 asked permission to change his mind. He said he saw you 
 at the opera last night, and that you had changed so little 
 he expected to see the monkey pop up beside you." 
 
 When she was quite alone Pam sat down on the old bear- 
 skin by the fire and gave herself up to thought.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 IT is very unusual that in an hour of stress and indecision 
 a woman has literally no one to whom she can turn for 
 advice, and this was Pam's condition now as she faced her 
 problem. Beside Pilgrim, her only two friends were the 
 Duchess and de Lensky, and even if she had had the habit 
 of counsel-seeking, she would not have consulted either of 
 them. 
 
 And it is a curious fact that while, in her years of strug- 
 gle she had never missed the counsellor she might have had, 
 now, in her prosperity, when things were going so well 
 with her, she felt a vague longing to tell someone her 
 trouble, and to abide blindly by that someone's decision. In 
 two words her situation was this. If she refused, after hav- 
 ing promised, to go to the Duchess' dinner she would un- 
 doubtedly offend, and not improbably alienate the old lady's 
 long-suffering affection for her, whereas if she went she 
 must renew her acquaintance with James Peele, the man 
 whom, more than anyone in the whole world, she most 
 wished to avoid. 
 
 After her solitary dinner the girl called Pilgrim and they 
 went for an hour's drive in a hansom. 
 
 Pam loved the crowded evening streets, the lights, the 
 bustle, the glimpses of people in evening dress on their way 
 to the play. And the deft swiftness of the hansom suited her 
 
 148
 
 PAM DECIDES 149 
 
 thoroughly. She could think and plan far better when 
 moving than when sitting still, and as formerly she had 
 gone for long walks when she had some tangle in her brain, 
 she now often went hansoming. 
 
 To-night, however, she found no inspiration in the easy 
 movement. Try as she would she could discern no way 
 out of her dilemma, and she sat back in her corner frown- 
 ing hard as the horse threaded his impertinent way through 
 the crowds of Piccadilly. 
 
 It seemed to her that she had but a choice of evils; that 
 she must either offend the dear old Duchess or open for 
 herself the door to a way full of pain and trouble. She no 
 longer loved James Peele, but she had so loved him that 
 the scars had never really healed, and still hurt and throbbed 
 under the least pressure. 
 
 After going to his house and seeing his child she had been 
 miserable for weeks, and she knew that if brought face t) 
 face with the man himself, if his cold eyes should look again 
 with that peculiar softening, into hers, the old memories 
 would rise up from their long sleep as keenly alive as ever. 
 And the girl had suffered much, and wished to be happy. 
 She had refused Lensky without a moment's hesitation be- 
 cause, with a self-knowledge very rare in a woman, she 
 knew that she bore Peele's mark and would bear it to her 
 grave. She had never seen the man since that early morn- 
 ing in Cornwall when she had bidden him good-bye and gsne 
 her lonely way into the unknown, but she remembered his 
 face with an appalling distinctness, and feared it as she 
 feared nothing else in the world.
 
 150 PAM DECIDES 
 
 And if she went to the dinner she must see it again> the 
 keen, thin face with its grey eyes that looked so hard, and 
 that she, and, she instinctively knew, she alone, had seen 
 soften with tenderness and burn with passion. 
 
 " I do not love him now," she told herself sincerely, " but 
 if I saw him again I should love him again, and I should 
 rather die than do that. But what can I do? Oh, if I 
 could only be ill." 
 
 Her mind was so intensely concentrated on the dilemma 
 of the moment that she did not realise that even if she 
 could devise some means of evading the dinner the next 
 evening it would be but a postponement of the moment she 
 dreaded. 
 
 Bue she felt, for all her distress, absolutely well, and to 
 feign an illness did not occur to her. 
 
 And when, at about ten o'clock she went to bed it was 
 with the consciousness that she would lie awake for hours. 
 The fire-light danced on the white panelling and painted 
 queer shadows on the ceiling; from time to time Big Ben 
 sang a fragment or the whole of his prayer; the old house 
 was perfectly still, and without fear Pam told herself that 
 now was the time when the little gentle ghosts of its old 
 inhabitants no doubt stole quietly about the passages and 
 sat on the chairs they had loved during their lives. 
 
 And Peele? Must she see him? Must she, after all these 
 years, walk of her own accord into the danger that his pres- 
 ence meant to her? 
 
 Could she not find some way out? If she wrote to him 
 and asked him frankly not to go to the dinner?
 
 PAM DECIDES 151 
 
 But Pride forbade that. 
 
 If she told the Duchess that she did not wish to see him? 
 But the Duchess would ask questions, and understand more 
 than she was told. 
 
 In her baldachined bed with the be-starred silk curtains 
 Pam tossed and turned, too warm one minute, too cold the 
 next, miserable, undecided, helpless. 
 
 At last, as Big Ben told her that it was two o'clock, she 
 rose, and putting on a dressing-gown and slippers crept 
 down the dark stairs towards the study. She would get a 
 book and read herself to sleep. 
 
 The ashes in the fireplace in the study were still warm, 
 she saw, when she had taken " Tommy and Grizel " from 
 the table. One stick would make a fire! 
 
 So kneeling, a little grey ghost, on the rug, she worked 
 until a wee flame was fighting its way into life, and then, 
 her mind back with her problem, knelt on, forgetting where 
 she was. 
 
 A sudden stealthy sound caused her to turn, and with a 
 little scream she fell back. A man stood in the door looking 
 at her. " D-don't be afraid," he said, hurriedly, " I am not 
 a burglar." 
 
 "Then what are you doing here?" she whispered, her 
 throat dry, as she rose, drawing her dressing-gown closer 
 together. 
 
 " Well, I am a burglar, then, that is, but I'll go." 
 
 He was a tall, thin man, still under thirty, apparently; 
 his clothes were wretchedly ragged, his boots broken, his 
 chin dark with a young beard.
 
 152 PAM DECIDES 
 
 Pam looked at him and fear left her. " What do you 
 want? " she asked. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. " Anything that will sell for 
 a few pounds. Don't be frightened. I haven't taken any- 
 thing - " 
 
 " I am not frightened. You you are a gentleman." 
 
 " I used to be one; yes. Now I'm a vagabond." 
 
 " Are you hungry ? " 
 
 "Yes. but - ," 
 
 " Well, there's a jug of milk and some Plasmon biscuits 
 on that table behind you. Help yourself." 
 
 The man stared. " Would you mind telling me who you 
 are? And what's become of old Mother Pounder?" 
 
 " I own this house ; my name is Yeoland. Mrs. Pounder 
 has gone." As she spoke, it suddenly occurred to her that 
 her visitor must be the man who had sold the house to 
 Burke. 
 
 " You are Cyril Wantage? " she asked, quietly. 
 
 " No. My name is Smith." But his flush had betrayed 
 him. 
 
 "Drink that milk then, will you? And listen to me. 
 This house was left to me by Mr. Burke, when he 
 
 "Old Burke dead?" 
 " Yes." 
 
 Wantage took some milk and drank it. 
 " You must have been pretty badly off to get to this 
 pitch," she went on. "I have been very poor myself; so
 
 PAM DECIDES 153 
 
 poor that I've had to pawn things, and I know something 
 about poverty and I will help you." 
 
 " This is a queer way to receive a burglar." 
 
 He appeared to be an irrepressibly light-hearted rascal, 
 this whilom gentleman, for he was no longer embarrassed, 
 but had sat down and was eating biscuits with relish. This 
 mental attitude was more or less explained by the bony 
 structure of his brow and jaw. 
 
 " You haven't burgled. And I know who you are. 
 Mrs. Pounder told me about you." 
 
 "You you won't tell old Pounder, will you?" 
 
 " No. Now, you are very poor, I see. Will you tell 
 me about things ? " 
 
 " Yes. May I sit by the fire? I've been in a cold sweat 
 ever since I got in, by the way, your parlour-maid ought 
 to get the sack. She's been out until a few minutes ago, and 
 stood talking for nearly an hour with her young man at the 
 Chimes Lane door; that's how I got in, slipped past them. 
 Well, as a matter of fact I didn't come to really burgle, 
 but to take one or two things of my own that I forgot 
 and left when I sold the place to old Burke." 
 
 "You sold the house, as it stood, to him," commented 
 Pam, drily. 
 
 " Yes, but there were one or two things that my mother 
 gave me and that I thought I'd get and sell." 
 
 "What are they?" 
 
 " Well " Mr. Wantage finished the milk, turned the 
 
 jug regretfully upside down over his glass, "there was a
 
 154 PAM DECIDES 
 
 set of ivory chessmen, an ugly old tea-pot, and some other 
 things." 
 
 Evidently relieved beyond all reason by the reception he 
 had met with, he told his story, whitewashing himself more 
 to himself than to his hostess. " I told Burke at the time 
 that I'd want these things some day, but when I had the 
 money I forgot all about 'em, so you see they really are 
 mine." 
 
 " I'll take your word for that. But why didn't you come 
 and ask for them. " 
 
 " Well, you see, I've gone down in the world a good 
 deal, and I didn't like to see old Pounder; she'd have told 
 my aunt. I suppose," he added with what he evidently 
 believed to be an engaging candour, " I was ashamed. I 
 didn't intend to break in here, when I came out to-night; 
 I just walked past the house, it's a habit I've got and 
 when the chance came, I seized it. You are very good to 
 take it so quietly, and I'm glad I didn't take the things. 
 I'd have been sorry to-morrow, I suppose. But I give you 
 my word the things are mine, and I did tell old Burke about 
 'em perhaps you'd let me have 'em? You see, I've been 
 without work for weeks, and my wife's ill." 
 
 Pam's heart contracted with pity, not for this light- 
 hearted young scoundrel, but for his wife. 
 
 " You have a wife ? " 
 
 His face grew serious. " I have an angel of a wife," he 
 said, with a certain dignity. " She's a lady the daughter of 
 a clergyman in America, and when I got so bad and they 
 offered to take her back, she refused. She's got 'Consump-
 
 PAM DECIDES 155 
 
 tion, and is dying for lack of the things I can't get for her. 
 Even when I try to steal for her," he added with a grace- 
 less but somehow pathetic grin, " I seem to fail." 
 
 Pam, who had sat down, rose. 
 
 " I have given away the teapot," she said, " but I'll have 
 it valued and give you the money. I will also see what I 
 can do to help your wife. You must go now, but if 
 you give me your address, I'll come to see her early to-mor- 
 row morning." 
 
 "Will you, really? It is good of you. Poor Mary. I 
 have tried to work, honour bright I have, but I'm an all- 
 round failure, you see " 
 
 " Yes," returned Pam, with a not unkindly laugh, " I 
 do see! And I am awfully sorry for her. What's the 
 address?" 
 
 " No. 7 Snow Street, just off Smith Street." 
 
 She wrote the address on a bit of paper, and then, opening 
 a drawer took from it a sovereign and gave it to him. 
 
 ' ' On account,' " she said, to spare his feelings. But he 
 only laughed. " This ought to make a good short story, 
 oughtn't it?" 
 
 She let him out into the raw night, and then went back 
 to bed.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 SNOW Street seemed, in its muddiness, its dinginess, and 
 above all in the uncandid air of its swarming inhabitants, 
 curiously ill-named. Pam, attired in one of her oldest skirts 
 and jackets, and a hat at which her house-maid had stared 
 in scornful surprise, reached No. 7 at about half-past nine 
 on the morning after her interview with Wantage. 
 
 Her problem about the Duchess' dinner was still un- 
 solved, but in turning her whole attention to the question 
 of being of use to the unfortunate woman who had married 
 the irresponsible Mr. Wantage she had found the kind of 
 relief experienced by a person with an indigestion who sud- 
 denly changes his diet. 
 
 It was quite possible that Wantage, under the pressure of 
 his debts, had left many things in the house that he would, 
 on reflection, have kept, and it seemed to Pam as she went 
 up the filthy stairs of No. 7 that these things, or their equiva- 
 lent, ought in common justice to be given to him. He lived, 
 he had said, on the third floor of the house, and after knock- 
 ing twice at the wrong door, she found the room. 
 
 It was a sickening place in which to find a lady. Beyond 
 the bed, two chairs, and a table, there was no furniture, and 
 the dirty floor was not even whole. Pam had been in worse 
 rooms, but their inhabitants had been very different from 
 the girl in the bed.
 
 PAM DECIDES 157 
 
 "You are Mrs. Wantage?" she asked, a knot In her 
 throat. 
 
 " Yes. And you are the lady who has Cyril's old 
 home. He told me that he had been to see you." 
 
 Pam drew a chair to the bedside. She was not a born 
 nurse, and if her life had been the ordinary one of well- 
 bred girls she would doubtless have had a decided dislike for 
 sick people and sickrooms. But she had learned through 
 seeing suffering, to have a very poignant and active pity for 
 it, and as she took in hers the hot hand held out to her, she 
 slipped her left arm under the sick woman's head and turned 
 her pillow. 
 
 "Oh, thank you!" 
 
 Mrs. Wantage smiled gratefully at her, but it was the 
 smile of an equal, and Pam realised with a pang of relief 
 that Cyril Wantage had not lied. His wife was a lady. 
 
 And full-grown, perfect in every detail, Pam's plan sprung 
 from her astonished brain to her lips. 
 
 " Your husband left a lot of his things in the house when 
 he sold it," she said, sitting down, " so I owe him a good 
 deal of money. Rather pleasant for you, isn't it, though hard 
 on me! Now the first thing to be done is to get you out of 
 this, and I have a grand idea. Will it bore you to listen to 
 a letter I received this morning ? " 
 
 " Oh, of course not " 
 
 " * Dear Miss Yeoland,' " read Pam, taking the letter from 
 her pocket, " ' I write to tell you that I am very well, and 
 nicely settled in the house, which is very comfortable. I have
 
 158 PAM DECIDES 
 
 three large rooms for lodgers and shall be so glad when sum- 
 mer comes and you come. I thank you very much for the 
 carpet you gave me. It is very useful. It is very warm 
 here, and two of my rooms look out over the sea. I hope 
 you are well and am yours respectfully, 
 
 " ' MARTHA POUNDER.' 
 
 "This Mrs. Pounder was your husband's housekeeper, 
 and then Mr. Burke's caretaker. I couldn't keep her, so she 
 has gone back to her native village, and as you see wants 
 lodgers. Now Mrs. Wantage, I'm going to take you down 
 to Bumblemouth this very day. Will you come? " 
 
 Mary Wantage cried for a long time, but hers were the 
 kind of tears that hurt neither the shedder nor the beholder, 
 and when her husband came in a few minutes later with the 
 breakfast he had gone out to buy, he found her partly 
 dressed and sitting on the bed while Pam combed her long, 
 fine hair. 
 
 Irreclaimably happy-go-lucky and weak though he was, 
 and convinced though Pam felt that, if she had not caught 
 him the night before, he would have helped himself to any 
 of her possessions that he might have fancied, it was evident 
 that he was really devoted to, and appreciative of his wife. 
 
 His eyes filled with tears as Pam gave a bald outline of 
 her plan, and then when he had built up the fire and bor- 
 rowed a kettle from a neighbour, he made tea and sitting 
 on the bed fed it by spoonsful to the invalid, in the tenderest 
 manner. 
 
 " You must get some better clothes, and some boots," re-
 
 PAM DECIDES 159 
 
 marked Pam after a while, "and when you have got them 
 on, go to my house and ask to see my maid, Pilgrim. I'll 
 write her a note if you have any paper." 
 
 The note, asking Pilgrim to give to the bearer a certain 
 jacket and hat of her mistress', being written, and some 
 money having been transferred from Pam's pocket to 
 Wantage's, he departed, and the two women were again 
 alone. 
 
 " He is so good to me, you have no idea," began his wife, 
 with a certain air almost of pride. " And things have gone 
 so badly! He has been out of work for months, and the 
 worse his clothes got, of course the less chance he had of 
 finding anything to do." 
 
 "What can he do?" 
 
 "Well, he writes a beautiful hand (he can't keep ac- 
 counts), and he was in a shop in Victoria Street for a while, 
 but he made mistakes. Then he tried being waiter in a 
 restaurant, poor boy, but someone was rude to him and he 
 left. He is the best natured man in the world, but he is 
 sensitive and it's always harder for a gentleman to be- 
 come a common man than for a common man to become a 
 gentleman." 
 
 Pam thought that she understood. She knew too much 
 of human nature, young though she was, to entertain any 
 hopes of reforming the former owner of her house. He was, 
 she saw, a kindly, not unintelligent youth with a gentle 
 manner and a merry heart who could never do more than 
 drift with the stream. If his stream had been the placid one 
 of even comparative affluence, his career might have been
 
 160 PAM DECIDES 
 
 an apparently successful one, but the turbulent waters of 
 poverty had wrecked him, for he was rudderless and without 
 a compass. 
 
 When he came back, dressed in a cheap suit of dark blue 
 clothes with a collar and a tie, his chin cleared of the dis- 
 figuring stubble, she took her leave, and an hour later, having 
 sent a note to the Duchess explaining that she was leaving 
 town with a sick friend, she stopped in a four-wheeler at No. 
 7 Snow Street, picked up her proteges, and passing her own 
 door and adding Pilgrim to the party, told the cabby to go 
 to Victoria Station. 
 
 She had, for the moment, evaded the annoyances that had 
 threatened to beset her, and this thought lent a keener edge 
 to her pleasure in helping the poor little girl around whom 
 she held her arm, to support her when the terrible coughing 
 fits came. 
 
 " Pilly," she said, as they reached the station, " do you 
 remember how Father used to call our wanderings ' Pilgrim's 
 Progress ' ? "
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A WEEK had passed, and Pam was still at Mrs. Pounder's 
 in Bumblemouth. 
 
 The village, straggling and world-forgotten, lay near the 
 centre of a cosily encircling crescent whose seaward-stretch- 
 ing arms formed a barrier against the east wind. Seen from 
 the downs over which one drove from the station, it looked 
 like a clumsily sprawling spider with many legs and only 
 three feet the feet being small clusters of cottages that had 
 withdrawn themselves from that great centre of life, Bum- 
 blemouth proper, and formed themselves into settlements 
 under the names of Little, South, and East Bumblemouth. 
 Mrs. Pounder, she was a born Scuddle, and the Scuddles 
 are of the best local blood had rented a house in Little 
 Bumblemouth; a small but comfortable cottage near the 
 Church and therefore highly desirable for lodgers. 
 
 About two miles away some big London doctor had built 
 a sanatorium and, there being no satisfactory inn within easy 
 distance of it, friends of the inmates, and friends of those 
 friends who were desirous of cheap sea air, quartered them- 
 selves on the villagers, a profitable arrangement for every- 
 body, so that the place was now beginning to be known as 
 an excellent substitute for more expensive ones farther south. 
 
 Mrs. Pounder's joy over her first batch of lodgers was 
 great. Mr. Cyril, who after long being, in her imagination, 
 
 161
 
 1 62 PAM DECIDES 
 
 dead and buried, now turned up buoyant and full of jokes, 
 was to her something between a god and a delightfully wild 
 young man; and his wife, poor gentle little Mary, only 
 second to him. 
 
 Pam, not belonging to the family, was of course inferior 
 to them both, but, in her character of open-handed capitalist, 
 and the beneficent goddess who had whisked the adored ones 
 hither in her car, also greatly to be considered. 
 
 Her curious habits surprised but did not greatly trouble 
 the philosophical Mrs. Pounder, who rinding that when Miss 
 Yeoland was late for her meals she consumed without pro- 
 test their leathery remains and never asked for the usual 
 omelette, came to the conclusion that though obviously not 
 quite sane, the young lady had her good points beside that 
 of reuniting faithful old servants and their long-lost masters. 
 
 Mary Wantage lay day after day on the sofa near her 
 window, her hollow eyes half-closed, her husband reading 
 aloud or talking to her. And he, when he was tired of sitting 
 still used to go and chat with the old fishermen on the 
 quay. They all swore by him after the first day, and learn 
 ing from Mrs. Pounder something of what he himself called 
 his hard-luck story, looked on the unconscious Pam mort 
 or less as the cuckoo in the nest. 
 
 " You'll have to work, you know," Pam said to him, one 
 day, when he had joined her on her way home from a 
 walk, " I am poor myself and can't support you." 
 
 "Of course! I've been answering a lot of 'ads' this 
 morning. The trouble is I am such an ignorant beggar! I 
 couldn't add up a column to save my life, and that seems to
 
 PAM DECIDES 163 
 
 be the way the greater part of Britain's youth earns its 
 bread and cheese." 
 
 " There are other ways, however, and bread and cheese 
 
 is necessary 
 
 Pam, her hands in her pockets, walked very fast; her 
 , cheeks were pink with the sea-wind. 
 
 Wantage laughed, a gentle, chuckling laugh. * I don't 
 like bread, either; and I loath cheese. Isn't it shocking?" 
 
 He looked very well after his week of comfortable fare; 
 his unforceful face was pleasant and shrewd and apparently 
 without a care behind it. 
 
 Did he remember, Pam wondered, that eight days before 
 he had feloniously entered her house with Intent to steal, and 
 been caught by her? 
 
 " I was talking to the doctor an hour ago," she began again 
 as he whistled " Pansy Faces," " and he says Mary must not 
 think of going back to town before the spring." 
 
 "Yes, he told me, too. Poor old Pounder will be glad, 
 won't she?" 
 
 " Yes. But poor old Pounder must be paid," observed 
 Pam drily. She could not help enjoying this cheerful dere- 
 lict, but he annoyed her. 
 
 " Paid ? Of course she must." 
 
 " But who is going to pay her, you or I ? " 
 
 He burst out laughing and taking a cigarette from his 
 pocket, paused to light it. " I may smoke ? Well, upon my 
 word, Miss Yeoland, as things are at present, I I am afraid 
 you are ! " 
 
 Pam raised her eyes and looked into his pleasant facf
 
 164 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " Look here, Cyril," she said, speaking to him as she had 
 done from the first, as though she was much his senior, in- 
 stead of two years his junior. " I have just four hundred 
 pounds a year, and that house to keep on it. I can't and I 
 won't support you." 
 
 Not in the least offended, he nodded. " Of course not, 
 of course not," he murmured, soothingly, " I've got to work. 
 I hate it, but I mean to do it. Don't think I'm not grateful 
 to you, for I am. You've been an angel to us. The 
 trouble is that I insist on looking on myself as a gentleman, 
 and that you, although you struggle against it, can't help 
 regarding me as a burglar. Well, I may be wrong, but 
 you certainly are. My coming into your house was merely 
 an impulse, you must remember, and I had been drinking. 
 Oh, I wasn't drunk, as you know, but I had had enough 
 to think I really had a right to go in and take the 
 things that really do belong to me. I'm not a thief, Miss 
 Yeoland." 
 
 Pam was puzzled. 
 
 " Let's not talk about that," she said, " it makes me un- 
 comfortable even if it doesn't you! I only wanted to tell 
 you this. I'll pay your wife's room and so on, and her doctor, 
 until the spring, but you must get work and look after your- 
 self and see about making some kind of a home for her say 
 in April. And you mustn't forget the baby? " 
 
 " Of course I shan't forget the baby! And you'll be god- 
 mother, won't you?" 
 
 " Yes. I have promised Mary. And do please buck up 
 as you say and realise that by April you must have at least
 
 PAM DECIDES 165 
 
 a room for her. She absolutely refuses to to stay down 
 here. She wants you to be with her of course." 
 
 " Of course. And if I fail in getting work, when April 
 comes you'll let her starve ! " He laughed softly and waggled 
 his head comically at her. "Oh, you hard-hearted person! 
 Well, I'll go back to Babylon and see what I can do. Will 
 you lend me ten pounds to go on with? " 
 
 Pam had anticipated this request and was prepared with 
 her answer. " No, I'll not. I'll never lend you a penny," 
 she answered severely, " and I will not give you the china 
 and things to sell. I believe that they are yours, but you are 
 such a such a goose, that you need a guardian, and for 
 Mary's sake I'm going to be that guardian! I'll give you 
 five pounds now, and when you have got some work, I'll 
 give you a week-end ticket down here every fortnight. And 
 I'll not give you one penny more. Understand ? " 
 
 He understood, and appeared to be outrageously cheerful 
 in the prospect. 
 
 He was altogether a preposterous person, and the girl 
 knew that he could in the nature of things never be much 
 better, but her heart invariably softened to him when she 
 saw him with his wife, for he loved her and cared for hei 
 with the tenderness of a gentle woman, and her belief in him 
 was so great that when they talked together of the future 
 he gained a very pathetic kind of transitory dignity that 
 made Pam miserable. 
 
 After ten days or so he left Bumblemouth for London, 
 where he was to see one or two people who had by the means 
 of the press expressed needs that he might be hoped to fill,
 
 1 66 PAM DECIDES 
 
 and after seeing his departure (with two roast fowls and a 
 huge plum cake, gifts of the sorrowing Pounder, in his 
 portmanteau), Pam left his wife and the landlady to talk 
 over his excellent qualities together, and went for a walk. 
 
 She too must soon return to town, and as yet her future 
 looked chaotic. The time had come when she must definitely 
 make up her mind. 
 
 The Wantages had occupied that mind for many days, 
 and had thus been a boon to her, but now she must dismiss 
 them and open the doors to the question of her future man- 
 ner of life. 
 
 Should she decide to live as an eccentric elderly girl, 
 accepting no invitations to houses where she might meet 
 James Peele, cribbing and confining herself out of fear of 
 him? Or should she take the bull by the horns and boldly 
 go to the Duchess's, where she would certainly meet him, and 
 trust her own common sense to carry her through the ordeal ? 
 
 As she walked over the downs towards the southern tip 
 of the crescent within which Bumblemouth lay, she asked 
 herself these questions over and over again. 
 
 She did not love James Peele, she declared, but she had 
 loved him; she had never, even in the most visionary way, 
 loved another man, and she still feared his power over her. 
 
 Years ago, when almost a child, she had been shrewd 
 enough to see the man as he really was, and, at the last, to 
 despise him, and now she understood even more fully the 
 extent of his impulsive baseness in the crucial moment to 
 which her own folly had paved the way, and he had so 
 cruelly failed her.
 
 PAM DECIDES 167 
 
 Half of the time she had lived had passed since then, and 
 she had not wasted it in idle dreaming. For weeks at a 
 time, she had not given him a thought, and his memory had 
 grown less and less poignant until she had believed herself 
 to have almost forgotten him. 
 
 Then her visit to his house had roused in her the old 
 fear of seeing him, and now she must decide what was best 
 for her to do. If only there was someone who could advise 
 her! Never before in her life had she so longed to sink he- 
 own will in another's. 
 
 Having reached the end of her walk she was staring at 
 the tumbling grey waves before her. " I never could make 
 anyone believe that I don't love him," she thought despon- 
 dently, " and yet God knows I don't. I wish, oh, I 
 wish " 
 
 As she turned to go back she found herself, as she had 
 found herself that day in St. Giles' Churchyard, face to face 
 with de Lensky. 
 
 " Oh, I am so glad to see you," she cried, feeling at the 
 sight of his placid face as if all her troubles were over. " So 
 glad ! " He seemed such a refuge from worry, so above all 
 mental see-sawing, so strong and sane and serene, that she 
 clung to his hand with both hers and drew a deep breath of 
 relief, the chill sun lighting wee warm lamps in her eyes. 
 " How did you know where I was? " 
 
 " I asked the Duchess. I am going to Poland to-morrow, 
 on business, and I wanted to ^ee you first. What is the 
 matter?" 
 
 " Nothing, everything. But I can't talk about it," she
 
 1 68 PAM DECIDES 
 
 answered hurriedly, the reticence of years binding her 
 tongue. 
 
 He stood still, looking close into her face. 
 
 " You are bothered," he said, " and things are going 
 wrong. Why don't you marry me and let me take care of 
 you?" 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 " Yes. Look here ; you like me so much that you would 
 soon learn to Icve me, for you love no one else." 
 
 She was silent for a moment, and then said slowly, " It is 
 that that is worrying me. I don't love him; I give you my 
 word I don't, but I did love him, and I am afraid." 
 
 " Afraid of what, my dear? " 
 
 " Of seeing him. What if I should again ? " 
 
 " I see. Do you like him? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Do you respect him ? " 
 
 " No. But he he charmed me, his eyes, his manner 
 and if I live in London I shall have to see him " 
 
 Lensky took her two hands in his. " Marry me," he said. 
 
 " But " 
 
 " I accept all the buts, and all the risks. Marry me." 
 
 " If if you don't love me very much," she answered, 
 " I might ; but if you did, it would be dreadful." 
 
 "Would it?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 He smiled tenderly at her. " Do you think that I love 
 you too much ? Does my emotionality bore you ? " 
 
 She burst out laughing. " No, no ! "
 
 PAM DECIDES 169 
 
 " Then marry me. But first, listen. I have been, as you 
 know, a gambler; I have wasted most of my patrimony; 
 I have done many things that I could not tell you; I have 
 also drunk." 
 
 " And you want me to marry a gambler, a roue and a 
 drunkard ? " 
 
 " No," he answered, very softly, his face suffused with 
 an innocent, rosy blush, " I want you to marry a man who 
 will never again touch a card, do an unworthy thing, or 
 drink a drop more than is good for him." 
 
 Here was strength, and peace, and rest. 
 
 Pam looked at him, meeting his earnest eyes. " Then 
 I have told you all about it," she said slowly, " and if you 
 still do really want me, I will."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 AT four o'clock that afternoon, having accompanied 
 Lensky to the station and then lunched with poor lonely 
 Mary Wantage, Pam was sitting on one of a flight of steps 
 roughly cut into the cliff leading to the most eastward bit 
 of beach in the neighbourhood. 
 
 The wind had gone down, and a pale film of sunlight 
 lay on the grey waters on which the girl's unseeing eyes 
 rested. 
 
 She sat very still, her bare hands with loose-curled fin- 
 gers on her knees. 
 
 For hours her surprise at having promised to marry 
 Lensky was more than equalled by the strange uplifting of 
 spirit contingent on that decision. She so thoroughly liked 
 the man, he was so congenial to her, and her admiration for 
 him so unqualified, that she had felt that she had, after long 
 buffetings by wind and rain, reached home at last. Life 
 looked simple and pleasant to her, and things that only yes- 
 terday seemed serious troubles, had now dwindled into petty 
 worries that could not live in his presence. 
 
 And as she walked out to this lonely place her happiness 
 almost attained the height of prayer. 
 
 But now, quite deliberately she sat and called back to her 
 mind all the things she had for years tried to banish from 
 it. Old scenes, old phrases, old joys and old pains. From 
 the very beginning she recalled her acquaintance with Ttune.s
 
 PAM DECIDES 171 
 
 Peele, and with a curious conscientiousness, tried to weigh 
 the whole matter in the scales of justice. For the last time, 
 she was contemplating the memory of dead things, and she 
 wished to be most fair in every thought. 
 
 At last, with a deep sigh she said aloud, " It was really 
 chiefly my own fault, and he did no more than act accord- 
 ing to his own nature. And now, good-bye. I will never, 
 so long as I live, again think about it. And I will be happy. 
 Ghosts," she continued mentally, " haunt only empty rooms, 
 and now my rooms will be filled." 
 
 With a sigh of relief she changed her position, and clasp- 
 ing her knees, her thoughts hurried along the pleasant path 
 in which she had set them. On and on they flew, like a 
 flock of birds, and a soft crimson flush came to her cheeks as 
 suddenly she found herself face to face with a cradle. She 
 was, whether or not altogether, a wife-woman, essentially a 
 mother-woman, and her eyes were wet as she thought with 
 a little shiver in her breast " I hope we'll have four or five 
 all boys but one, and she will be the littlest, so that they 
 may learn to be tender and chivalrous like him." 
 
 It was a pity that Lensky could not see her face then. 
 1 ' And of his porte as meke as is mayde,' " she repeated, 
 aloud ; " ' my very parfit gentil knight ! ' ' 
 
 She was so happy as she sat there, and so grateful to this 
 man who made her so, that she began planning all kinds of 
 littlp comforts for him. 
 
 They would live in her house, and the Oak Hall with the 
 Little Cowley Street door should be his. Only he should 
 have a key to this door, and the hall should be his study.
 
 172 PAM DECIDES 
 
 Loving liberty as she did, she had the most unfeminine 
 respect for the liberty of others, and his should be boundless. 
 She would live in the White Study, joined to his room by 
 the narrow passage with a door at each end. And upstairs, 
 behind her bedroom, the long room with two windows, 
 there the fast-accumulating cradles and little beds should 
 stand. 
 
 And with him she would be so gentle, so unselfish. He 
 liked society, and he should have it ; he enjoyed his clubs, and 
 she would encourage him to go to them ; he loved music, and 
 she would go with him to operas and concerts, or make him go 
 with people who better appreciated the beauties to which her 
 ears were deaf. He should smoke everywhere; cedar-lined 
 boxes of little Russian cigarettes should stand in every room, 
 and large, sensible ash-trays. 
 
 And when he had headaches, as she knew he occasionally 
 did, she would soothe away the pain with her finger-tips. 
 
 A quick frown passed over her heavy brows at this thought, 
 for long ago, in an old-fashioned garden in Derbyshire, she 
 had thus soothed pain from James Peele's head. 
 
 But the image of the man her just standard of moral 
 measurement had long since rejected as undersized died 
 quickly away, giving place to that of him who, she thought, 
 as she rose and went up the ladder-like steps, loved ' chyvalrie, 
 trouthe and honour, fredom and courtesie.' 
 
 And the feeling that Lensky gave her, a feeling of peace, 
 mirth, and something best to be described as mental cosiness, 
 stayed with her, lending fleetness to her feet and lightness 
 to her heart.
 
 PAM DECIDES 173 
 
 " Pilly," she cried, coming into her room where the old 
 woman sat knitting by the lamp, " guess what has 
 happened ? " 
 
 Pilly did not answer, but her scarlet gloss of countenance 
 and purpleness of nose proving her to have been crying, Pam 
 went on, severely, " Pilly, you have been howling. Well, 
 I suppose you felt teary, but now you must feel laughy. I 
 have the most wonderful news for you, dear! " 
 
 "You needn't bother to tell me, Pam," returned the 
 afflicted one, with a loud sniff; " I know. 'E came 'ere first, 
 and it was me told 'im where to find you." 
 
 Pam, in spite of her intimate knowledge of the intricacies 
 of Pilgrim's nature, was dumbfounded. 
 
 " Well, but aren't you glad? " she cried. " Why, Pilly, 
 you have been hoping it since the first time he came to Hunt- 
 ley Street, you know you have, and scheming, too, in your 
 nefarious old way." 
 
 Rushing at the old woman, she hugged her vigorously, and 
 then sat down on the lap that, however bony it may have 
 been, had always been to her a refuge. 
 
 " Don't spoil it all by being weepy, will you, Pilly? " she 
 coaxed. " I am so happy ! And you know you hated my 
 being an old maid. Come, buck up, like a dear, and wish me 
 joy. You know you like him ! " 
 
 Pilgrim kissed her. 
 
 " I do, indeed I do, Pam, but it comes hard to lose 
 you after all these years." 
 
 " But you're not losing me, goose ! " 
 
 After a few minutes she succeeded in comforting the old
 
 i 7 4 PAM DECIDES 
 
 woman, and sent her down stairs full of maternal pride in 
 her nursling's new dignity. 
 
 Pam sat down by the fire. Pilgrim, she knew, had known 
 something about Peele, but they had never talked the matter 
 over. The girl would have liked to tell the faithful servant 
 who had mothered her so long that that ghost was now for- 
 ever laid, but the reticence born in her and encouraged by 
 the nature of her life still sealed her lips. 
 
 " When she sees that I am really happy," she decided, 
 " she'll know." 
 
 Just then Mrs. Pounder came in with a telegram, and 
 Pam sat for a moment staring blankly at the orange-coloured 
 envelope. What if he had changed his mind, and she was 
 not to be happy after all ? 
 
 Then, with a laugh at her own absurdity, she tore open 
 the wire and read it. "To be operated to-morrow; Hen- 
 rietta suddenly ill; unable to come. Please come. Eliza 
 Wight."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 REACHING London at about five the next morning, Pam 
 
 went home, and tumbling into bed, slept until Pilgrim 
 
 awakened her at half-past eight. 
 
 " There's a letter, Miss Pam, and 'ere's your tea." 
 Pam sat up in bed, and tearing open the letter read it, 
 
 while she hastily swallowed her matutinal draught. 
 
 " MY DEAR PAM I received your wire last night, but am 
 very sorry I can't come to you this morning before I leave, 
 for not knowing that you were to be in town, I of course 
 had already made one or two engagements. Au revoir, my 
 dear. If all goes well, I shall see you to-morrow week. 
 Once more I thank you for the great honour you have 
 done me. 
 
 " Yours affectionately, 
 
 " JEAN DE LENSKY." 
 
 i 
 
 Surprisingly disappointed by this communication, Pam 
 dressed and set out for Berkeley Square. She had so looked 
 forward to seeing Lensky, if only for a moment, before he 
 left. There were several things that she had been too shy 
 to say yesterday that she had intended telling him that morn- 
 ing, and nervous and frightened as she was about the 
 Duchess, she felt that a sight of him would have calmed and 
 strengthened her. On re-reading his letter, while Pilgrim 
 
 17.5
 
 176 PAM DECIDES 
 
 fastened her blouse, a sensation absurdly like anger came 
 over her. 
 
 Surely his early morning engagements could not have 
 been so extremely important that he could not break them 
 for the purpose of seeing the woman he had asked to marry 
 him? 
 
 As she sped up St. James Street in a hansom her common 
 sense reasserted itself, and with a shamefaced laugh she 
 acknowledged that Lensky was perfectly right in keeping his 
 engagements. Indeed, his never deviating from the path 
 before him had as a rule a great charm for the girl, and she 
 liked his quiet acceptance of boring people and things, his 
 unmurmuring submission to the social laws and conventions 
 that roused in herself such gusts of resentment and defiance, 
 and although she still felt a little hurt, she had quite recov- 
 ered her good humour by the time she had reached the 
 Duchess's. 
 
 " If we had been married six months," she told herself, 
 as she paid the cabby, " I should have been distinctly annoyed 
 if he had broken an engagement to see me. Therefore I 
 was an idiot to be cross." What she did not tell herself, 
 and what she did not realise, was that if Lensky had shown 
 any Ratty-like servitude, or even any of Peele's spasmodic 
 recklessness of consequences, he would have disgusted and 
 shocked her, freezing the little shoots of tenderness that were 
 beginning to spring from the solid root of her affection for 
 him. No number of interviews, no amount of love-making, 
 could so have served Lensky's purpose as did his matter-of- 
 fact carrying out of his social duties and the sobriety of his
 
 PAM DECIDES 177 
 
 note, and as Pam rang at the Duchess's door she realised with 
 a start that she had been so occupied in thinking of this com- 
 parative stranger that she had forgotten her anxiety about 
 her old friend who was ill. 
 
 Her Grace, the man said, was in her morning-room ; would 
 Miss Yeoland go upstairs? 
 
 " Well," cried Pam, opening the door and finding, to her 
 boundless surprise, the old lady sitting by the fire, " here I 
 am." 
 
 "Oh, Pam!" 
 
 The Duchess held out her hand, her lips shaking, and the 
 grrl, fear-stricken by something in the old face, knelt down 
 and kissed it tenderly. "What is it?" she murmured; 
 "can't you tell me? Dear Duchess, you frighten me so! " 
 
 The Duchess put her hand to her mouth to conceal its 
 trembling. " Pam," she said, slowly, " it's my eyes they 
 are going to cut them this morning." 
 
 " To cut them " 
 
 " Yes. Operate. To save me from from when one 
 can't see. I can't say the word." 
 
 Pam- looking into the piteous, wrinkled face that she saw 
 for the first time bare of paint and powder, understood with 
 a flash of heart-breaking pity what it must be, the fear of 
 blindness. To be unable to see the firelight on the crimson 
 satin walls, her grandfather's portrait; to hear a door open 
 and not know who had come in. The girl's sob quieted 
 the old woman's agitation, and she drew her hand gently 
 away. 
 
 " Get up, dear," she said, in a voice more like her own,
 
 178 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " and don't be so frightened. When Henny was hurt she 
 was thrown from her horse and broke her leg I sent for 
 you because you are always brave. I am ashamed of being 
 such an idiot, but it was only yesterday that they told me 
 that the operation was necessary to save my sight." 
 
 Pa'm took off her hat and jacket and sat down again. " / 
 am ashamed," she answered ; " just look at grandfather ; 
 doesn't he look disgusted with me? When is it to be, 
 Duchess ? " 
 
 "At noon." 
 
 "And here?" 
 
 "Yes. They wanted me to go to a hospital, but I 
 wouldn't, and Professor Miihland, the' big German, you 
 know, is to do it. He and Sir John Markland." 
 
 Pam felt as if she had been whirled back into her old 
 world again. Gone the new one; forgotten the new plans; 
 off in the distance somewhere, Jean de Lensky. 
 
 And in the present, the Duchess and her daughter, grand- 
 father's portrait, and danger, and blood and knives and 
 bad -smelling drugs. 
 
 When Sir John Markland and the Professor arrived they 
 found, beside the nurse and their patient, a Duchess brave 
 with the obligatory before-people bravery of good breeding, 
 Pam. And two very different Pams they saw, of course, 
 each looking at her from his own individual standpoint. 
 
 Miihland saw: an anaemic young woman with a nervous 
 face and a quiet voice; a young woman who appeared to 
 understand better than most women would have his few 
 grudging words of explanation about the operation, " a
 
 PAM DECIDES 179 
 
 refraction error the nature of hypermetropia ; the operation 
 is called Iridectomy." 
 
 Sir John saw: A little girl with splendid dark eyes and a 
 sudden, rather attractive smile; a little girl with whom he 
 would have enjoyed a chat in other circumstances, because 
 she had charm and a certain distinction of manner for all her 
 nervousness about her old friend. 
 
 Pam never forgot that morning. She held the Duchess's 
 hand until that hand dropped, limp from hers, and then 
 she was banished and went back to the morning-room, which, 
 as too small for her restless pacings, she soon deserted for 
 the drawing-room and the hall. 
 
 From the corner under the portrait of Lord Ventnor, the 
 Duchess's son who had died when he was a child, the whole 
 length of the polished floor, across the hall to the foot of the 
 stairs and back, she walked, her hands behind her, her head 
 bent. The clock on the stairs chimed from time to time; 
 once a bell rang peremptorily and a frightened footman 
 scurried upstairs; once a door opened overhead. And up 
 there, in that awfully prepared room, the big, bearded Ger- 
 man was putting knives into the Duchess's kind little eyes 
 from which the pencilling had all been carefully washed 
 away. 
 
 Pam knew that the operation was a very serious one ; that 
 if it did not succeed the Duchess must be blind, as she would, 
 without the awful ordeal, inevitably have become. Suppose 
 the doctor should suddenly go mad and hack murderously at 
 his defenceless victim, suppose her heart should prove to 
 have been weak, after all, and should quietly cease beating,
 
 i8o PAM DECIDES 
 
 suppose, suppose, suppose. The only spark of comfort was 
 that in the hour of need the Duchess had sent for her, for 
 Pam Yeoland. 
 
 Pam was one of those women who feel far more need of 
 someone to lean on her than of someone on whom to lean. 
 It was in her to cherish and care for, far more than, in her 
 natural impatience, she herself could ever have endured being 
 cherished. 
 
 In her plans for her future with Lensky she had uncon- 
 sciously arrogated to herself the right of sacrifice; it was 
 she who, by her deeds, was to make him happy, who was 
 to make her happy not by doing, but by simply being. 
 
 The only thing she had reserved for herself, and that 
 without any reasoning about it, was her liberty; she would 
 jealously guard his liberty, but he should not guard hers, 
 for that she should continue to do herself. 
 
 And now, as she paced the long room, waiting for news 
 from upstairs, her chief feeling, beside the fear that made 
 her hands cold, was one of gratitude that the Duchess had 
 wanted her in her great trial. She would care for the old 
 lady, and help her, and do, in return for this precious sign 
 of affection, all that a daughter could do. 
 
 At length Sir John came downstairs, spic and span and 
 smelling of eau-de-cologne. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Yes," he answered, with his gay little nod, " it is well. 
 Our dear Duchess will see as well as ever in a short time " 
 
 " But what was the matter? Dr. Miihland was so 
 learned that I didn't understand a word he told me ! "
 
 PAM DECIDES 18 1 
 
 Markland smiled. " And you hope that I am less learned ? 
 Well, my dear young lady, the Duchess has been suffering 
 from what we call acute glaucoma, and if this operation had 
 been put off for thirty-six hours she would have gone totally 
 blind." 
 
 " Oh! And Dr. Muhland what did he do? " 
 
 Again Sir John smiled. " It is too complicated to explain, 
 but he cut the iris, corrected the mischief, and now all that 
 the patient needs is rest in a perfectly dark room until the 
 wound is quite healed." 
 
 " Poor Duchess in a dark room! " 
 
 " Yes, but she came very near finding the whole world a 
 dark room. And it was diagnosed as biliousness ! " 
 
 Then, with another look into the eyes he admired, he went 
 his way, disappointed in her now that her excited flush had 
 subsided, and thinking regretfully that she was, after all, 
 rather faded, poor girl, seen by daylight.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 A FEW days later Pam knocked on the door leading from 
 the shaded dressing-room into the Duchess's bedroom, where 
 the old lady lay in absolute darkness. 
 
 "It's me Pam. May I come in? I've a letter from 
 Lady Henny, and all kinds of news to tell you ! " 
 
 " Come in, my dear, come in. I am bored to the point of 
 frenzy. How are you, and what have you been doing since 
 I last heard you? I thought you'd be coming this morning, 
 fcut you didn't." 
 
 Pam felt her way to a chair and sat down. " I have a 
 new housemaid," she explained, " and had to have a talk 
 with her. Besides, I bored you horribly last night, you 
 know I did." 
 
 The Duchess laughed. "You didn't, and you know it 
 perfectly well. Now tell me what Henny has to say." 
 
 " Well, she is better, the pain is very much less, and she 
 is lying on a sofa instead of in bed, which she says is a 
 great relief. Marmy is very well and is tremendously excited 
 about your eyes. She sends you much love, of course, and 
 urges you to be patient " 
 
 " As if I couldn't give points to Job," interrupted the old 
 lady. 
 
 " And as soon as you are able to read she will write you 
 long letters." 
 
 182
 
 PAM DECIDES 183 
 
 " Nothing more about Marmy? " 
 
 " No, except that he is learning to write. Poor little 
 boy; I'd let him run wild for a year or two if I were 
 she " 
 
 " Old maids' children," chuckled the Duchess, stirring in 
 bed ; " wait till you have some of your own and you'll want 
 'em to learn to write fast enough." 
 
 Pam smiled happily in the darkness. The Duchess did 
 not know how extremely real those future children of hers 
 had grown of late. The girl could, in her innocent imagina- 
 tion, almost see them playing about the old house in West- 
 minster. And she knew, though no word on the subject 
 had ever been passed between them, that Lensky, too, loved 
 children, for once she had seen him pick up and console a 
 little girl who had fallen with a mug of beer, and only a 
 man who was instinctively paternal could have shaken out 
 the tumbled skirts, and reimbursed the wailing little creature 
 for her loss, in quite that manner. 
 
 " But really, Pam," the Duchess's voice came back to her 
 at the end of this brief excursion into memory, " you may 
 say what you like, but I am right." 
 
 " But " 
 
 " Oh, I know beforehand all that you are going to say, 
 so don't say it! You always thought yourself wiser than 
 anyone else, you got that from your grandfather, but the 
 fact remains that time is passing, and that it is high time 
 you had a husband." 
 
 Para was silent. This was the moment for telling the 
 Duchess about her engagement ; her news would be received,
 
 1 84 PAM DECIDES 
 
 she knew, with the kindest joy; and yet a panic of embar- 
 rassment seized her, and she sat blushing in the sheltering 
 darkness, unable to speak. 
 
 " Do you remember how absurdly you used to talk when 
 you were very young?" continued the old lady. " How it 
 did amuse Oswald ! You were never going to marry because 
 all married people were unhappy, but you meant to have 
 children! An outrageous young person you were, my dear! 
 And then your rushing off to the country to see that poor 
 woman. How angry your grandfather was, and with 
 reason ! " 
 
 " She was my father's wife," returned Pam, shortly, to 
 whose mind this particular escapade had never changed its 
 early aspect; " I'm glad I went, and I should do the same 
 thing again to-morrow." 
 
 "I haven't the slightest doubt of it! Poor Oswald, he 
 was furious, though. He wrote me all about it, and swore 
 he'd never forgive you." 
 
 " Poor G.F! He was very obstinate." 
 
 The Duchess laughed. 
 
 " Yes, and you, I suppose, were merely firm. That's 
 always the way. But, to go back to our muttons, I do wish 
 I could see you married. You have lost the Fat Boy, as yor., 
 of course know." 
 
 " Yes. I was an accessory before the fact. I met Miss 
 Hetley, too, at Evelyn's." 
 
 " Did you like her? Jack Lensky told me, but I couldn't 
 get a word out of him about her. He is horribly close- 
 mouthed. By the way, is he really so devoted to Evelyn?
 
 PAM DECIDES 183 
 
 She and Alys Compton have had a row and don't speak, so oi 
 course everyone expects his engagement to Evelyn to be 
 announced any day." 
 
 " That day will never come," declared Pam, boldly, but 
 the Duchess did not notice her tone. 
 
 " I often think," the old lady continued, " that it is a 
 great pity women can't get a new lease of looks at forty. 
 All these exquisite girk are either silly or dull, and by the 
 time Life has knocked some wit into them they have lost 
 their beauty. And a man like Jack Lensky, for instance, 
 ought to have a wife both clever and good-looking, although 
 I must say he seems to content himself, in the way of flirta- 
 tions, with only looks." 
 
 " Duchess," began Pam, " I " 
 
 "Hush! Yes, it is! The telephone, Pam. Do go and 
 see what it is, will you? It's in the passage beyond my 
 dressing-room." 
 
 Pam obeyed her, at once relieved and disappointed by thr 
 interruption. 
 
 " Hullo ? Yes, this is the Duchess of Wight's." 
 
 There was a moment of confusion, of whirring and jan- 
 gling noises, and then James Peele's voice said, " With whom 
 am I speaking, please ? " 
 
 After a short pause, the girl answered. " I will give any 
 message to the Duchess." 
 
 " Are you the nurse ? I want to speak with the nurse." 
 
 " I am Pamela Yeoland." 
 
 She heard a little ejaculation of surprise, and then he 
 answered, hurriedly: " You! Pam? "
 
 1 86 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " I am Pamela Yeoland. What shall I tell the Duchess 
 for you ? " 
 
 " Er how is she getting on, and my love and I 
 am in town on business and hadn't time to come and see 
 her " 
 
 " Very well. I will tell her." 
 
 " But you yourself," he went on, hurriedly, " how are 
 
 you, and where are you living, and " He was evidently 
 
 agitated, and even over the wires his voice gave her the old 
 pang. One hand clenched to her chest, she answered, stiffly, 
 " Thank you, I am very well. Is that all ? " 
 
 " No, no ; wait a moment. You didn't come to the din- 
 ner, I want to see you. When can I see you? " 
 
 Suddenly her old terror of him came over her so strongly 
 that she trembled, and the only thing in the world worth 
 considering was how she could escape him. 
 
 " I am leaving England to-morrow," she said, forcing her 
 voice to a quiet level. " Good-bye; I will give your messages 
 to the Duchess." 
 
 Then she rang off and went back into the merciful dark- 
 ness of the sickroom. 
 
 " It was Mr. Peele," she explained, sitting down. " He 
 sends you his love and is sorry he hadn't time to come to see 
 you. He is going out of town to-night." 
 
 " Jim ! Well, it must have seemed queer to you to be 
 talking to him again after all these years. I wonder why 
 you never liked him, Pam? You never did, though he 
 charmed many people. You always were as sharp as a 
 needle."
 
 PAM DECIDES 187 
 
 Pam smiled nervously in the darkness. Her sharpness had 
 been, as that quality so often is, reserved exclusively for the 
 use of other people, and of rather less than no use in her own 
 affairs. 
 
 The Duchess talked on, and the girl sat wondering what 
 she should do. If she left England, as she had told Peele 
 she was going to do, where should she go? She had very 
 little money for Continental wanderings, she had no wish 
 to leave her own house, and she almost feared to leave 
 Lensky. Should she stay on, treating her unconsidered state- 
 ment to Peele as a necessary lie ? 
 
 Before she had made up her mind, the door of the dressing- 
 room opened and Peele's voice said, " My dear Duchess " 
 
 "Jim!" 
 
 "Yes, I have decided not to go to Torpington until 
 to-morrow, and thought I'd run in and hear about things 
 from yourself. Henrietta will be more contented so, ah, 
 how dark it is here ! " 
 
 " Give him a chair, Pam, you are used to the dark- 
 ness." 
 
 " Thanks. And how are you, Miss Pam ? It is a very 
 long time since we last met " 
 
 " Yes, very long," she answered, steadily, through the 
 stifling heart-beats that terrified her ; " how do you do ? " 
 
 Oh, his voice; his beautiful deep voice with the queer 
 thrill in it. As plainly as if it had been broad daylight she 
 could with her imagination's eye see his face as he spoke; 
 the thin, clear-cut face with the deep-set grey eyes, the eyes 
 she had seen dim with tears and dark with strong feelings;
 
 i88 PAM DECIDES . 
 
 the stern, flexible mouth ; the broad brow with its deep line. 
 All of it she could see, although it was so dark. 
 
 And while he talked to the Duchess, giving a detailed 
 account of his wife's accident, he, too, she knew, was think- 
 jing, thinking of those past days when they two had loved 
 each other. For he had loved her; he had misunderstood, 
 been hard and cruel, and failed her, but he had loved her, 
 and he would at the last have thrown up everything and 
 married her. And it was he whom she had seen that earlier 
 morning at the Villa, standing, weary and worn with sleep- 
 less pain, under her window. And they had had, in spite of 
 everything, their one day in Arcadia. 
 
 With a start, she tried to think of Lensky, of her promise, 
 of the future, but it was in vain, for the sound of this other 
 man's voice bound her helplessly to the past. 
 
 With horror she realised that if that voice ever managed 
 to bridge the chasm of time between the past and the present, 
 her peace would be gone forever. 
 
 She rose. " I must go, Duchess," she said, " and you 
 won't mind now that Mr. Peele is here to keep you com- 
 pany. Good-bye." 
 
 " Good-bye, my dear. You will come to-morrow." 
 
 " When do you leave England, Miss Yeoland ? " asked 
 Peele, carelessly, and she knew that as he spoke his mouth 
 7ave a certain little mocking twist. So distinctly did she 
 ://em to see this that as she answered she smiled conven- 
 tionally in the direction of his voice. 
 
 " Very soon," she returned ; and, disregarding a loud out- 
 cry from the Duchess, left the room.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 IT was a relief, on arriving at her house, to find Cyril 
 Wantage waiting for her. He looked very cheerful and 
 informed her with self-congratulation that he had found a 
 most satisfactory situation as private secretary to an old gen- 
 tleman in Warwick Square who was writing a book on 
 butterflies. 
 
 " Lepidoptera Britannica, you know, a very important 
 work, that he's been slaving at for fifteen years. It appears 
 that the B. P. is so hungering and thirsting for it that extra 
 steam must be put on, so I am employed as stoker." 
 
 " What do you do ? Look up things in the Encyclopae- 
 dia? " asked Pam, whose ideas on the subject of scientific 
 research were somewhat vague. 
 
 " Not I ! I help him puzzle out his early chapters you 
 never saw such awful writing in your life, and when we've 
 got a nice bit translated I copy it on beautiful smooth paper 
 in my best hand." 
 
 Pam took off her hat and leaned back in her chair. 
 
 "I'm awfully glad you have such a nice position," she 
 said ; " Mary will be pleased." 
 
 He, who was sitting just about where she had first seen 
 him, the night of his burglarious experiment, smiled cheer- 
 fully. " Yes, won't she ! I don't begin work till Monday, 
 and I'm going down to Bumblemouth to tell her. I'm crazy 
 to tell her, the dear! " 
 
 189
 
 190 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " What salary are you to have? " she returned. 
 
 " Two quid a week. Lepidoptera don't appear to be very 
 profitable, do they? But I work only in the mornings, and 
 may be able to get something to do in the afternoons to help 
 out. He puts me up, too, of course." 
 
 Pam's mind was whirling hopelessly about her own affairs, 
 but with an effort she recalled it and applied it to a consider- 
 ation of Wantage's. " At least it's better than nothing," 
 she said, " and I'll keep a look-out in the papers for you. 
 Now, remember, you can't afford cabs, and you must save 
 part of what you earn. I have a friend who owns some 
 houses in the Marylebone district, and I'll speak to her 
 about a room for you in the spring, when Mary comes. I'm 
 sure she would arrange with her agent to let you have a 
 good one at a low rent." 
 
 Wantage rose. " Look here, Miss Yeoland," he began, 
 with an awkwardness she had never before seen in him, " I 
 don't say much, and I am hopelessly casual, and all that, 
 but I am most awfully grateful to you, indeed I am. When 
 I was sitting here, in what used to be my own house, wait- 
 ing for you, and remembered about that night I I rea- 
 lised that you had saved me from being almost anything. 
 I'm not bad, but I'm as weak as the very dev deuce, and 
 Heaven knows what I'd have done if I had walked off with 
 some of your things." 
 
 Pam's face was scarlet. " Oh, please don't. You thanked 
 me at Bumblemouth, and," she said, " I'd much rather you 
 didn't. Just stick to your butterflies and think of Mary, 
 and I shall be contented."
 
 PAM DECIDES 191 
 
 Having made his speech, his light-heartedness returned. 
 
 " I was nearly starving," he added, " and so was she, 
 and I had also been drinking, so there was that much excuse. 
 But I just wanted you to know that I'm not ungrateful. 
 Thanks for everything, then, and I'll let you know how 
 I'm getting on." 
 
 When she was alone, Pam's mind returned wearily to its 
 treadmill, and she was sitting crouched on the divan in the 
 dying firelight when the new parlour-maid, who, judging by 
 her charm of face, would not be given to post-midnight phi- 
 landerings, brought in a letter. The stamp was Russian, 
 but the writing was not Lensky's, and with an awful feeling 
 of guilt Pam saw, by glancing first at the signature, that it 
 was from his mother. 
 
 Three pages of gracefully expressed French welcome into 
 a family quite obviously considered by this member of it to be 
 almost unequalled in the annals of any country. There was 
 no gushing promise of affection for the unknown English 
 girl, no expression of motherly longing to clasp that stranger 
 in the writer's arms. But under the restraint and coldness 
 that so reminded Pam of Lensky himself, it seemed to the 
 girl that she could feel kindness and sympathy that it needed 
 only personal contact to bring out. 
 
 And this letter, which would have chilled most girls, in 
 her position, pleased her, and here by her own fire, with it 
 on her lap, Lensky seemed again the real man, and James 
 Peele the shadow. This was Wednesday, and on Saturday 
 Lensky, " Jack," as she now for the first time called him 
 to herself, would be back.
 
 192 PAM DECIDES 
 
 And sitting there in the little white room she laid a plan 
 that was, in its very simplicity, wise. 
 
 She would the next day tell the Duchess of her engage- 
 ment, and then she would write Peele a letter and tell him, 
 too, and ask him not to remind her of things she preferred 
 to forget. 
 
 " He will think I am ashamed, now that I am engaged," 
 she told herself, pleased with her artfulness, " and surely 
 he will not bother me again." Unconsciously, too, she 
 counted on Peele's extreme sensitiveness to slights, and 
 trusted that her desire to avoid him would help her in her 
 purpose by offending him. 
 
 And when Jack was with her again these worries would 
 fade away as they had in Bumblemouth. 
 
 Having come to these decisions, she sat down and answered 
 Madame de Lensky's letter. By the time her letter reached 
 the unpronounceable little town in Poland, Jack would be 
 on his way home! 
 
 She wrote two pages, more flowery than they could have 
 been in English, but formal and self-contained, saying not a 
 word about herself, but that it would give her great pleasure 
 to meet Jean's mother, whose picture she had seen. Once 
 she paused. Should she say that she loved him ? 
 
 No; not because she did not, for, she told herself, she did 
 love him in a way, " Je I'aime bien d'amitie" but because 
 it seemed to her that the lonely old chatelaine in Poland 
 would not be in the least interested in her sentimental expe- 
 riences. So the letter was finished, addressed and stamped, 
 and dismissed from the girl's tired mind.
 
 PAM DECIDES 193 
 
 Jack was to dine with her on Saturday, and she would 
 make herself as pleasant to look on as might be. 
 
 " I'll wear the white frock, and I'll prink, and I'll loosen 
 my hair, or have Evy's man come and wave it. And we'll 
 have dinner on the round table by the hall fire." 
 
 Her conscious pleasure in the fact that she was so glad 
 that he was so soon coming was rather pathetic, though she 
 did not know it. Oh, how glad she would be to see him, 
 her dear, trustworthy little worldling! 
 
 She had, considering that they had met so few times, a 
 curiously accurate knowledge of Lensky's character. Esteem 
 him as she did, she accepted without a protest the account 
 he had given to her of himself that day by the sea in Bumble- 
 mouth, and with the sense of humour so rare as applied to 
 one's own close concerns, she smiled as she pictured him 
 bending devotedly over Lady Alys and Evelyn or over 
 any pretty woman in whose company he might chance to find 
 himself. 
 
 It lay in him to gamble, to admire women, even, as she 
 crudely put it to herself, to " drink." He was a dandy and 
 a mondain, who, so far as she knew, had never done any- 
 thing noteworthy in any way. 
 
 And yet, comparing him as she inevitably did with James 
 Peele, she knew that, in spite of the comparative austerity of 
 Peele's life, and the great political usefulness that at least at 
 one time had distinguished him, Lensky was the better man. 
 
 Worn out by thought and worry, she fell asleep that 
 night as soon as she got to bed, her last conscious thought 
 being one of happiness over Lensky's return on Saturday.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 "DUCHESS, I have something to tell you! " 
 
 Pam sat bolt upright in the darkness, her hands clenched 
 tight on her knees. For over an hour she had been trying 
 to say the words, and now they were said and seemed to her 
 to be met with a kind of explosive silence. 
 
 "Don't say you're going to run away again! You 
 promised me a few minutes ago " 
 
 " No, it isn't that. But I'm going " Could it really 
 
 be she herself who was saying these grandiloquent words ? 
 " to be married." 
 
 The Duchess sat up in bed audibly. " Married ! Pam 
 who is he? Not the Fat Boy, after all? " 
 
 Now that it was out, Pam's relief was immense, and she 
 drew a long, comfortable breath. " No ! No fat boys for 
 me, thank you. It's Jack Lensky." 
 
 " Come here, come here, you ridiculous thing, let me 
 kiss you ! Oh, Pam, I am so glad ! But when did it hap- 
 pen, and, why, I never was so surprised in my life ! " 
 
 The girl knelt down by the bed and was kissed and petted 
 enthusiastically. " Your surprise is hardly flattering, is it? " 
 she asked, laughing. " You are a very transparent old lady, 
 and I know you're wondering what he, ^? beauty-enthusiast, 
 can see in your beloved and delightful, but plain, Pam! " 
 
 " I wasn't," protested the Duchess, but with a tell-tale 
 
 194
 
 PAM DECIDES 195 
 
 laugh ; " I was only wondering when you got to know each 
 other well enough to become engaged." 
 
 " Surely knowing each other isn't a sine qua nonf It 
 seems to me that the better a man and a girl know each 
 other the less likely they are to fall in love. That," she 
 .added, rising and reseating herself, " sounds cynical, but it 
 really isn't. I mean that intimacy seems to dull the 
 glamour " 
 
 " Yes, yes, my dear; but never mind that. Tell me more 
 about you and Jack. Why, you've only known him since 
 that dinner at Evelyn's ! He called the next day, I remem- 
 ber rather piping my eye at that! And then you went to 
 Bumblemouth and spoiled my dinner, and why, Pam 
 Yeoland, I don't believe you! You're trying to amuse me 
 with this tale! He went to Poland the day you came back 
 from the sea, and he isn't home yet ! M 
 
 So Pam had to own up. 
 
 " Oh, dear, oh, dear," she moaned, " you will bully me and 
 tease me, and I shall die! How horrid accurate people are. 
 Why must you tear down the veil of propriety I have draped 
 over the affair and force me to horrid confessions! Well, 
 if you must know, indiscreet person, Jack and I met ages 
 ago, last spring." 
 
 " Last spring ! But where ? Oh, how I wish I could 
 see you. Go on, tell me; why didn't you tell me at the 
 time?" 
 
 The bed creaked as the old woman rolled over in her 
 "ixcitement. 
 
 " I saw him that first day I came here, do you remember?
 
 196 PAM DECIDES 
 
 And then once more in a In a shop, and then one afternoon 
 in March he spoke to me in the Cloisters at the Abbey." 
 
 "Great Heavens!" 
 
 " I knew it would hurt your feelings! And he came to 
 see me once or twice in in my cave and then " 
 
 " And then the other day in Westminster he asked you to 
 marry him ! " 
 
 " He asked me to marry him in Seven Dials, before I had 
 heard of Mr. Burke's death. So now you know all about 
 it, and please don't tell." 
 
 The Duchess was enchanted, jealous, sentimental, all in a 
 breath. She felt that she had been cheated out of the match- 
 making that should have been hers; she made plans for the 
 wedding; she regretted that her dear Oswald could not. 
 know; she thought Pam too good for the little sinner Len- 
 sky, and the enchanting Lensky a wee bit wasted on the 
 savage Pam. 
 
 " For you will always be a cave-dweller, you know," she 
 jf marked, " even though you've taken to a house ; you always, 
 were a little savage. When is he coming back? You must 
 both lunch here the first day I am downstairs, and I'll tell 
 you awful tales about each other. How amused James will 
 be! We had a long talk about you yesterday, after you 
 left." 
 
 " Did you ? " Pam's embarrassment had fled, and she 
 went on quite easily with that part of her task that she had 
 anticipated being the most difficult: "May I ask a great 
 favour of you?" 
 
 " Of course you may; and I will grant it."
 
 PAM DECIDES 197 
 
 " Then, you have so often said that you know I don't 
 like Mr. Peele, please never ask me to meet him." 
 
 " My dear child ! But do you rrally dislike him thai 
 much?" 
 
 " I don't exactly dislike him, but I'd so much rather not 
 see him. You see, he reminds me of things I try to forget, 
 and he was at Monk's Yeoland, and in Cornwall when 
 Grandfather died, " 
 
 " Pam," the Duchess's voice was serious and rather author- 
 itative, " I myself am not very fond, as you know, of James, 
 but he is my son-in-law, and you are one of the people of 
 whom I am fondest in the world. Unless you have some 
 better reason than a vague dislike for him, I don't think 
 you ought to ask me to try to prevent your meeting. Has he 
 ever done anything to you that justifies a strong antipathy 
 to him on your part ? " 
 
 For a long moment the girl was sHent. Then she lied, 
 quietly, convincingly, artistically. " No," she said, " he 
 never did anything to me personally, but he has on me the 
 effect that cats have on some people. For no reason whatever, 
 but in a way that is overwhelming, I hate to hear his voice, 
 to touch his hand, even to see his face. It makes me so 
 uncomfortable to be in the same room with him that it is a 
 real torture to me. That's all." 
 
 "You queer little thing! A case of Dr. Fell, isn't it? 
 Well, but the hard part is that the poor fallow really srcms 
 fond of you, and was saying yesterday how glad he should 
 be to see you again. He wants to dine here with you. What 
 am I to do?"
 
 198 PAM DECIDES 
 
 Pam hesitated, and then said, " Well, why not tell him 
 what I said? I'm sorry to hurt his feelings, but he really 
 won't care, and that will be an end tc it." 
 
 " But you might get to like him ; many people do ! Come 
 to lunch with him once, and try " 
 
 Pam rose abruptly. " I can't. I can't bear the man, 
 Duchess, and life's too short to try to like people. Please be 
 a dear and help me out." 
 
 " All right, I will. Only well, I'll do my best. He's 
 coming in this afternoon " 
 
 " B-r-r-r-r, then I'll fly! May I bring Jack to see you, 
 say on Monday? " 
 
 " Yes, do, my dear. And in the meantime, my love to him. 
 I am so glad about it." 
 
 Pam walked home, for the day was fine, and now that 
 she had told the Duchess of her engagement and secured 
 her as an ally in the Peele matter, the girj felt that a tre- 
 mendous weight was off her mind. 
 
 The Duchess would most probably hint at an absurd 
 prejudice on Pam's part, adding that the ridiculous child 
 really seemed to dislike him, and then he, with his morbid 
 sensitiveness, would understand, and keep out of her way 
 as painstakingly as she would avoid him. 
 
 After all she did not regret the letter she had been unable 
 to compose to him. 
 
 And the day after to-morrow Jack would be back ! 
 
 Crossing Piccadilly, she went into St. James Park, and 
 pausing on the bridge, stood watching the faintly-tinted even- 
 ing sky. " How I lied," she thought; " well, a lie in time
 
 PAM DECIDES 199 
 
 saves nine, in this case at any rate. He will be angry and 
 avoid me, and then later perhaps I shan't mind seeing 
 him." For if Jack was a shield and buckler to her, what 
 would the occupant of that first little cradle be ? 
 
 Pam had had no religious training, and she was not at all 
 of a devout nature. She never went to church, much from 2 
 habit of not going, as many people go because they were 
 forced as children to do so. 
 
 But she was no atheist, and now, looking up at the palely 
 rosy sky, the feeling of gratitude to something she did not 
 name was very nearly, if not quite, a prayer. 
 
 And oh, how good she would be, and how hard she would 
 try to deserve this happiness. 
 
 After lingering for ten minutes on the bridge, she went on 
 home, opening the door of her own beloved house with a 
 latch-key a mannish possession not always dumbly disap- 
 proved by Pilgrim, and entered into the dear place. 
 
 " Mr. Maxse is in the drawing-room, Miss," announced 
 Pearson, the housemaid, as Pam turned to the left towards 
 the white study. 
 
 "Mr. Maxse!" 
 
 " Yes, Miss. 'E's been 'ere some time, Miss." 
 
 Ratty stood on the hearth-rug in the peacock-room, his 
 hands behind his back. He looked nervous and pale. 
 
 " Hello, Ratty, glad to see you. How's Dolly? " 
 
 " Look here, Pam, I want to have a serious talk with 
 you what have you been doing to yourself? You look 
 positively pretty ! " 
 
 She laughed, and, sitting down, held up one narrow foot
 
 200 PAM DECIDES 
 
 to the fire. " Am I not always lovely ? And won't you sit 
 down?" 
 
 But Ratty would not sit down. " You asked me about 
 Dolly a minute ago. I suppose you meant Miss Hetley?" 
 
 " I did. I beg your pardon for my familiarity, but I 
 thought " 
 
 " You thought we were engaged, I suppose. Well, we 
 are not" 
 
 "Aren't you? The Duchess " 
 
 " The Duchess be hanged. It's like this. She's a nice 
 girl, and I like her, and she has some money, and her mother's 
 dead, and I suppose she'd take me if I asked her, but I 
 haven't asked her yet." 
 
 Pam laughed. " Good gracious, Ratty, why pour these 
 tender confidences into my unsympathetic ear?" 
 
 " Don't devil me, Pam ; I haven't slept for a week, trying 
 to think. You see, everything would be all right if you'd 
 only be sensible." 
 
 " I what have I " began Pam, feeling as if she had 
 
 swallowed something cold. 
 
 \ " I can't explain it, or be poetical, or anything of that 
 sort," pursued the Fat Boy, not without a certain dignity, 
 but " 
 
 " Ratty, don't you want to smoke? Those cigarettes are 
 very good they are Russian, given me by a friend " 
 
 " That chap Lensky, I suppose, he gives 'em tc every- 
 body. No, thanks, I'll not smoke. And it's come to this. 
 I simply can't ask her until I've tried you again. Won't 
 you marry me, Pam ? "
 
 PAM DECIDES 201 
 
 "Oh, Ratty! And I was so happy about you! And I 
 liked her so much. And I'm sure she's fond of you." 
 
 " That hasn't anything to do with it. The question is, 
 will you marry me ? I don't know why I want you so much, 
 but I do, and I can't help it. If you will, I'll be awfully 
 good to you, and I'll try never to pester you " 
 
 " Ratty," said Pam, solemnly, laying her hand on his arm, 
 " I am going to marry Mr. de Lensky." 
 
 Maxse stared at her for a moment, and then, tumbling 
 into a chair, buried his face in his hands. He was very 
 ridiculous and very fat, and very pestiferous, but he was 
 sincere, and in great grief, and Pam's own eyes were wet 
 as he at length rose. 
 
 " I can't tell you how sorry I am," she said, taking his 
 limp hand in hers. "And indeed I do appreciate your 
 your affection for me, Ratty. You will get over this, and 
 we will be good friends always." 
 
 But even in deep sorrow Ratty could not be altogether 
 pleasing. " Oh, /'// get over it, I suppose," he answered, 
 blowing his nose, " but I don't see what you can see in 
 that chap! I could swallow him whole." 
 
 Pam laughed, greatly relieved by his tone. " Please don't 
 swallow him," she said. 
 
 Ratty glared at her in indignant reproach, and after a final 
 blast on his nose, took his leave. " You'll be sorry some day 
 that you treated me this way," he said, refusing to take her 
 proffered hand. " Good-bye." 
 
 " Good-bye, Ratty," she returned, gently.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 "AND what did he say?" 
 
 Pam sat again in the dark room, for the last time, as 
 the doctors had found that the Duchess might be allowed her 
 first glimpse of daylight the following morning, and the 
 old lady had just announced the accomplishment of her mis- 
 sion to Peele. 
 
 " I told him that you seemed to dislike seeing him, and 
 that / thought it was because of his being associated with the 
 old days at Monks' Yeoland, etc. But he said no, that he 
 had often suspected you of disliking him personally. He was 
 very nice about it, though I could tell by his voice that he 
 was hurt, and he told me to tell you that he would never try 
 to see you. He said he had always liked you, and that he 
 was sorry, but that of course he would avoid you in the 
 future. I smoothed things as much as I could," pursued the 
 old lady, " but naturally I couldn't make it an occasion of 
 joy to either of us. Luckily, Alys Compton came in and 
 interrupted. He asked if you were coming this afternoon, 
 and I said yes, so he is going to run in to-morrow morning 
 instead." 
 
 Pam drew a deep breath of relief. How foolish she had 
 been, what a mountain she had made out of a wee molehill ; 
 and how her vanity had unconsciously led her to exaggerate 
 the difficulties of her position! 
 
 Peele had naturally been a trifle annoyed, but he had not 
 
 202
 
 PAM DECIDES 203 
 
 really cared a straw about seeing her again. Doubtless he 
 had forgotten all about her until accident had caused her 
 to answer his call to the telephone. 
 
 In the darkness the girl blushed at her own absurd assump- 
 tion that he had longed to see her, that he had meant to 
 go out of his way to get in touch with her. 
 
 " Thank you so much, Duchess," she said, with a little 
 shiver of self-disgust ; " it was awfully good of you to do it, 
 and awfully good of him to to be so nice about it. Now 
 what can I do to amuse you ? I am so sorry your head aches. 
 I wish I could read to you, it might send you off to sleep." 
 
 " Yes, I wish you could. I am so tired of lying here, and 
 so bored! Nurse Brown is a horrible woman, and you are 
 the only person who has the patience to really sit with me, 
 Alys, and Lady Conisby and the rest, sandwich me between 
 two interesting visits, and I hear their self-righteousness in 
 every word they say to me! If I were not to have some light 
 to-morrow I should murder the nurse just to diversify things 
 a bit!" 
 
 "Poor Duchess!" 
 
 After a pause, the old lady said suddenly, " Pam, do you 
 ever recite now?" 
 
 " No. I haven't for years. Not since Grandfather died." 
 
 " Oh, dear; that might have put me to sleep." 
 
 Pam laughed. "How civil you are! But I wish I 
 could. Shall I try? I may be able to remember a few 
 things " 
 
 The Duchess changed her position. " Yes, do try. My 
 head is splitting "
 
 204 PAM DECIDES 
 
 Sitting very erect in her chair, her hands clasped, Pam 
 began. Years ago it had been one of her grandfather's 
 favourite amusements to make her recite to him. And a 
 motley collection of verses herS was. French nursery rhymes, 
 bits of d'Annunzio's flamboyant poetry, " Bouillabaisse," 
 long rhymes of Herrick's and Beaumont's and Fletcher's, 
 selections from Burns, Shelley, and Byron, some things of 
 Verlaine that she had heard repeated by Gemma Ravoglia, 
 who at one time was a friend of her father's, and who re- 
 mained the child's friend until she died, a sonnet of 
 Petrarch, and a hundred other odds and ends collected 
 Heaven knows how, and treasured in her uncomprehend- 
 ing little brain, chiefly for the beautiful melody of the 
 words, and turned on at will, as Lord Yeoland used to say 
 with a gentle chuckle, in an evenly flowing, unhesitating 
 stream. 
 
 But years had passed since those days and the girl had 
 forgotten much. At first she hesitated and stammered, giving 
 up one selection after another, and on the point, a dozen 
 times, of declaring her inability to continue. 
 
 And then, stumbling by chance on the exquisite chorus in 
 Swinburne's " Atalanta in Calydon," " When the hounds of 
 Spring are on Winter's traces," she found that she had not 
 forgotten a word, and went on to the end, using her voice to 
 its fullest effect, her cheeks flushing with pleasure, her heart 
 beating faster. She had not forgotten, and the talent so long 
 lying fallow she could cultivate and use to give pleasure to 
 Lensky. 
 
 When she had finished this most lovely thing she went on
 
 PAM DECIDES 205 
 
 to repeat a modern Italian lyric, and then, almost without 
 halting, several stanzas from " Laus Veneris." 
 
 This had, she remembered, greatly amused her grand- 
 father, who forbade her reciting them to anyone else, but 
 who evidently immensely enjoyed them himself. 
 
 "The scent and shadow shed about me make 
 The very soul in all my senses ache;" 
 
 And on through the stanza ending, 
 
 "Heard sudden serpents hiss across her hair." 
 
 No wonder her grandfather had been amused ! 
 
 " What a queer little thing I must have been," she thought, 
 pausing to listen to the Duchess's regular breathing, "and 
 yet Father always thought I knew best ! " 
 
 She must write to her father, she should have written 
 before, to tell them about Lensky. 
 
 Then, the Duchess stirring uneasily, she began again, her 
 tongue beginning almost before she was conscious of directing 
 it, a once-beloved verse of Herrick's. 
 
 "I sing of Brooks, and Blossomes, Birds, and Bowers, 
 Of April, May, of June and July flowers. 
 I sing of may-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, 
 Of bridegroomes, brides, and of their bridall-cakes " 
 
 The door opening softly as she said the last words, she went 
 on in the same tone, " Her Grace is asleep, Nurse," and then 
 returned to the poem, finishing it for her own pleasure in 
 the melodious syllables.
 
 206 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " I sing of times trans-shifting ; and I write 
 How roses first came red, and lillies white. 
 I write of groves, and twilights, and I sing 
 The court of Mab, and of the f airie-king ! " 
 
 Miss Brown had not come in, and the girl went on moir 
 isoftly, 
 
 " I write of Hell ; I sing, and ever shall 
 Of heaven, and hope to have it after all." 
 
 " Do you remember saying that to me in Arcadia?" 
 
 James Peele stood near her. " Pam, I have just come to 
 tell you myself, that I will not annoy you. The Duchess 
 told me. Couldn't you have asked me yourself ? " 
 
 " Hush! I you don't mind, do you? " 
 
 Under his breath he gave a short laugh; a laugh that 
 brought, she knew, a bitter curve to his mouth. 
 
 " Mind ! Of course I do. Do you think it doesn't hurt 
 to know that you hate me ? " 
 
 Involuntarily she clasped her hands. " Oh, no, I don't 
 hate you, Mr. Peele, I I can't explain, but I really don't 
 hate you. It is only that I want to forget some things, 
 and that you remind me too plainly of them." 
 
 He was silent for a moment, and the Duchess gave a 
 muffled snore. " I must go," whispered Pam, " and I thank 
 you very much for being so nice about it " 
 
 Stretching out his hand he found, and held, hers. 
 
 " Pam, can't you forgive me? I behaved like a brute; 
 I admit that, but I loved you. And I have never, either 
 before or after, loved another woman."
 
 PAM DECIDES 207 
 
 His voice sunk to a deep tenderness that made her heart 
 stand still, and her hand trembled in his. 
 
 "I have thought of it all so many times; I have cursed 
 myself over and over for losing my head as I did, and add- 
 ing to your troubles, you poor little child. For you were 
 only a child. If you had been older you would have under- 
 stood, perhaps. But you were too young, you were even toe 
 young to really love." 
 
 Pam forgot the Duchess. " Mr. Peele," she said, sharply, 
 trying to withdraw her hand from his, " you have no right 
 to say that. It is not true ! " 
 
 "Then, you did?" 
 
 She could not answer. Her love for him, unworthy of it 
 though she had long known him to be, was enshrined in the 
 very holy of holies of her being, and his doubt hurt her to the 
 quick. 
 
 " Pam, I am not going to make love to you, don't be 
 afraid. And I am going to obey you and avoid seeing you, 
 
 to prove by my obedience to your wishes " he paused. 
 
 " But tell me just the one thing. Did you really love me? " 
 
 " Yes," she returned, roughly, " I did, but if you don't 
 let me go now I shall hate you.'* 
 
 She was quivering in every nerve and she knew that he 
 knew it. 
 
 For a moment he stood, his hand closed on hers with such 
 force that he hurt her. Then suddenly he freed her and 
 drew back. " Thank you," he said, quietly, and without 
 another word she found the door and escaped.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 HOUR after hour that night Pam lay awake, staring wide- 
 eyed into the darkness. 
 
 He had promised not to try to see her again, she had gained 
 her point, ostensibly she had won the day, but she knew by 
 the way his voice still rung in her ears, by the way her hand 
 still felt the warm, nervous clasp of his, that the victory was 
 not hers. 
 
 " He has promised," she said, over and over again, repeat- 
 ing the words as if they were a sort of charm to keep off the 
 swarms of those poignant thoughts that hovered close round 
 her. " He will not try to see me." 
 
 But she knew that this fact had lost much of the impor- 
 tance it had undoubtedly had for her before the events of the 
 afternoon. 
 
 It was not what he would or would not do ; but what she 
 herself was feeling that counted, and at last, miserable and 
 ashamed, she faced this fact. He had talked to her, and she 
 had trembled; he had taken her hand in his and apparently 
 only the mad throbbing in her breast had prevented her from 
 falling into his arms from very weakness. And oh, his voice ! 
 
 He had said that she had not loved him, then, years ago, 
 when she would have followed him to the ends of the earth, 
 and his voice was the voice that had talked to her in Arcadia. 
 'Do you remember?" he had asked. 
 
 Could she ever forget! Even with Jack, could she, now 
 that he had reminded her again, ever forget? 
 
 208
 
 PAM DECIDES 209 
 
 She tried to think of Lensky, but his image came before 
 her like the shadow of a dream, whereas Peele's white, sec 
 face, white and set as it had been the day she said good-bye 
 to him in the little station in Cornwall, was distinct, mas- 
 terful conquering. 
 
 He did not mean to make love to her, he had said, but 
 when a man and a woman feel as they had felt, every word 
 uttered is love-making. 
 
 Thank God she should never see him again. Ah, yes, God 
 be thanked, and yet 
 
 He had never loved anyone but her. Never in his whole 
 life. And he was a handsome man, big, and strong, and of 
 distinct personality the kind of man clever women are 
 attracted to. And of all the women who must have at least 
 been willing to be loved by him, he had loved only her, 
 Pam Yeoland ! He had gone now ; she was never to see him 
 again; never again to feel, at the sound of his voice, that 
 queer tightening of the chest that almost hurt. She had told 
 him to go, and he had accepted her decree with great philos- 
 ophy. He no longer loved her, thank Heaven, and yet 
 
 Hour after hour the girl lay, these thoughts whirling in a 
 great circle through her nervous brain. 
 
 She tried to smile at the thought of Lensky's return. In 
 only how many? twenty hours he would be with her, 
 dear, strong, comforting Jack. Jack who was at once strong 
 and comforting, and amusing. Jack who but it was not 
 Jack's eyes she saw, nor Jack's voice she heard. Always the 
 eyes and the voice of that other whom she did not love. 
 
 No, one could not love a man whose face one had not
 
 210 PAM DECIDES 
 
 seen for nearly ten years! It was only the memory of him 
 that was so crucifying her. She had loved him, and now the 
 ghost of her mistaken love sat and gibbered at her in the 
 darkness. 
 
 At last she fell asleep of sheer exhaustion and was awak- 
 ened in the middle of a dream about Peele by Pilgrim's voice. 
 " It's nearly ten, Miss Pam, so I thought I'd better wake you 
 up. There's a letter, from Paris." 
 
 Pam sat up in bed, the bright morning light streaming In 
 on her, and held out her hand. 
 
 "Good gracious, Miss Pam, whatever is the matter?" 
 stammered Pilgrim, staring at her, " you look like death ! " 
 
 "Do I, Pilly? It's nothing; I slept badly. The frigid 
 joys of my tub matinale will restore me to my usual 
 beauty " but a glimpse of her own face in the glass oppo- 
 site put an end to her forced banter. The whole story, the 
 horror, the fear,- the shame, seemed written there. What 
 would Jack say ? In the meantime Lensky's letter was short. 
 
 " MY DEAR PAM, 
 
 " I shall be with you at eight o'clock to-morrow, Saturday, 
 evening then. How glad I shall be to see you, and how many 
 things we shall have to talk about. I am just off to dine at 
 the Russian Embassy, which is a bore, as I should much have 
 preferred going to the Folies Bergeres, so good-bye. I kiss 
 your hands, and am, " Your affectionate 
 
 "JEAN DE LENSKY." 
 
 If he had been but a little more ardent ! If he had showed 
 any great need of her, it might have helped her. But he was
 
 PAM DECIDES 211 
 
 so well-balanced, so calm. lie must love her, or he would 
 not have asked her to marry him, but his love was only a 
 pleasant accessory to his comfortable, happy life. If she had 
 loved Peele, Lensky would have bidden her good-bye with 
 his beautiful serene smile and gone his way undisturbed. 
 
 But she did not love Peele. He upset and hurt her, but 
 she did not love him. 
 
 Her fear of the man was great, but she did not fear any 
 irresistible act of her own. Even if her dead love had risen 
 in its grave-clothes and beckoned to her, she would not have 
 gone. She was a woman of eight-and-twenty, and she could 
 trust herself. What she feared was the suffering, the blank- 
 ness of life, the weary hours of torturing tread-mill thought, 
 the bitterness of the husks of reward that her inevitable virtue 
 would bring her. 
 
 When she had had a bath and was dressed, the sanity that 
 day usually brings began to brighten her prospects. 
 
 " I was in horrible danger," she told herself, " but it's 
 over. If I had seen him as well as heard him, I yes, I 
 should have loved him again. I might as well acknowledge 
 that. But thank God I did not see him, and with any sort 
 of luck I ought to be able to avoid him, at any rate for a 
 long time. And then, if Jack and I have children, it won't 
 matter. So I'll now stop thinking about him, and try to 
 behave like a rational woman. I'll tell Jack about it, I 
 suppose I must ? Yes, of course I must ! What if " 
 
 She shuddered. What if Lensky should, after hearing her 
 story, decide that he did not wish to marry her! And then, 
 how lonely, how beggared, she should be!
 
 212 PAM DECIDES 
 
 And yet, she must tell him ; she never hesitated for a mo- 
 ment about that. 
 
 When afternoon came she was too restless and nervous 
 to go to sit with the Duchess, so sending a wire to the old 
 lady, to say that she would come on Sunday, she put on a 
 short skirt and took a hansom to 43 Huntley Street. 
 
 Mrs. Kingdom was at home, and received her splendid 
 caller with solemn majesty. Yes, the 'ouse went on much 
 as usual ; yes, the Bingles were still there ; yes, Miss Greene 
 and Miss Vesey was still there; Miss Vesey 'ad 'ad a habscess 
 on 'er eyelid, very disagreeable; no, Mr. Tavistock was 
 gone; also Mr. Hodge. Yes, Mildred was still there; yes, 
 Miss Yeoland could see 'er if she liked. 
 
 It was not an inspiriting visit, and Miss Vesey finding it 
 necessary, in view of Pam's improved circumstances, to talk 
 a great deal of a gentleman friend of a lady friend of hers, 
 who was a baronet, Pam found not much more mental pab- 
 ulum on the second floor than in the basement. 
 
 Only Mildred, black-handed, red-elbowed as ever, had 
 borne the shock of Pam's prosperity without changing, and 
 enquired as affectionately for the heroine of the presumably- 
 in-progress new novelette as if the author of that work were 
 still living up three flights in the same house with her. 
 
 Disappointed, but still bent on turning her mind away from 
 her personal troubles, Pam went next to Seven Dials, where 
 she looked up several old acquaintances. 
 
 These visits, however, were also not wholly successful, 
 for while the more independent Seven Diallers seemed dis- 
 posed to resent her rise to affluence, and to suspect in her
 
 PAM DECIDES 213 
 
 all sorts of pride and vainglory, those who were more cordial 
 inclined to borrow money of her, which, although she had 
 come prepared to make several small pecuniary gifts, was 
 depressing. 
 
 On her way home, however, as the street lights burst like 
 great flowers into the dusk, her spirits rose, as they had a waj 
 of doing at that hour, and dismissing her hansom, she went 
 homewards on foot. 
 
 It was nearly six. In two hours Jack would be with her 
 and then, surely, everything would be well. 
 
 She would tell him the whole truth, concealing nothing 
 and then he would console her. 
 
 She had that day received from the locksmith commis- 
 sioned to make it, a latch-key to the Little Cowley Street 
 door. Until they were married she would carry it with the 
 other one, and then she would give it to him. 
 
 Smiling at her own folly, she did not go in by the Chimes. 
 Lane entrance, but, walking to the end of the street, turned 
 back into Little Cowley Street, and after standing for a 
 moment looking up at the house, opened the door with the 
 new key. As she took the key from the lock she paused, 
 met by a waft of strong scent ; the scent of a great quantity 
 of roses. The hall was dark, and to reach the electric 
 switch she would have had to cross to the far side of it. 
 
 It was delightful to stand there on her own threshold with 
 this delicious odour rushing to meet her. Lensky had ot 
 course sent the roses - 
 
 Forgetting to close the door, she felt her way into the 
 room, and had reached the end of the screen that hid the
 
 214 PAM DECIDES 
 
 door from the inside when a step behind her caused her to 
 turn, and a man caught her in his arms and covered her 
 face with kisses. 
 
 " Pam, Pam, it is not true that you are going to marry 
 that man! You don't love him, you can't do it, you can't! " 
 
 For a moment she stood as if paralysed and then wrenched 
 herself away from him. 
 
 " Go away," she cried ; tf go away. I I will not have 
 you in my house ! " 
 
 But he held her wrists tightly. " I will not go. I have 
 been following you for the last hour. I have seen you think- 
 ing, thinking of me! And I love you. I have always 
 loved you, and since I saw you at the opera a month ago I 
 have thought of nothing but your little face, your dear 
 little face. Pam," his voice dropped suddenly, and became 
 most gentle, " I am sorry I frightened you, but when the 
 Duchess told me of your engagement to that little faineant 
 I couldn't bear it. And neither could you! You don't 
 love him." 
 
 " You must go ; you must go at once. I am going to 
 marry Mr. de Lensky " she said desperately, " oh, go, for 
 God's sake!" 
 
 For answer he pressed her hands to his face, kissing them 
 gently, again and again. " No. Smell the roses, sweet- 
 heart. I sent them. Do you remember the roses in 
 Arcadia? Do you remember our supper on the terrace, 
 and the nightingale? Do you remember the first time I 
 kissed you? No one had kissed you before, and no one has 
 kissed you since. Am I not right?"
 
 PAM DECIDES 215 
 
 "^es," she said, faintly. Her eyes were shut. He was 
 conquering her, inch by inch, but he must not know it. 
 With a great effort she drew her hands away from his face. 
 
 "You are very unkind," she began, her voice steady but 
 quite unlike her own, " and very unfair. I am going to 
 marry Mr. de Lensky, and I am very fond of him. Do 
 you want to make me ashamed ? " 
 
 It was a not unskilful appeal and for a moment he 
 hesitated. 
 
 " I am not asking much of you," he returned, after a 
 pause, " I can't marry you, and I'd rather die than injure 
 you in any way, but can't we be friends " 
 
 She burst into a little shrill, scornful, laugh. " Friends! 
 You and I? Ah, don't blaguez, James Peele." 
 
 " You are right. And if you tell me that you love 
 Lensky, I'll go I promise." 
 
 " You break your promises." 
 
 " If I hadn't seen you come in, if you hadn't left the 
 door open I swear I should not have come. There's a letter 
 with the roses you may believe me. Do you love him?" 
 
 " I I yes, I do." But her lie was unconvincing. 
 
 Taking her hand in his he pressed his fingers to her pulse. 
 " Pam you love me," he whispered, his lips close to hers. 
 And then as her traitorous heart bounded towards his at the 
 words, he caught her to him and kissed her mouth. When 
 she again knew where she was, he had flown, and Pearson, 
 whose coming Pam had not heard had turned on the 
 light. 
 
 " Oh, Miss, I didn't know you 'ad come in **
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 HOW she lived through the dinner with Lensky, Pam 
 never could remember. He had greeted her with a courteous 
 kiss on her fingers, he had asked if she were ill, and then 
 on her answer that she was quite well, had appeared satisfied, 
 and changed the subject. 
 
 That much she could recall. But what they talked about 
 as Pearson served their dinner by the fire in the hall, whether 
 she had eaten or simply played with her food, if Lensky had 
 known that something was wrong or whether, all-mechanic- 
 ally she had so played her role that he suspected nothing, she 
 never knew. 
 
 The bright fire to her right crackled and threw splashes 
 and sprays of light up the dark panelling of the old room ; it 
 flamed on Lensky 's eye-glass and painted Pam's white skirt 
 red. Pearson, neat-handed and light-footed, came in and 
 out, pouring out wine, red and white, from the graceful, 
 bubble-like Italian flasks, changing plates, offering the dif- 
 ferent kinds of food in the usual sequence. And Pam and 
 Lensky talked, for there was a sound of voices. 
 
 At last the meal was over and without a word the girl 
 rose and trailed her delicate skirts down the passage to the 
 White Study. 
 
 " Please smoke,'' she said, offering him a box filled with 
 his own cigarettes. Then she sat down on a stool by the 
 fire and held her icy hands to the flames, 
 
 216
 
 PAM DECIDES 217 
 
 Without a word he fitted a cigarette into his amber mouth- 
 piece and began to smoke, his eyes quietly fixed on her face. 
 
 "Mr. de Lensky." 
 
 " Pam." 
 
 She looked up, her lips shaking. "Will you be patient 
 while I tell you?" 
 
 " I am always patient." 
 
 Before she could begin, as she sat turning on her fingei 
 the big ruby he had seen her pawn that day over a year ago, 
 Big Ben chimed the quarter past nine. 
 
 'O Lord our God' 
 
 She waited until the last vibration had died, and then at last 
 she spoke. " Mr. de Lensky, I can't marry you." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Because, because I cannot. It is a long story, and 
 telling it will make no difference. Must I tell it ? " 
 
 " Yes." She watched him as he knocked the ash off his 
 cigarette and then put it back into his mouth. 
 
 " Well, it is because I love someone else. You remem- 
 ber I told you that I had loved somebody, long ago." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, I still do. I don't want to; I have tried not 
 -o; but I do." 
 
 "Are you going to marry him?" asked Lensky, gently. 
 
 " No. He is married. And besides, he is not good. 
 I should not marry him even if he were free " 
 
 " Tell me about it. From the beginning."
 
 2i8 PAM DECIDES 
 
 And slowly, awkwardly, honestly, she told her story, while 
 the generous firelight fell on her wan little face with a 
 kindly glow, and shone in her dry eyes. 
 
 " My mother was not married to my father until I was 
 eighteen years old she ran away with him because he had 
 a wife already. And they lived together on the Continent, 
 chiefly in a villa my father bought on the Riviera. They 
 named the Villa Arcadia. And it was Arcadia for them, 
 for they were very happy." 
 
 Sometimes her pauses were short, sometimes very long, but 
 Lensky never interrupted her. Cigarette after cigarette he 
 lighted and smoked, renewing them continually but noise- 
 lessly, almost without her noting his movements. 
 
 " I, of course, was always with them. Pilgrim and I. 
 They were very good to me, but they didn't need me.'* 
 
 "Oh Lord our God" 
 interrupted the chimes, 
 
 "Be thou our Guide" 
 
 " And so I grew up, until I was about ten. Then one day 
 my grandfather Lord Yeoland's, steward, Christopher Caza- 
 let, who had always been fond of my mother, came to the 
 Villa to look her up, and he saw me. He thought it a pity 
 that I should live that kind of unusual life, without any reg- 
 ular education, and so on, and so he told my grandfather 
 about me, and my grandfather had me come to live with him. 
 I was a funny little thing, and spoiled, I suppose, and I 
 amused him very much. And, Father and Mother of
 
 PAM DECIDES 219 
 
 course didn't know many people, and they knew some very 
 unconventional ones, other people who weren't married, 
 you know; and in England the few married couples I knew 
 didn't care as Father and Mother did. I think no people 
 ever did care as much as they do. And so I got it into my 
 head that that marriage was a mistake, and that all un- 
 married people are unhappy (and I still think most of 'em 
 are!) and I made up my mind that I'd never marry. You 
 see?" 
 
 " I see." 
 
 " And then, when I was seventeen I met a man I met 
 him. He was a great deal older than I and he was engaged 
 to a lady I knew. I admired him very much, for he was 
 very clever and very interesting, but that was all, then. 
 And one day my father's my father's wife wrote to me 
 from a country town that she was ill and lonely, and wanted 
 to see me. And I went. My grandfather was very angry 
 and wouldn't forgive me for a long time, but I'm glad I 
 went. She liked me, and she enjoyed talking to me about 
 my father. She loved him, too." After a long pause she 
 went on, clearing her throat, and sitting up, " And just by 
 chance he lived near by, and I used to go to see him. He 
 was very nice to me and I liked him very much. Then one 
 day Mrs. Kennedy, Father's wife, Father was an opera 
 singer, and had changed his name to Sacheverell, died, 
 and I went back to Father and Mother. Oh, and Mrs. 
 Kennedy, poor thing, made me promise just before she died, 
 to make them marry. She thought that they were wicked, 
 you see, and that she should have divorced him so that he
 
 220 PAM DECIDES 
 
 could marry Mother. So when I went back I persuaded 
 them to marry, and they did. And the evening of the wed- 
 ding, when they had gone away, and I was all alone, he 
 
 "Oh Lord our God 
 Be Thou our Guide, 
 That by Thy Help" 
 
 Breaking off in her narration Pam repeated the quaint old 
 words, as the chimes played the tune. 
 
 " There didn't seem much help about it then," she added*, 
 simply. " I loved him, and he loved me. And though he 
 was engaged and it would have ruined his political career to 
 marry me, he wanted to do it. I must," she added to her- 
 self, but aloud, " always remember that." 
 
 Lensky watched her closely, his sleek head bending to- 
 wards her in the attitude so characteristic of him. 
 
 " He insisted that I must marry him," she went on after 
 a pause, during which she pressed back into the fire a stick 
 that threatened to fall out, " he tried his best to make me say 
 I would. And I wouldn't. I offered to go away with 
 him, as Mother had done with Father, only he wasn't 
 married as poor Father was, but I insisted that married 
 people stopped loving each other, and that we must not run 
 the risk. And then I saw the girl he was engaged to and 
 she was good to me, and she adored him, and so, after chop- 
 ping and changing like an utter idiot, I ran away with 
 Pilgrim, deciding to give him up for ever. And then my 
 cousin, Lady Chesney, married, and I saw him at the wed-
 
 PAM DECIDES 221 
 
 ding, and it began all over again. But his wedding-day 
 was fixed, and it was too late to break his engagement and 
 and and then my grandfather died suddenly and my 
 Father and Mother had gone to Japan, and I was all alone, 
 and so he he wanted " 
 
 She broke off, floundering hopelessly, her face crimson. 
 
 " I understand," commented Lensky, gravely. 
 
 "And I thought he meant he would break his engage- 
 ment, it was very silly of me, and when I understood, 
 Pilly and I came to London." 
 
 There was a long pause, during which Lensky put his 
 cigarette holder into his pocket, and rose. 
 
 " And you never saw him again until just now." 
 
 It was an affirmation rather than a question, but the 
 girl, rising, too, nodded. " No." 
 
 " And now you love him again ? " 
 
 " Had I ever stopped ? " she asked sadly. 
 
 " Poor old Pam." He took her hands and held them 
 gently in his. " I am so sorry. And he loves you ? " 
 
 " Yes. It is the same with him. Until this afternoon I 
 thought that as my feeling for you is so much better (I 
 have sense enough to know that), that the other need 
 not count. And I meant to ask you to trust me." 
 
 " Do you mean," he asked, curiously, " that you wanted 
 to marry me in spite of him ? " 
 
 " Yes. Until this afternoon. It is very illogical and 
 absurd, I know, but I I do like you so much more than 
 him, and I feel so so safe w r ith you." 
 
 For 9* moment he was silent, and smiling at her with
 
 222 PAM DECIDES 
 
 a wonderful grave tenderness, he said " Then, marry 
 me." 
 
 But she flushed crimson, drawing away her hands. 
 
 " No, no ! This afternoon he he kissed me, oh, I 
 couldn't help it, indeed I couldn't, and and I never could 
 marry anyone after that." 
 
 " I understand. And you are right. Now good-bye, my 
 dear, as your lover. As your friend it will never be good- 
 bye." Bowing over her hand he kissed it, and as he did so 
 Big Ben sang his completed verse : 
 
 "Oh Lord our God 
 Be Thou our Guide, 
 That by Thy Help 
 No foot may slide."
 
 PART THREE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE Mediterranean, less blue than the Adriatic, less grey 
 than the Atlantic, seems to be possessed of an amiable indif- 
 ference possibly best described by the word " jemenfichisme." 
 
 So when Nizza became Nice and the inhabitants of that 
 part of the azure coast found themselves, when they spoke 
 in their mother-tongue, using a foreign language, it is to be 
 assumed that the waters lapping on that coast lapped on in 
 entire indifference as to whether they lapped against Italian 
 or French shores. 
 
 One can imagine the hills mourning their sold birthright; 
 and there are those to whom the coastline is so Italian in its 
 atmosphere that it seems absurd to call it French, but no one 
 with any imagination can fancy even a momentary rebellion 
 on the part of the waves that, crawling up expecting to salute 
 Italy, found themselves bestowing kisses on France. " Je 
 men fiche" said the nonchalant water, and laughed as usual. 
 
 Therefore, it matters little whether the Villa in which 
 Guy Sacheverel and Pauline Yeoland lived so many years of 
 their lives lay in Italy or in France. 
 
 It stood, or rather sat, for whoever stands in that sunny 
 land, when sitting is a possibility? in a dishevelled garden 
 on a hill sloping back from the water, and for them was 
 neither in Italy nor in France. It was Arcadia. 
 
 The house was a long, flat, intrinsically rather ugly build- 
 
 223
 
 224 PAM DECIDES 
 
 ing, originally covered with shell-pink plaster that even when 
 Sacheverel bought it had faded, and that the sun and rain 
 of twenty-eight subsequent years had mellowed to a very 
 shabby but poetic, rosy yellow. 
 
 There was a terrace from which mossy and slippery stone 
 steps led into a neglected olive-grove that sloped seaward; 
 a high wall on which crept in friendly confusion roses, 
 jessamine, and giant heliotrope; two tall stone-pines intro- 
 ducing into the sunny picture the dark note so effectively used 
 by Turner; and a huge magnolia whose glossy leaves seemed 
 on a dazzling day to give out a light of their own. 
 
 At the foot of the hill on which lay this deserted Arcadia, 
 almost, in its over-luxuriance of flowers, worthy of the Belle 
 aux Bois Dormant, lay a small white city; a city white 
 and gold in the winter, white with dust and golden with 
 sunlight, cold in the shadow, too warm in the sun, eye- 
 dazzling, fatiguing, and stimulating at once as such cities 
 are wont to be. 
 
 One morning in the May following the December in 
 which she had left London, Pamela Yeoland came out on the 
 lawn from one of the windows of the Villa Arcadia, and 
 walked slowly down the neglected roadway towards the 
 gate. 
 
 She walked carefully, seeking for her feet the smoothest 
 places, keeping on the shady side of the drive ; her bent head 
 was bare, and the splashes and blotches of sunlight that came 
 through the leafy boughs above gleamed on a dozen different 
 shades of hair, from deep shadowy brown to a bright bronze, 
 for her hair was plaited and arranged like a cap extending
 
 PAM DECIDES 225 
 
 from the nape of her neck almost to her brow, over which 
 a few loose tendrils twisted and waved. Anyone who had 
 seen her during those last days in London would in looking 
 at her now have found a curious change in her face. She 
 looked younger than she had six months before, for her face 
 was fuller, and she was browned by the sun and reddened 
 until her smooth eheeks were nearly the colour of a ripe 
 peach; but something had gone from her expression, some- 
 thing of youth and transition, and in the firmness of her red 
 mouth one saw that her hour of indecision was over, her 
 way taken. 
 
 She would now no longer be called a girl as most people 
 would have termed her a year ago. She was a woman, and 
 a woman who had deliberately, and not without satisfaction, 
 left youth behind her. 
 
 Even her dress showed something of a conscious aim at 
 young middle-age, for it was of a sober brown hue, though, 
 in deference to the heat of the day, of delicate muslin. 
 
 When she reached the unpainted gate leading to the white 
 road without, she turned and came back to the end of the 
 double line of trees, her head still bent, her steps almost 
 solemnly careful, after which she again started towards the 
 gate. 
 
 And then, on the radiant, fragrant air fell a strange indefi- 
 nite noise, a noise soft and pleasant, a noise low and shy and 
 quaint. 
 
 It was what Pam herself called for lack of a better name, 
 singing, and she was trying to sing to the baby she held in 
 her arms.
 
 226 PAM DECIDES 
 
 ** II etait une bergere, 
 He ron he ron, petit patapon, 
 II etait une bergere 
 Qui gardait ses raoutons, ron, ron, 
 Qui gardait ses moutone. 
 
 " How do you like it, Miss Pamela Wantage? " she asked, 
 pausing and looking down at the wee face. " You never 
 heard such singing in your life, now did you ? " 
 
 Miss Pamela Wantage aged a fortnight and two days, did 
 not answer, for obvious reasons, and the song was resumed. 
 From time to time the elder Pam glanced towards a shaded 
 window of the Villa, and once a black-veiled nursing-sister 
 appeared at it, pushing aside the curtain and peering out 
 into the sun. 
 
 "He ron, ron, ron, petit patapon, 
 
 So tu y rnets la patte 
 Tu auras du baton ron, ron, 
 Tu auras du baton ! " 
 
 In their measured walk the two Pams had again reached 
 the gate, and as they turned it opened, and a little man in 
 a shabby uniform appeared. 
 
 " Buon giornOj Signorina, ah, and the little one who 
 takes the air! " 
 
 " Morning, Sandro. Yes, she is having a walk. Let- 
 ters? " the postman opened his dusty pouch and produced a 
 newspaper and three letters. Then he took off his cap and 
 wiped his forehead. " It is an infernal heat," he observed. 
 " How is the poor lady? " 
 
 " She is just about the same, thank you, Sandro, I fear 
 very ill."
 
 PAM DECIDES 227 
 
 " Gia. And if she should be taken, it is a pity that God 
 in His wisdom didn't make the baby a masculine. The 
 feminines need more the mother." 
 
 The man was, as Pam knew, . frank disbeliever, like many 
 of his class, but his easy and unembarrassed references to the 
 God in whom he had no credence, was an amiable habit, 
 quite without sarcasm. 
 
 "And the Signorino?" 
 
 " The Little Young Gentleman is naturally very sad," re- 
 turned Pam, changing the baby's moist head from the hollow 
 of her left elbow to the hollow of her right, " but he is 
 calmer." 
 
 It was an immense relief to her to know that Wantage, 
 whose youthful manner had won for him the half-affec- 
 tionate, half-slighting name of Signorino, was in his bed and 
 sound asleep. His despair over his wife's dangerous illness 
 was troublesome as well as pitiable, and the silence con- 
 tingent on his slumber more than grateful to ears tortured 
 for many hours by his loud lamentations. 
 
 The postman put on his hat. " Speriamo, then," he ob- 
 served with pessimistic cheerfulness ; " let us hope that the 
 poor Signora will recover. The Madonna and the Saints 
 be merciful to her." With a last friendly salute he went 
 his way, and Pam stood looking at the letters she held. 
 
 " Dear old Duchess," she said aloud. Then she frowned, 
 for the second letter was from Peele. The baby was sleep- 
 ing soundly ; would to all appearances sleep for another hour 
 when she would, Pam knew, out of her new wisdom, roar 
 lustily for refreshment.
 
 228 PAM DECIDES 
 
 After a moment's reflection the girl crossed the rough 
 lawn to her right, and cradling the baby most tenderly in 
 her arms, went down the steps into the olive-grove. 
 
 Here the grass was sparse and tufted, and dangerous from 
 the twisted surface-roots of the grey old trees. Below, on 
 the right a red roof nestled among glossy foliage, and to the 
 left a winding path led to the glittering sea. 
 
 Pam sat down under a tree and, with a sigh of relief, for 
 the wee baby was sufficiently heavy in her long clothes, laid 
 the child on her knees. 
 
 First she read the Duchess' letter, which was long and 
 written on three different kinds of paper. 
 
 " My dear Pam," wrote the old lady, " I was immensely 
 relieved at hearing from you, though I took it for granted 
 that you were all right, and though I think you might have 
 written before. Do you know, viper, that it is over three 
 months since you wrote to me? I am glad that poor little 
 woman's baby has come home safely and that you have such 
 a good nurse for her, though I still think you rather an idiot 
 to have saddled yourself with her and her husband. How- 
 ever, that is your own affair. Yesterday I saw Jack Lensky 
 at the Penges', those steel-pills people. He is said to 
 admire the second daughter, the one who married Lord 
 Freddy Fane and divorced him after six months. She is 
 certainly amazingly good-looking, a little like you only a 
 thousand times handsomer. He looks very well and says 
 he's greatly enjoying the season which, mark you, / believe. 
 It's not pique that makes him say it to me, your friend, as
 
 PAM DECIDES 229 
 
 irt would be in the case of most men. He asked for your 
 news, which I gave him. Lady Freddy is evidently taken 
 with him, though she is a young woman of much dignity and 
 does not go on in Alys Compton's way, which is a blessing. 
 Alys, on dit, has filed a petition for divorce, which has its 
 funny side! 
 
 " I last saw her at Dolly Hetley's wedding. Did I write 
 you about that function? St. Peter's was packed and the 
 incomparable Ratty looked really rather well in his uniform. 
 
 " Evelyn has been in Paris buying much pink finery. She 
 wears only pink or white nowadays, which is wise of her. 
 Henrietta is not well, but Marmy is much stronger and has 
 a pony. 
 
 "James I saw last at the Academy last week. He has 
 been ill, but bears his honours with dignity. Henny was 
 very anxious for him to refuse the appointment and go back 
 into active politics, but he wouldn't. This Chancellorship of 
 course, brings him a very good income, but he is too young 
 to live the life he does. 
 
 " Now my dear, write to me again and tell me your plans. 
 I was very good about your scandalous behaviour to poor 
 Lensky, and never scolded you at all, so I think I deserve 
 your confidence. I have not told a single soul where you are, 
 either. When are you coming back? I don't want to hurt 
 your pride, but you really needn't stay away out of considera- 
 tion for Jack's feelings. He seems to me to havi entirely 
 recovered. My dear love to you. 
 
 " Affectionately yours, 
 
 " ELIZA WIGHT."
 
 230 PAM DECIDES 
 
 The baby slept, its small mulberry-coloured face tranquil. 
 Pam put her letter back into its envelope, and sat for a long 
 time without moving. " Lady Freddy Fane ; Miss Penge 
 of the Pills! I wonder whether he'll marry her," she 
 thought. " I should like to see her. He can hardly like 
 her for her resemblance to me poor girl! I wonder why 
 he did care for me! " 
 
 For several minutes her thoughts ran on in the same 
 strain, before she allowed herself to think of Peele's letter 
 which lay, with one for Cyril Wantage, on the grass beside 
 her. 
 
 " He might know," she reflected coldly, glancing at the 
 envelope, " that there's no use in writing! " 
 
 Then moving a little to keep the child out of a suddenly 
 arrived ray of sunlight, she went on to herself about Len- 
 sky. " How I wish he'd write to me ! How I'd love to 
 see him. Perhaps, if it's really true about Lady Freddy, he 
 will write. He said we should always be friends oh, 
 if he should only come over the grass towards me this min- 
 ute, how I should fly at him, and probably drop and 
 squash vou, Miss," she finished aloud, to the unconscious 
 baby. 
 
 Then, as a tall, slowly-moving woman appeared on the 
 terrace and stood looking down into the grey shadows of the 
 olives, Pam the Greater rose gAigerly, and carried Pam the 
 Less up the slope. 
 
 "Eh angioletto! Eh agnellino!" murmured the nurse, a 
 placid-faced woman with gold hoop-earrings and a gay plaid 
 gown, " I can see thee grow, my pretty! And you, Signer-
 
 PAM DECIDES 231 
 
 ina," she added, turning, " the Signora, povera anima, is 
 awake and asking for you." 
 
 Pam nodded and pausing to pick from one of the mossy 
 and broken urns that stood at the top of the steps she had 
 just come up, a great handful of dark heliotrope, went quickly 
 vcr the grass to the open drawing-room window.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 MARY WANTAGE lay in her narrow bed in the corner 
 of the brick-floored room, her fair hair cut close to her head, 
 her hollow eyes only half open. 
 
 By her, on a table, stood some bottles, a clinical thermom- 
 |eter and a little ebony crucifix on a marble pedestal. The 
 room was dusky and comparatively cool, but sweat stood on 
 the sick woman's pallid face, and the Sister of Mercy by her 
 was fanning her with a gay-coloured fan, a souvenir of the 
 Casino at the foot of the hill. 
 
 "Where is Cyril?" 
 
 " He's asleep, Mary dear. You know how worn out he 
 was," Pam took the fan and the sister silently left the 
 room. 
 
 "Where is the baby?" 
 
 " Just gone to dinner," returned Pam, cheerfully, fanning 
 her as she spoke. " She's as good as an angel, and I've hat 1 
 her for the last hour. How you'll enjoy her when she's a 
 little older." 
 
 Mary shook her head. " No," she said quieCy, " no." 
 After a moment she went on, looking at tht girl, "' Pam, 
 you know as well as I do." 
 
 "What do I know?" 
 
 " That I'm dying. And I don't see why yf*l won't 
 acknowledge it! I'm not afraid. And I've known all 
 along." 
 
 232
 
 PAM DECIDES 233 
 
 For a minute Pam looked at her, and then, laying down 
 the fan, said gravely, " Have you, Mary?" 
 
 Mrs. Wantage gave a little smile of content. 
 
 " Thank you ! Yes, I have. You see, I've always been 
 so delicate, and I shouldn't mind, except for him and her. 
 And who is to tell him ? " 
 
 Pam had known for the last ten days that the poor little 
 woman was dying, but she had been afraid to tell Wantage, 
 whom the slightest hint about his wife's being in a dangerous 
 condition threw into an almost hysterical condition as irri- 
 tating, to the girl, as it was pitiful. Now, laying her hand 
 on the sick woman's, she said quietly, " I think you must 
 tell him. It is his right." 
 
 "Oh, poor Cyril! Is it not sad for him? And just 
 when he is doing so well, too. Well, if you'll send him to 
 me, I will tell him. But, what about my poor little baby? 
 He can't take care of her. If she were only a boy! " 
 
 The sunken eyes filled with tears. 
 
 Pam arose. " No, he can't take care of her, they 
 would be in each other's way, but I'll take care of her, 
 Mary." 
 
 " Oh but you'll marry some day. I hope you will, 
 Pam, for you deserve to be happy." 
 
 Pam, even at that moment, had to bite her Jfo to sup- 
 press a smile. That this poor little thing out of vvhom the 
 pover to live had literally been starved, should identify happi- 
 ness with matrimony! 
 
 Then, leaning over the bed and kissing Mary Wantage's 
 damp cheek she said " No, I shall never marry. And little
 
 234 PAM DECIDES 
 
 Pam shall be my daughter. So do not trouble about 
 her." 
 
 Then she went into Wantage's room where he lay fully 
 dressed on his bed, one arm under his head, and gently 
 waked him. 
 
 " Wake up, Cyril, Mary wants you Mary wants you." 
 
 " Then she must be better," he cried, springing up and 
 rubbing his sleep-blurred eyes, "she is better, isn't she?" 
 Then seeing her grave face he burst into a sob. " Oh, she 
 isn't worse, you needn't try to frighten me " 
 
 " Go to her, and try not to distress her. Try to be brave." 
 
 When she had seen the sick-room door close behind him 
 she went to the end of the passage and into her own room. 
 
 From a drawer she took her battered old tin despatch box 
 and opening it stood for a moment looking at the letters 
 lying in it. There were three letters, all unopened, and all 
 addressed by James Peele. 
 
 " He will surely soon stop writing if I never answer him," 
 she told herself, an obstinate set to her lips, " and I would 
 rather die than write/' 
 
 Then adding to the pile of letters the one she had re- 
 ceived an hour ago she locked the box, put it away, and sat 
 down. 
 
 Two rooms away poor little Mary Wantage lay dying, 
 and her husband was in genuine despair. Pam was deeply 
 sorry for them both. She had, shortly after her flight to 
 this long-deserted place, written to Wantage, on hearing 
 that Mary was rapidly losing strength, to bring his wife to 
 her; she had sent the money necessary for the journey, and,
 
 PAM DECIDES 235 
 
 glad of the occupation as well as full of compassion, devoted 
 all her energies to the task of curing the sick woman. 
 
 ,Day after day she had sat by Mary, reading to her, sew- 
 ing, in her clumsy way, for her, talking to her about the 
 coming baby, building beautiful air-castles to amuse her. 
 And while, underneath, her own wild pain and rebellion 
 throbbed and tortured her, the girl spared no labour to 
 render more durable the poor woman's dreary time of wait- 
 ing. As unselfish as if Mary Wantage had been her own 
 sister she had cared for and tended her, and then when 
 night came, and she was alone, James Peek's image came 
 back from his banishment and tortured her till dawn. 
 
 She loved the man, that she had owned bravely from the 
 moment when he had kissed her in the Hall in her own 
 house in London. It would, she felt, have been an absurdity 
 to deny this to herself after telling it to Lensky, but she 
 tried to counterbalance, and in a great measure succeeded 
 in counterbalancing this avowal by her equally frank admis- 
 sion of the man's unworthiness to be loved. " I do not like, 
 nor respect, nor admire him," she told herself, " I only 
 love him." 
 
 And without faltering for so much as a second, she refused 
 to face the possibility of ever again seeing him. Her plan 
 was very simple. When a year had passed she would write 
 and tell him that unless he would promise never to try to see 
 her, she must consider herself banished from London. She 
 would explain to him that while his physical presence exercised 
 over her an invincible fascination, she was ashamed of the feel- 
 ing, and would rather never again set foot in England than
 
 236 PAM DECIDES 
 
 run the risk of seeing him. And then, quite frankly she would 
 throw herself on his mercy and beg him not to persecute her. 
 
 For six weeks after leaving home this plan had appeared 
 to her a fully satisfactory one, and then he had written, 
 and every nerve in her body had quivered as she recognised 
 his writing. 
 
 After a struggle that lasted a whole night she had con- 
 quered her desire to read the letter, but being unable to 
 burn it, she had locked it into her old despatch box in which 
 years ago she had kept a note from him and a rose he had 
 worn in his coat, unopened. 
 
 In March another letter had come, and in early April 
 another, both to meet with the same fate. And of course 
 as she conquered, the girl grew stronger, and now the baby, 
 the baby that was, by such a strange turn of the wheel, to 
 be hers, was there to help her. 
 
 That poor little Mary was dying was sad; very sad for 
 Mary herself and for Cyril, whose better nature was bound 
 dp in hers, but Pam loved neither of them with a very deep 
 affection, though, having helped them, she was of course 
 attached to them both, whereas the baby it had been hers 
 from the hour it was born, and she loved it. She had been 
 hurt by Lensky's silence. She had not written to him, but 
 he could have sent a letter to her house in Westminster, and 
 she had longed for news with a sort of hurt loneliness that 
 had lasted until the wee Pam had come. Ratty would have 
 written, she knew, in the circumstances, and poor Charnley 
 Burke, though in his own case he had written only when he 
 was dying, would, had he parted from her as Lensky did.
 
 PAM DECIDES 237 
 
 have sent her flowers, or sweets, and a clumsily expressed 
 plea for news. 
 
 But Lensky, as she knew from the Duchess and from the 
 newspapers, was going about as usual, leading cotillons, driv- 
 ing in his little brown victoria, admiring handsome women, 
 dining, wining, riding, exactly as if he had never known her. 
 The Pam incident, she told herself with a little pang, was 
 closed, and it had left him as it found him, cool, serene, de- 
 lightful, interested in the daily round of work and amuse- 
 ment, enjoying life in his calm yet whole-hearted way. 
 
 And she, who in all her life before had never really longed 
 for a friend, regretted this friendship that had after all been 
 something else with a keenness that occasionally amounted to 
 a positive passion of loneliness. So now, as she went to the 
 nurse's room, it was of her lost friend and not of her lost 
 love that she thought, for having resolutely refused to indulge 
 in thoughts of that love it had at last gradually withdrawn 
 from the centre of her mind, where it had at first stood rant- 
 ing and mouthing like a selfish actor, and dwelt, always liv- 
 ing, always suffering, in decent obscurity in the back of her 
 consciousness. Contentedly aware that her struggle over 
 each subsequent letter of Peele's was less than the preceding 
 one, then, she thought with a little pang of T/ensky, as she 
 went down the passage. " It is hard to have lost my friend, 
 too, " she said. 
 
 But there on the nurse's lap lay the new, the brand-new 
 Pam. A Pam whose life was to be so different from her 
 god-mother's; a Pam who was to be taken care of, loved, 
 without a rival ; a Pam who was not " to know best."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 A WEEK later Pam stood on the platform of the dingy 
 black station of the white city at the foot of the hill by the 
 .sea. She had just said good-bye to Cyril Wantage, who had 
 gone back to London, where the Lepidoptera Britannica was 
 supposed to have greatly suffered by his prolonged absence. 
 
 Poor little Mary had been buried the day before, and 
 Wantage, dazed and quiet after his first wild grief, was be- 
 having better than Pam had ventured to hope. 
 
 He had left his baby without reluctance, glad to know the 
 poor little creature was in good hands, and now Pam was 
 alone with the child that, as she put it, had come to her by 
 such roundabout ways. 
 
 Going back through the wicketed sortie, the girl turned to 
 her left, and made her way through the dul! walled street 
 to the heart of the town, where she had some shopping to do. 
 She must buy some wool of which Pilgrim, reluctant but 
 adoring deputy-grandmother, was to fabricate socks for the 
 baby; she must go to the library at which, years before, the 
 Duchess had seen her name on a parcel of books, and thus 
 quite by chance discovered her whereabouts ; she must try on 
 two frocks, and buy some chocolate. 
 
 As she walked, swinging along the slippery street at het 
 usual rapid gait, her heart rose suddenly. 
 
 " Sursum corda," she said to herself, "but why? I am 
 
 238
 
 PAM DECIDES 239 
 
 wny about poor little Mary, and that helpless duffer Cyril. 
 I shall miss them both. Only wee Pammy is mine, mine 
 own tiny baby, and somehow God seems splendidly near to 
 His world, this dark day ! " 
 
 It was, though she did not try to analyse it, the natural 
 reaction after the days of depression contingent or Mary 
 Wantage's illness and death. The dead were gone, the living 
 remained, and the beauty and poetry of the new life just 
 beginning were helping to heal the wounds that the meeting 
 with Peele had left gaping in her heart. 
 
 She must love James Peele until she died, and no doubt 
 would not stop then, but now that she had a new, innocent 
 healthy love to counterbalance that one of which she was so 
 ashamed, hope itself had come back. 
 
 The woman who sold the pink and white wool was most 
 sympathetic. " Poor lady," she said, as Pam critically studied 
 two shades of delicate rose-colour, " it was very sad for her. 
 And the baby, Mademoiselle?" 
 
 " The baby is mine. I am to keep her always. She is 
 named for me." 
 
 " Really, Mademoiselle? Ah well, I remember Mademoi- 
 selle herself as a little child in a white furry coat. Et la 
 Maman de Mademoiselle fut d'une beaute eblouissante. 
 Might I ask how Madame finds herself? " 
 
 Pam flushed with pleasure. "I'll have this, please. And 
 you remember my Mother, Madame Charrette? She is 
 very well. They are living in Japan now." 
 
 Madame Charrette, who had a heavy moustache but a 
 romantic heart, sighed deeply. "En voila un reman," she
 
 240 PAM DECIDES 
 
 replied, making up her parcel neatly. " A real passion ti 
 the most great." 
 
 Pam nodded and left the shop. The unconventionality of 
 Madame Charrette's remarks did not strike her, for she felt 
 somehow less lonely, knowing that this old woman remem- 
 bered and admired her father and mother. 
 
 At the library she changed her last book for " Henry Rye- 
 croft," and then crossing the street, climbed up three pairs of 
 stairs and tried on the cheap little frocks to which her adop- 
 tion of the Wantage family had reduced her. 
 
 When she came out again the scant rain had gathered 
 strength and poured down in a heavy shower. Pam stood for 
 a moment looking into it with some disgust, and then, having 
 a letter to post, slipped along under the dripping awnings 
 to the post-office. 
 
 As she dropped her letter to the Duchess into the box, she 
 caught sight of a man bending over one of the high desks 
 dedicated to the use of the writers of telegrams. He wore a 
 long, dark rain-coat and a soft felt hat, but in spite of these 
 more or less disguising properties she knew him at once. It 
 was Lensky. 
 
 For a moment she stood staring at his unconscious back, 
 and then, her face flushing with pleasure, started across the 
 floor towards him. She had nearly reached him when a lady 
 at the next desk turned and said to him, "Is it in Surrey, 
 Mr. de Lensky?" 
 
 " No, Kent," he answered, going on with his writing, 
 *nd Pam, turning, hurried from the place without addressing 
 Mm.
 
 PAM DECIDES 24* 
 
 The tall girl in the beautifully cut coat and skirt was, she 
 knew, Lady Freddy Fane. And he knew her, Pam's, address, 
 and if he cared to break his long silence, could do so. 
 
 Through the rain she flew to the place where a small and 
 not over-clean yellow omnibus stood waiting for the moment 
 when it should start up Pam's hill towards the distant village 
 whither almost all its passengers were bound. 
 
 Taking her seat, she reviewed the little scene she had just 
 witnessed, Lensky's wet back bent over his telegram, the 
 dark profile of the handsome girl beside him, and, in the 
 background, hesitating, ridiculous, more than a little angry 
 and hurt, Pam Yeoland, laden with bundles, staring at them. 
 
 Gradually the 'bus filled with chattering peasant women 
 whose wet clothes smelt of dye, and with brown-faced men 
 smoking atrocious cigars and discussing their affairs loudly 
 with their neighbours. The door was closed and the vehicle 
 began its lumbering progress. 
 
 " He said we were to be friends, and I ought to have 
 trusted him and spoken. Oh, how I should have loved 
 
 hearing him speak, ' You, Miss Yeoland ! ' he would 
 
 have said, and he would have smiled. But he knows my 
 address, and if he wants to see me he can easily do so. It is 
 not my place to make advances. Oh, how that man smells 
 of garlic ! " 
 
 Half way up the hill it occurred to her that she might 
 easily in such a conveyance, catch the germs of measles or 
 scarlet-fever, and carry them home to the baby, so, suddenly 
 terror-stricken, she jumped out into the rain and went her 
 way on foot.
 
 242 PAM DECIDES 
 
 Lensky might have written to her, at least once, in all 
 that time. His friendship must be very unlike her idea of 
 that sentiment, or he would have done so. No doubt he 
 was glad she had broken the engagement, particularly now 
 he knew this handsome Lady Freddy. 
 
 Very wet, and thoroughly cross, though half-laughing at 
 her own unreasonableness, Pam reached the Villa. An hour 
 later, as, dry and happy, the baby in her lap, she sat in her 
 shabby drawing-room, Pilgrim came in. " A telegram, Miss 
 Pam." 
 
 Pam burst out laughing. " Pilly," she exclaimed, " I am 
 the silliest goose in the world ! " 
 
 Then she opened the wire and read: 
 
 " Am at Hotel Victoria with friends. May I come to 
 see you?" 
 
 " J. DE LENSKY/'
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 WHEN de Lensky arrived, the following afternoon, he 
 found a Pam in the best of spirits, attired, it is true, in a 
 sober grey muslin frock, but with a yellow rose in the lace 
 at her throat and a flexible silver belt round her waist. A 
 Pam, in short, in both mental and physical gala attire. 
 
 She stood, for she had heard the coming of his cab, in the 
 open door, her slight figure outlined against the cool dusk of 
 the hall, the afternoon sun just touching her glossy plaits. 
 
 And when she saw him, a most immaculate and prosperous- 
 looking Lamartine in grey clothes and one of the finest 
 Panamas ever woven, her joy overflowed, and forgetting the 
 short interlude of a different relationship that had inter- 
 rupted their friendship, gave him both her hands and cried, 
 her face quite rosy with pleasure, " Oh, I am so glad to see 
 you!" 
 
 And he, as the cabman drove off to the shade in the lee 
 of the house, smiled at her as, she thought, only he could 
 smile and shook her hands warmly, not a shadow of arriere- 
 pensee in his face or his manner. " And I am so glad to see 
 you. And you look so well ! " 
 
 " I am well. Come in out of the heat. The fatted calf 
 is being prepared in the background, but no one ever heard of 
 the prodigal himself ever being roasted, and the sun is awful 
 to-day!" 
 
 She led him across the glossy brick floor into the high- 
 
 243
 
 244 PAM DECIDES 
 
 ceiled, scantily-furnished cFrawing-room. The blinds were 
 all closed and the room filled with a luminous green dusk 
 most refreshing after a long drive in an open cab. " Sit down, 
 dear person, and be comfy. I hope the flowers don't smell 
 too strong. I love them so, myself, " 
 
 The room was full of bowls and vases and even earthen- 
 ware pans of roses and heliotrope. 
 
 " They are delicious, but why do you call me a Prodi- 
 gal?" Lensky drew his chair nearer hers and polished his 
 glass vigorously on a blue pocket-handkerchief which, she 
 observed, exactly matched his striped shirt. 
 
 She laughed. Some slight misgivings that she had felt 
 before his arrival had now quite gone, definitely disposed of 
 by the happy serenity of his face. 
 
 " Because you prodigalled, didn't you ? You never wrote 
 me a word, me, your friend ! " It was so delicious to know 
 that she need not choose nor measure her words. This dear, 
 exquisite Lamartine wore no bleeding heart under his smart 
 waistcoat and she could be as fond of him, in her own way, 
 as she liked. 
 
 " But of course I didn't. If you had wanted me you would 
 have let me know. Would you not ? " 
 
 It was amazing how perfectly he fitted his present sur- 
 roundings. At home in Huntley Street, at home in Evelyn's 
 beautiful drawing-room, as much at home in Little Cowley 
 Street as if he had been born there, here he was looking, in 
 the shabby brick-floored Villa, as if he had never been out 
 of it in his life. Pam wanted to tell him all this, but there 
 were so many things she wanted to tell him!
 
 PAM DECIDES 245 
 
 " I almost wrote to you several times," she said, instead, 
 " but I didn't quite dare " 
 
 " Why ? " He watched her in the most satisfied way as 
 he put his question, his glossy head bent as she had always 
 pictured it in her thoughts of him. 
 
 " Well, I don't know. Or rather " For once it 
 
 seemed she was a little embarrassed, remembering their last 
 meeting. 
 
 Then he said, quite simply, " You were afraid of hurting 
 me. You need not have been afraid of that." 
 
 " I know it now. And it was idiotic of me, but " 
 
 she could, however, hardly add that most men might, in the 
 circumstances, have been hurt by a merely friendly letter 
 from her, so she got up and rang the bell. 
 
 Lensky rose as she did, and as she sat down, resumed his 
 seat. That he understood her thought she instinctively knew, 
 and a glow of happiness in her possession of such an incom- 
 parable friend came to her face. 
 
 She was so glad to see him, so overjoyed in knowing that 
 he was content with the love that she could, and did, give 
 him, that she would have liked to shake his hand again, or 
 pat his shoulder, to make him comprehend her happiness. 
 He met her smile with one that was eloquent of all the 
 sympathetic understanding in the world, and then Pilgrim 
 came in and was told to bring tea. 
 
 " Well, whichever of us was in fault, makes no differ- 
 ence. It stall never happen again, shall it? And now," 
 she went on, " tell me what brought you here." 
 
 " Two things. The wish to see you, sail the wish to be
 
 246 PAM DECIDES 
 
 with some friends, the Penges. They came last week, and 
 I joined them the day before yesterday. They are coming 
 to call on you, if you'll allow them to." 
 
 " I shall love to know them. Lady Freddy Fane is with 
 them, isn't she? I saw her yesterday." 
 
 " Yes. It is for her that I came. She is most beautiful, 
 and a delightful woman; clever and kind as well as so 
 handsome." 
 
 Pilgrim brought in tea and Pam lighted the lamp. 
 
 " How nice ! How long are you to be here ? " 
 
 " A week but we go to Monte Carlo the day after to- 
 morrow. Mrs. Penge wants to know if you would care to 
 go with us? We shall stop the night, and have some music, 
 besides gambling a little." 
 
 "Oh, you still gamble?" The words burst from her 
 involuntarily, and she paused, horror-stricken. 
 
 He looked at her gravely. " Yes. Why not ? " 
 
 Then, before she had time to answer, he went on as she 
 clashed a cup down on the tray, " There is a new opera being 
 sung, and some of the Paris opera people are singing, I 
 hear, remarkably well. Will you come ? " 
 
 Pam shook her head. " I can't." 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 " Because I can't leave the baby." 
 
 " The " For the first time she saw Lensky look really 
 
 amazed, and she burst out laughing. " Yes. I have adopted 
 the child of a a friend of mine who has just died. She is 
 only three weeks old, and I should be afraid to leave her." 
 She gave him a cup of tea and he sat stirring it for some time
 
 PAM DECIDES 247 
 
 without speaking. At last he said slowly, " I am very glad 
 for you about the child. When will you return to 
 London?" 
 
 " I don't know. Please let's rrot talk about that. Tell 
 me about the winter and what you have been doing. How 
 is Evelyn Chesney ? " 
 
 " Very well now, I believe. I have not seen her for a 
 long time. The Duchess is magnificent. Lady Alys is 
 obliged to get rid of poor Bill." 
 
 "Poor Bill?" 
 
 " Yes. They are both of them to be pitied. He hasn't 
 been sober for six months, I should say, which is not pleasant 
 for her." 
 
 "No. Well, my delectable cousin Ratty?" 
 
 " Maxse is the most domestic of boys. He will never 
 grow to be a man. He drives with his wife every afternoon. 
 Can more be said? By the way, I met Miss Greene-with- 
 an-E the other night, at the Coliseum. She was vastly 
 cordial, and enquired most tenderly for you. When I told 
 her I had not seen you since December, nor heard from you, 
 she thought I lied. She was with a gentleman in mourning, 
 for my friend Mrs. Single is dead, and I think Miss Greene 
 aspires to take her place." 
 
 For an hour they talked, and then, at Lensky's request, 
 Pam fetched the baby. It was cooler now, and Pilgrim had 
 opened one of the windows, through which one had a beauti- 
 ful view of the sea. Lensky walked about the long room a* 
 he waited, and then, when she came back, the baby in her 
 arms, he stood still, watching her approach. " She has just
 
 248 PAM DECIDES 
 
 waked up, so we may reasonably hope she will not bellow," 
 the girl explained, smiling at the child. She did not look up, 
 or she would have seen Lensky's colour change to a soft pink 
 as he watched her, and his eyes look as they did when he 
 heard music. 
 
 " Is she big for her age? " he asked, gravely. 
 
 " I haven't the slightest idea ! " They both laughed and 
 he rattled his keys at the baby, which stared disdainfully at 
 him. 
 
 "What is her name?" he inquired, as Pam sat down by 
 the window. 
 
 " Pamela. I am her godmother, her poor little mother 
 wanted to have it so. So now I am Old Pam, and she Pam 
 Junior." 
 
 " I think she is going to have red hair." Gingerly he 
 passed his forefinger over the scant fluff on the child's head, 
 "And I don't like her nose." 
 
 " You are extremely rude, but we don't care a bit. I 
 suppose you think your own nose was beautiful when you 
 were three weeks old ? " 
 
 He laughed. " No. The history of my nose is a family 
 joke. Until I was ten or eleven it remained the most plebeian 
 of buttons, round and flat, to my mother's despair. Then 
 one day it began to grow, and it grew and grew until it 
 nearly hid me, and my mother, I believe, used to burn can- 
 dles to different saints to make it stop. By the way," he 
 went on, his voice changing, " I have a letter for you from 
 my mother. I she insists on my giving it to you, so I 
 must."
 
 PAM DECIDES 249 
 
 " All right. She must have been rather relieved, I should 
 think." 
 
 He took the letter from his pocket and handed it to her, 
 and as she read it she flushed a deep, uncomfortable red. 
 The letter was short but indignant, but what caused the 
 girl's blush was not the anger of this unknown old woman, 
 but the realisation it brought home to her that de Lensky 
 had cared far more than she had ever guessed. 
 
 " You must not be annoyed," he said, as she laid the letter 
 on the table, " she adores me, you know, and the old story 
 of the tigress and her cub." 
 
 " I don't mind the tigress," answered Pam, " but I am 
 sorry that the cub was upset." 
 
 " She exaggerates that," he returned, calmly. " I wrote 
 her only the bare facts, so that part is all pure assumption, 
 but well, you see, I talked to her about you when I was 
 at home." 
 
 " Oh ! " Pam looked at him, as she shifted the baby to 
 another position. " I never thought to tell you, that evening,, 
 that I was sorry to to hurt you, I was so miserable myseli 
 and so selfish and you were so quiet, I didn't think you 
 cared much. If you did, I am really awfully sorry." 
 
 He smiled, apparently a little amused by her choice of 
 words. " Don't be awfully sorry, dear lady ! I assure you 
 that even then I was much more distressed for you than for 
 myself. I have my own theory of life, you know, and 
 regretting the inevitable doesn't happen to be part of it." 
 
 She drew a deep sigh of relief. " I know, and of course 
 the minute I saw you to-day I knew it was all right. But
 
 250 PAM DECIDES 
 
 I was very selfish not to think then, last winter, of you. 
 However, Tutto va bene chi si finis ce bene, isn't it, Miss 
 Wantage?" 
 
 But at this point Miss Wantage, disregarding the presence 
 of a stranger, began to burble and then to roar, and had tc be 
 removed.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 t( L,E jeu est fait, rien ne va pl-u-u-s! " 
 
 The croupiers drawled their formulas, ancient hags 
 clawed in their or other people's winnings, beautiful young 
 women invited strange men, in sirenic tones, to lend them a 
 louis d'or, respectable matrons looked disdainfully down their 
 noses at the shocking scene to see which they had come hun- 
 dreds of miles. Scraps of all civilised tongues filled the air, 
 oaths, laughs, groans. And the air itself, thick with a thou- 
 sand scents from Peau d'Espange beloved of unmention- 
 able Parisian ladies up to the most delicate essence of Houbi- 
 gant or Guerlain was unbearably hot, unbearably sweet, and 
 curiously exciting. 
 
 Pam and Mr. Penge, inventor of the celebrated Steel 
 Pills, a thin, rather aristocratic-looking old man with dyed 
 eyebrows and snowy hair, had wandered away from the 
 table where Lensky and Lady Freddy Fane had paused, and 
 gone into a Rouge-et-Noir room. 
 
 They had come, in spite of the baby, the day before, and 
 were to remain until the next morning, and Pam was enjoy- 
 ing herself in a way that surprised her. 
 
 Papa Penge was a curiously pompous, yet intelligent old 
 man, Mamma Penge less intelligent as she was less pompous, 
 but the kind of plump old lady whose good-nature acts as a 
 buffer for her family against all outside slings and arrows, 
 and uncomfortable thoughts died in her cosy presence in a 
 
 251
 
 252 PAM DECIDES 
 
 quite extraordinary way. Whereas the two daughters, Miss 
 Penge, or Buzzy, as she was called, and the lovely Lady 
 Freddy were both extremely nice women who, taking a 
 lively fancy to the lonely girl, made her feel almost at once 
 as though she had known them for years. 
 
 It was, too, a delight to Pam to see that while de Lensky 
 hovered in tranquil adoration about Lady Freddy, he still 
 turned at certain moments always to her, to Pam. 
 
 " If only they would marry, and then both take me for 
 their best friend," she thought. 
 
 Standing in the crowd, studying the faces opposite her, the 
 idea came back to her. Yes, if she could keep Lensky always 
 for her friend, and gain for a new one this sincere, intelligent 
 sympathetic Dorothy Fane, how happy she should be. 
 
 Presently the two people of whom she was thinking came 
 to the same table and sat opposite her. Lady Freddy wore 
 black, and round her throat gleamed a single string of pearls. 
 She was really like Pam in a curious elusive way. It was 
 possibly more an expression than anything else, but it was 
 undeniable, and Pam smiled as she studied it. Lensky, after 
 standing for a few minutes looking on at the game, reached 
 over and placed some gold-pieces on the table. He won, 
 pushed back the original sum with his winnings, and won 
 again. 
 
 For five minutes this went on, until the attention of the 
 motley bystanders was fixed on him. Lady Freddy said 
 something to him, but he did not hear, aniTlhen, once more 
 risking the whole of the considerable sum of money, he won 
 again.
 
 PAM DECIDES 253 
 
 A woman in front of him rose and with a glance of super- 
 stitious awe offered him her seat. He turned, stared absently 
 at her and apparently remembering that he was not alone, 
 refused her offer with a courteous bow. A moment later 
 Lady Freddy and he had joined Pam and Mr. Penge. 
 
 Pam looked curiously at Lensky. His face wore an ex- 
 pression she had never seen on it ; one of concentrated excite- 
 ment strongly held in check, and he was extremely pale. And 
 although the girl had never before seen that look in any face 
 whose changes were familiar to her, she at once recognised it, 
 and knew that his passion for play was roused. 
 
 As she was intently studying him he looked up and met 
 her gaze. He smiled. " Will you come for a turn round 
 the rooms with me, Miss Yeoland? " he asked, and as soon 
 as they were out of earshot of the others, he added, "Yes, 
 you were right." 
 
 "Right?" 
 
 " In thinking that I have a fit of the gambling fever 
 to-night." 
 
 " But are you going to do it? " 
 
 " Yes," he answered, very gravely, " I think so, when 
 you all have gone to the hotel. I should be lucky to-night." 
 
 " And then you'd try again to-morrow, and be unlucky." 
 
 " Very likely." He looked at her a little anxiously, and 
 with a smile she said, as they drew near to a Roulette table, 
 " You needn't be afraid. I am not going to ask you not to ! " 
 
 He laughed, showing his teeth, as he so rarely did. " I 
 am glad ! But how did you know I thought you were ? " 
 
 " I just knew. And I may as well warn you that I think
 
 254 PAM DECIDES 
 
 Lady Freddy is going to be less discreet than I, so if you 
 want to spend a merry evening losing money, you had better 
 avoid her! " 
 
 " I should refuse if she asked me. I say, look at that 
 chap with the hair like a shoe-brush, he's winning a pot of 
 money " 
 
 Pam did not ask what Lensky would have done if she had 
 begged him not to gamble that night, and stood silent for a 
 long time, while he watched the man with the shoe- 
 brush hair on whose shoulder the bird of luck had evidently 
 perched. 
 
 To the girl's left an Englishman stood talking to a very 
 pretty Frenchwoman obviously not his wife. 
 
 "Mais non" he was saying, looking down at her, "II 
 nest pas temps." 
 
 " But just for a moment," she pleaded, shaking a netted 
 gold bag full of loose coin, " /' suls en veins ce soir, j'l'sais. 
 Allans, petit cheri, fats moi place/ " 
 
 But the big man refused to let her try the luck she felt to 
 be hers, and she turned away sulkily. Pam watched them, 
 much amused. The man was evidently a pillar of society 
 on a holiday ; she could mentally picture him at home in the 
 country, chained to the domestic hearth, shooting over his 
 turnips, ornamenting the little church with his exemplary 
 presence on Sunday mornings. His wife was probably about 
 forty-five, possessed of a weather-beaten complexion and all 
 the virtues. Yet here he was with a scrap of humanity from 
 Montmartre or Batignolles, aged about twenty-three, chiefly 
 noticeable for the candour of her brow and the freedom of
 
 PAM DECIDES 255 
 
 her tongue, and who undoubtedly could, if she thought it 
 desirable, kick off his hat on a moment's notice. 
 
 Pam stood quite still, enjoying the conversation carried on 
 by these two people, and then, suddenly, her smile faded and 
 a look very much like terror darkened her eyes. For the big 
 man, in the middle of a laborious explanation to his com- 
 panion in what he considered French, broke off and mut- 
 tered to himself under his breath, but so that Pam heard the 
 words as clearly as if they had been shouted, " Good Lord, 
 Jim Peele!" 
 
 Taking Mademoiselle Fernande by an elbow, he wheeled 
 round and made for the lobby door. Pam stood still for a 
 second, and then caught de Lensky's arm. 
 
 " Come," she said, and without a word of explanation led 
 him out of the Casino, following closely on the heels of the 
 Englishman and his companion. 
 
 Lensky, when they stood in the cool night air on the steps, 
 turned to her. " You were faint ? " he asked. 
 
 She dropped his arm. " No, but someone is there whom 
 I don't want to see." 
 
 He leaned towards her and studied her face for a moment 
 in silence and then, taking her hand and laying it on his arm, 
 led the way to the garden, where he made her sit down on a 
 bench, and taking out his cigarette-case asked her if he might 
 smoke. 
 
 She nodded, for she could not speak. Peele, judging by 
 the big Englishman's proceedings, must have been just oppo- 
 site them at the table; if she had raised her eyes she would 
 have seen him; it was by the merest chance that he had not
 
 256 PAM DECIDES 
 
 seen her. What was he doing here? Was he going to try 
 to gain admittance to the Villa ? Had her silence so angered 
 him that he had decided to take matters into his own hands 
 and force things to go his way? These and hundreds of 
 other thoughts whirled through the girl's mind as she sat 
 there under the brilliant stars. 
 
 Had she been foolish not to answer his letters? 
 
 He was not the man to accept the purely passive role she 
 in her arrogance of strength had assigned to him. Tired of 
 waiting, he had made up his mind to act. She turned and 
 looked at Lensky's placid profile as he sat smoking, his near- 
 sighted gaze fixed on the sea. 
 
 "Mr. de Lensky!" At the desperation in her voice he 
 started. 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " It is he of whom I told you, who is in there. I heard 
 someone say so. And I don't know what to do." 
 
 " You don't want to see him ? " 
 
 " No ! And yet " He could see her painful blush, 
 
 and looked away in pity. " When I think that he is in 
 there, oh, I must go home. I must go at once. If he 
 should come out here " 
 
 " He will not come here ; and if he did " 
 
 She burst into a harsh laugh. " Oh, but you don't under- 
 stand! If he came, if I saw him, I I should do anything 
 he said, to-night. I I want him so!" 
 
 Lensky did not move. " You would do exactly what 
 you think wisest," he returned, hesitating a little on the 
 just word, and evidently using it deliberately, instead of
 
 PAM DECIDES 257 
 
 " right." " You are nervous, just now, but you are strong, 
 and you would certainly not make a fool of yourself." 
 
 The roughness of his phrase acted like a tonic on her. 
 
 "No, of course I shouldn't," she answered, humbly; 
 " but it would make things almost unbearable. Seeing him, 
 I mean. I I can't tell you the effect his face has on me. 
 And I am afraid to see him. I am so sorry to to be such a 
 bore, but will you take me to the station? I can catch the 
 10.15 train. I I cant stay on here." 
 
 To her infinite relief he rose at once, throwing away his 
 cigarette. " Of course you can't. Yes, you can easily 
 make that train, and I'll explain to Mrs. Penge. If we hurry 
 we can go to the hotel for your luggage." 
 
 But this Pam would not do. She was extremely nervous 
 and absolutely refused to go to the hotel, or to leave the 
 garden. 
 
 " Lady Freddy's maid will pack my things to-morrow. I 
 shall be at home by midnight. What what will you tell 
 Mrs. Penge?" 
 
 Lensky reflected for a moment. " I shall just say that you 
 found it necessary to go home suddenly," he returned. " And 
 when you see them on Friday you can do as you like." 
 
 A few minutes later Pam was in the train, and Lensky 
 stood bareheaded before her. " I am wiring Pilgrim to meet 
 you," he said, " and on Thursday I shall come to see you. 
 I think you had perhaps better tell me about it." Pam took 
 his hand in both hers. "Yes, I will. And you will tell 
 me what to do. And thank you." 
 
 " Good-bye, then, until Thursday."
 
 258 PAM DECIDES 
 
 As the train moved away, he stood looking aftei her, his 
 hat in his hand, the strong light pouring down on him 
 showing him distinctly, even to the small pearls in his shirt, 
 and the gardenia in his coat ; correct, impassive, almost statu- 
 esque, on a small scale.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 "I AM awfully ashamed to have been so idiotic, I can't 
 imagine what made me ! " 
 
 Lensky smiled. " Love often makes people afraid," he 
 returned, in a serious voice. 
 
 They sat in the drawing-room of the Villa beside a shabby 
 little inlaid table on which stood, still locked, the despatch- 
 box containing Peele's letters to Pam. It was a wet day, and 
 in the silence ensuing on his unusually intimate speech, the 
 sound of the rain beating on the windows seemed to grow 
 louder, and then diminish, like a pulsing thing. 
 
 " It is, that I suppose," the girl said, slowly, clasping 
 her hands ; " but it isn't a gov d love. I can't express it, 
 but I know, myself. It is like being possessed of a devil." 
 
 " How do you mean ? " 
 
 " I mean " She was always inarticulate under stress 
 
 of strong emotion, and spoke in a painfully fragmentary way 
 as he sat looking out into the rain, " I mean that a real, 
 whole love is a good thing, and that this isn't." 
 
 " Because he is married ? " 
 
 Her face trembled and then broke into a smile as she 
 looked round the room in which her father and mother had 
 so often sat, almost as if apologising to it for his mistake. 
 
 " Good Heavens, no! That makes no difference in the 
 the quality of the feeling. I mean well, my mother loves 
 my father with real love, and it is good; it always waf 
 
 259
 
 260 PAM DECIDES 
 
 good, even when it was wrong. But I I don't respect 
 this man, or like him, and I am ashamed of the way he 
 makes me feel. But when he is near then I feel as if I 
 had wings that were beating the air with impatience to 
 carry me to him. And I give you my word, when I shut 
 my eyes I can. see him as plainly as I see you this moment. 
 And when I got his note this morning, begging me to see 
 him, if you hadn't been coming I'd have -bolted." 
 
 Lensky turned and looked at her, for the first time for 
 several minutes. "And his other letters are in that box?" 
 
 " Yes. I I wouldn't read them, but I simply could not 
 make up my mind to burn them. Are you," she went on, 
 unlocking the box and taking out the letters, "quite sure 
 that I ought to read them ? " 
 
 " Yes. It seems to me that you can't know how to act 
 until you know what his intentions are, and have been. 
 And, besides, it is so much simpler to face matters." 
 
 She nodded. His cool common-sense was already doing 
 her good. " Very well. I I will read them and tell you 
 what he says." 
 
 Lensky took his glass from his eye, and leaning back in 
 his chair, tc all intents and purposes as unable to see her face 
 as if she had been in the next room, waited. 
 
 As she read the first letter she paled, and her hand shook. 
 It was only a note, and she read it twice and then paused 
 before she spoke. 
 
 " It is a very nice note," she faltered. " He begs my 
 pardon for for coming to my house and he wants me to 
 forget it, and be friends."
 
 PAM DECIDES 261 
 
 " Not an original idea. And the next ? '' 
 
 But the second letter, postmarked March 5th, was very 
 long, and ten minutes had passed before Pam spoke. The 
 rain beat on the windows, a door slammed somewhere in the 
 distance, the clock on the mantelpiece struck four. The 
 room, to Lensky, was as blurred and vague as some room in 
 a dream, and Fam, as, involuntarily he at length turned to 
 her, a mere mass of light blue or grey with a dark head and 
 a white, featureless face. 
 
 " I can't read you this. It is only for me." 
 
 There was a long pause, after which he said, briskly, " Of 
 course; but the general purport? What did he mean to do 
 when he wrote it ? " 
 
 " He I had not written, and he was " 
 
 "Desperate?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I see. He insisted on seeing you ; he didn't care a 
 tinker's curse, what happened, but see you he must. Is 
 that right ? " 
 
 " Yes. He was unhappy, too." In spite of herself there 
 was a note of triumph in her voice, and fitting his glass to 
 his eye with great celerity, Lensky looked at her, a frown 
 breaking the smooth line of his almost white eyebrows. 
 "Unhappy? Of course he was, poor brute. But don't 
 let that bias you. And remember, it was written nearly 
 three months ago." 
 
 Pam did not answer, but in silence tore open the third 
 letter. It was short. 
 
 " This was written the third of April, and he was very
 
 262 PAM DECIDES 
 
 angry. He says ' I shall never again write to you, so you 
 need not veil your proceedings in the mystery you evidently 
 love ' " 
 
 "Aha! That's better. Is that the last?" 
 
 She shook her head. " No. There's the one I received 
 last week " 
 
 " Oh. Well, what does it say ? " 
 
 Lensky's voice was conspicuously cheery and matter-of- 
 fact, but as the girl opened the last letter he took his glass 
 once more from his eye, and she, noting the movement, 
 understood it. 
 
 Peele had written from London, from the Green Street 
 house where she had been. He had just seen the Duchess 
 and learned from her that Pam was at the Villa. 
 
 "So you are in Arcadia?" he began, abruptly. "Alone 
 in Arcadia, Do you not think that you have been rather 
 unnecessarily hard on me? I behaved badly, I have ad- 
 mitted it, and begged your pardon, but you are too clear- 
 headed to be fed with sophistries, so I will not pretend 
 things to you. I love you, and you love me, so why not 
 admit it? I have never loved another woman, you have 
 never loved another man. And we both of us knew these 
 things the minute I came into that dark room at the Duchess's 
 that day in December. Therefore, why not admit and face 
 the truth? 
 
 " Your silence refuses my offer of friendship, and I am 
 sorry, for I am no weakling, and I could have kept the pact, 
 if you had consented to make it, and I should never have
 
 PAM DECIDES 263. 
 
 uttered a word to remind you of Arcadia. Why were you 
 so unwise? 
 
 " Of your engagement I have nothing more to say. It 
 was a mistake, and when you knew that it was, you broke 
 it. Your engagement to me nothing can break, not even 
 death. 
 
 " Ah, my dear, I have no base intentions, nor even any 
 high-flown, romantic ones. I cannot marry you, and I 
 would rather die than injure you in any way. Come back 
 and lead the life circumstances have planned for you, and 
 meet me when chance wills it, without melodrama, without 
 evasion. 
 
 " I give you my word never to force myself on you, and 
 surely you are now old enough to know the value of com- 
 promise. I beg you once more, forgive the time when I 
 have failed you, and give me one more chance. And remem- 
 ber ' the night we stormed Valhalla, a thousand years ago.* 
 
 "JAMES PEELE." 
 
 Pam read to the end, and then without a word handed the 
 letter to Lensky. 
 
 As he read he frowned and his mouth grew a little set, 
 but he did not speak. Pam knew already what the answer 
 must be. She must refuse to see Peele under any and all 
 conditions, and if he could not be brought to agree to her 
 ultimatum she must let her London house and disappear 
 somewhere with the baby and Pilgrim. She was amazed at 
 the force of the passion the very sound of his voice had 
 raised in her, and had, as she read, resolved to do anything
 
 ^64 PAM DECIDES 
 
 in the world rather than subject herself to the supreme 
 temptation of seeing him. 
 
 " I will take the baby and go to Russia, anywhere," 
 she was telling herself, when Lensky broke into an 
 exclamation. 
 
 " Peele ! James Peele ! Not the Duchess's son-in-law ? " 
 
 " Yes," answered the girl, flushing scarlet. 
 
 " But James Peele, the new Chancellor of some Duchy 
 or other! " 
 
 His face, bent closer to hers, was full of the utmost amaze- 
 ment. "It is he!" 
 
 Pam shrugged her shoulders, a little annoyed by his sur- 
 prise. 
 
 " It is. Is it so incomprehensible? I didn't mean to 
 tell you, but I forgot the signature " 
 
 Lensky rose and walked to the window and back before he 
 answered her. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," he said, handing her the letter, 
 " but I never dreamed of him. He in the first place he 
 is so much older than you. However, that is not the ques- 
 tion. The question is how are you going to answer this? 
 It is a a clever letter." 
 
 "Yes. But it's a lie," declared Pam, bluntly. "We 
 neither of us could ' be friends.' I shall write and tell him 
 that and beg him to stop writing. And I shall tell him 
 that unless he promises not to bother me I shall leave 
 London." 
 
 Lensky came closer to her and studied her face for a 
 moment with grave concentration.
 
 PAM DECIDES 265 
 
 "Yes. Tkat is right. You have his Monte Carlo 
 address?" 
 
 " Hotel de Paris." 
 
 " There's one thing to consider, however. Accidental 
 meetings." 
 
 Pam nodded, slowly. " I'll run that risk if he promises to 
 let me alone. The Duchess knows I don't want to meet 
 him, and I shall go out very little. There's the baby, 
 you know." 
 
 "Yes, there's the baby," he answered, with great gentle- 
 ness, " and I am very glad for you. You are a very good 
 woman, Pam." 
 
 She stared. " I ! Oh, no, I'm not ; but I'm glad you 
 think I am Jack dear. It has helped me, to talk it over 
 with you, and to read the letters with you. I am a fearful 
 coward in some ways." The clock struck five and a cab 
 came down the avenue. It was Lensky's cab, and she knew 
 that he had an engagement and must go. 
 
 She took his hand. " I'll not keep you," she said, as he 
 glanced with an apology at his watch, " but I am grateful 
 to you. You don't know what your friendship is to me, nor 
 how much you help rae. I'll write to him to-night, and 
 let you know what he answers. Good-bye, amico." 
 
 He smiled. " Addio arnica cara. Now if I were you 
 I'd go and play with the baby for awhile! " 
 
 And when he had gone, his cab leaving gleaming streaks 
 in the soaked gravel, she took his advice. 
 
 " Cassandra," she said, to the nurse, " I believe she's going 
 to be white after all ! "
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 " I LOVE the way," remarked Sidney Blythe, feeding a bit 
 of sugar soaked in coffee to a very elongated Scottish terrier, 
 " the airy way in which you all talk about Miss Yeoland 
 and her baby ! And what don't lick my fingers, you little 
 brute, my enquiring mind clamours to know is, if the lady 
 is Miss Yeoland, why she has a baby; or, if she has a baby, 
 why she is Miss Yeoland." 
 
 " Shut up, Sid," laughed Buzzy Penge, who was sitting 
 on the grass near the tea-table, "you are improper." 
 
 " I am not ! I am the only truly moral man in England, 
 and I object to the constant references to this Miss Yeoland 
 and her baby. I feel that she is a person I ought not to 
 meet." 
 
 Lady Freddy, who was trying to read, looked up from 
 her book. " Idiot ! Why don't you go for a walk, Sidney ? 
 Buzzy, do get rid of him." 
 
 But Buzzy shook her head. " No use trying to do that ; 
 haven't I been trying for years? Good gracious, Dorothy, 
 here comes Pam this minute ! " 
 
 Pam advanced rapidly over the velvety lawn, waving he; 
 hand as she came, and Blythe put his hat on his perfectly 
 bald head, his way of preparing to meet strangers. 
 
 Buzzy Penge kissed Pam affectionately, Lady Freddy 
 smiled at her, and then Blythe was presented. " Mr. Blythe. 
 of whom you have heard." 
 
 266
 
 PAM DECIDES 267 
 
 Pam shook hands with him and sat down, taking off her 
 hat and dropping it beside her on the grass. 
 
 " Guess the news," she exclaimed. 
 
 Blythe stared solemnly at her. " The baby has a tooth ! " 
 
 " How did you know? One is really coming, though it's 
 only a hump as yet ! " 
 
 Everyone laughed. They had grown to be very good 
 friends of Pam's, the Pill people, and Bumblemouth being 
 only a half-hour's walk from Hinchingly, she had seen a 
 great deal of them since her arrival three months before. 
 
 She knew that they, too, liked her, and the unceremonious 
 intercourse with them had made the summer very pleasant 
 for her. As they talked, that September afternoon, she 
 watched Blythe with much interest, and suddenly, catching 
 her eye, he asked her, taking off his hat and leaning against 
 a tree, " Do you think she'll take me in the end ? " 
 
 "Take you " 
 
 "Yes. Buzzy, Patricia, if you prefer her real name. 
 You know all about it, so you might as well tell me your 
 opinion." 
 
 Pam laughed. " If I did know I certainly shouldn't tell 
 you." 
 
 "That's very unkind of you. I say, Buzzy, do you 
 think you will ? " 
 
 " Seventeen," returned Miss Penge, quietly. " Go away, 
 Sid, I can't bear you another second." 
 
 He rose, laughed, and strolled away towards the house, 
 his hands in his pockets. 
 
 "Well?" asked Buzzy.
 
 268 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " I never saw such long eyelashes in my life," returned 
 Pam, promptly. 
 
 " I told you so ! And a year and a half ago, before he 
 went to South Africa, he had nice curly hair and no more 
 lashes than anybody else ! " 
 
 "Was it fever?" 
 
 " Yes. And he's tried everything under the sun to make 
 his hair grow, as I told you, and the only result is to encour- 
 age these outrageous lashes, it's too awful ! " 
 
 " Has he tried Chlorodyne, no, Capsuloids ? " inquired 
 Pam, devoting her whole mind to the question. 
 
 " Everything. And he used to be so good-looking! " 
 
 Miss Penge's voice was sincerely mournful as she gazed 
 after the diminishing figure of her swain. 
 
 Lady Freddy laid down her book. " I am very sorry for 
 Sid," she observed, rising, " and I think you ought to make up 
 your mind, Buzzy." 
 
 Then she, too, left the three beeches under which the 
 tea-table stood, and the girls were alone. 
 
 " Why don't you make up your mind ? " asked Pam, 
 sensibly, nibbling a lump of sugar. 
 
 " My dear girl, can't you see? Could you marry a man 
 without a hair on his head ? " Miss Penge laughed as she 
 spoke, but her eyes were serious. "If I had accepted him 
 before he went to Africa I would of course have married him 
 whatever happened, but as it happened I refused him two 
 days before he sailed, and when I saw him on his return 
 wasn't I glad I had ! " 
 
 "And now?"
 
 PAM DECIDES 269 
 
 "And now he asks me two or three times a week, and 
 I always refuse him. If," she added, ruefully, " it would 
 only grow a little ! " 
 
 " Can't you fix your mind on his eyelashes ? They really 
 are superb." 
 
 " No, I can't. As long as he keeps his hat on I have 
 hopes. and then he takes it off and I could scream with 
 laughter. Such a sight I never saw, exactly like a huge 
 billiard-ball" 
 
 Pam nodded. " Poor you ! Dorothy doesn't seem to 
 mind it." 
 
 " He doesn't want to marry Dorothy," rejoined Lady 
 Freddy's sister, drily. "But, by the way, Pam, Jack de 
 Lensky is coming down to-morrow." 
 
 "/she! I am glad." 
 
 " So am I. He's a dear. And I tell you what I think. I 
 think he is falling in love with her." 
 
 "Do you?" 
 
 "Yes. You weren't here when he came in July, but I 
 was, and I'm fairly sure. It would be such a good thing 
 for her." 
 
 "And for him." 
 
 " Oh, yes, there's no one quite like her. I've been rather 
 hoping ever since we were on the Riviera, but they are both 
 such reserved creatures, I couldn't come to any conclusion. 
 Now, however, I mean in July, he was absolutely devoted 
 to her, and she was more like her old self than she has been 
 since since the divorce." 
 
 Par* was silent for a moment, and then said, thoughtfully,
 
 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " I hope you're right; it would be perfect. Only he has a 
 way of looking frantically devoted to any woman he finds 
 attractive. There was my cousin Evelyn Chesney, for exam- 
 ple. The Duchess of Wight thought he was sure to propose 
 to her, and he didn't. What did he do lean over her and 
 worshipfully admire? " 
 
 " No. I know that trick of his, but this was different. 
 They used to walk away from everybody and sit and talk, 
 and forget to come back, and they used to ride together 
 every morning, and you know how careful he is, always. 
 Even Mamma thought there was something in it, and you 
 know Mamma ! " 
 
 " Oh, Buzzy, it would be glorious! Do you know, I 
 thought of it the day I met you, and hoped it might happen. 
 I love Dorothy," she added, simply, " and Jack is the best 
 friend I have in the world, so you can imagine how glad I 
 should be. When is he coming? " 
 
 " To-morrow afternoon. Come and dine and sleep, and 
 we'll see if we can't do a little match-making, will you ? " 
 
 "I will," answered Pam, rising, "who else is coming?" 
 
 " Nobody who counts. Have you heard from the 
 Incubus ? " 
 
 " Yes, but I won't have you call him that. He's doing 
 very well, poor boy, and is coming down on Sunday to see 
 the baby. He will be surprised about the tooth, won't he ? " 
 
 Buzzy laughed. 
 
 " Well, I don't know? Did he expect it to remain 
 toothless?" 
 
 "Nonsense! But .she's only four months old, which is
 
 PAM DECIDES 271 
 
 awfully young for a tooth, not that it a tooth yet, but 
 it won't be long." 
 
 Miss Penge burst out laughing, and then as suddenly was 
 serious. " That vacuum system seems to be based on a sound 
 principle, a kind of massage, you know. It might make 
 it grow." 
 
 Pam stared. " But it's growing perfectly all right, 
 Cassandra says " 
 
 Buzzy coloured vividly. " I wasn't thinking about your 
 everlasting baby; I was thinking about Sid's hair." 
 
 " Well, I must be off, but before I go I can tell you one 
 thing, Patricia Penge. You're in love with that youth, hair 
 or no hair." 
 
 "I'm not!" 
 
 " You lie ; you are. And if you don't soon make up your 
 mind to tell him so, / shall, when he confides in me." 
 
 " Why do you think he's going to confide in you ? He 
 talks as he did this afternoon to everybody; it's his way." 
 
 Miss Penge had in reality no more teeth than other people, 
 but the width of her mouth and her unrestrained smiles 
 gave her a delusive air of possessing at least a dozen more 
 than she had. 
 
 Pam smiled back at her, an equally good-natured smile, 
 but on a smaller scale. " I don't mean that. He is going 
 to seriously confide in me," she answered after a pause, " I 
 saw it in his eye. And I shall enjoy it, I always do. I 
 think I'll invite Dorothy to do a little match-making with 
 me for your benefit ! " 
 
 " Poor old Dolly, she is never particularly inclined for
 
 272 PAM DECIDES 
 
 that sort of thing, her own experience was not encouraging. 
 You never met Freddy, did you ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Awful, unmitigated rotter. Large, hearty-looking man, 
 full of the meanest and smallest vices." 
 
 "Poor girl!" 
 
 "Yes, it was hard luck. So you see, joking aside, if she 
 could be persuaded to marry Jack, we should all be tre- 
 mendously glad." 
 
 At the lodge-gate Miss Penge turned back, and Pam sped 
 homewards, her head full of heterogeneous but almost equally 
 interesting ideas. 
 
 Jack and Dorothy! It would be really ideal, she thought, 
 watching the quiet sea, and how glad she should be to see 
 him the next evening.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 HlNCHINGLY was a hideous, most comfortable modern 
 red brick mansion that had been built by Mr. Penge fifteen 
 years before. Standing in a hollow near the sea, in a small 
 but well-wooded park, it was cool in summer and warm in 
 winter and the whole family loved it, as they were given to 
 love their own possessions, extravagantly. 
 
 Even the horrible black and white marble hall was, they 
 agreed, original and rather distinguished, and as, while 
 admiring its monstrous ugliness, they tacitly covered as much 
 of it as was possible with rugs and dull-hued tapestries, it 
 might have been worse. 
 
 And, though the drawing-room was upholstered there are 
 some rooms to express the furnishing of which upholstered 
 is the only word in yellow satin, there was an alabaster 
 vase on the Parian marble table in the centre, there was a 
 mosaic table, gilt chairs and oil paintings of the Alps on the 
 walls. 
 
 It was a hideous room, old-fashioned and inartistic and 
 unbecoming to everyone who entered it, but neither of the 
 Penge girls had ever made an effort to persuade their mother 
 to change it. 
 
 To her it represented the final crystallisation of a long- 
 cherished ideal. All during her youth she had longed for 
 such a drawing-room, and when, fifteen years before, she had 
 been able to compass it, her joy was so delightful, her pride 
 
 273
 
 274 PAM DECIDES 
 
 so innocently obvious that Buzzy, then a leggy, plain child 
 of fifteen, had said to the twelve-year old Dorothy who pro- 
 tested against the yellow curtains, " I say, Dolly, she likes it, 
 and it's hers, so let's just grin and bear it, shall we? " 
 
 And therefore, while little by little the rest of the house 
 was moulded and beautified by their educated tastes, these 
 two old-fashioned daughters had never so much as hinted 
 to their mother that some slight changes might improve the 
 room she so admired, and when in the course of time the 
 curtains and chair-coverings had to be renewed, Lady Freddy 
 herself helped the old lady to choose new satin of the same 
 flamboyant shade for them, so that the glory of the apart- 
 ment never diminished. 
 
 " Don't put on a pink frock," warned Miss Penge, poking 
 her curly black head in at Pam's door, the evening after 
 their talk about Lensky and Lady Freddy ; " The Room ob- 
 jects to any colour except white and black, (which I be- 
 lieve aren't colours at all), but it positively shrieks at pink! " 
 
 Pam, who was sitting half-dressed by the dressing-table 
 while Pilgrim put on her stockings, laughed. 
 
 " I know. I am wearing black. Dorothy is going to wear 
 white, isn't she? " 
 
 " Yes. I'm to be black, too, only I'm spangly." 
 
 " I'm just plain black. Has Jack come? " 
 
 Miss Penge came in and closed the door. " Yes. He and 
 Umslopagaas are smoking together." 
 
 " Urn " 
 
 " Sid. Before his hair all came out, he used to call him- 
 self that. Some old Greek or Roman, Umslopagaas was, I
 
 PAM DECIDES 275 
 
 believe : ' He was peaked as to his head, and sparse woolly 
 hair grew upon it.' I wish sparse woolly hair grew upon it 
 now, not that it's peaked," she added dismally, " and the 
 awful roundness seems to make it all the more absurd 
 
 Pam laughed. " Du liebst ihn dock," she returned with 
 an atrocious accent, glancing at Pilgrim, " and as I feel 
 a pricking in my thumbs I know that I shall shortly be 
 constrained to tell him so ! " 
 
 When she opened the door of The Room, half-an-hour 
 later, she stood still for a moment, wondering if there was 
 time for her to turn back unobserved. 
 
 Lady Freddy, whose brilliant colouring not even her gleam- 
 ing yellow surroundings could quite quench, was at the piano, 
 under a lamp, her white skirts billowing softly round her, 
 and beside her, his face not more than four inches from hers, 
 sat Lensky, worshipping. His smooth head, almost white 
 in contrast to the prevailing shade of the room, was bent 
 in an attitude of adoration, and his hands were folded as if 
 in prayer. 
 
 Lady Freddy, hearing the opening of the door, turned, 
 but for a long moment he did not change his attitude, so that 
 when he did look round, Pam was laughing. 
 
 " How d'you do? I am glad! " he cried, springing to his 
 feet and coming towards her. " And how well you look." 
 
 " You don't look well," she returned, without ceremony, 
 studying his face intently, "been ill?" 
 
 Lady Freddy rose. " He's been gambling, Pam," she said, 
 with a frown of vexation on her dark brows, " and I've 
 been scolding him."
 
 27 6 PAM DECIDES 
 
 Mrs. Penge just then hurrying in, Pam had a chance of a 
 word aside with Dorothy. 
 
 " I say, Dolly, ask him not to," she suggested, remem- 
 bering that the summer before when he had wanted to marry 
 her he had said that he would never again touch a card. 
 
 " He wouldn't stop because I wanted him to," answered 
 Lady Freddy, as she turned to speak to a newly arrived guest, 
 and Pam's thin shoulders crept despondently up towards 
 her ears in the shrug she had learnt as a child. 
 
 " The moment appears to have arrived," she reflected, 
 " for me to explain these two souls to each other." 
 
 But her lot at dinner was not Lensky, but the bald-headed 
 Mr. Blythe. " I say, Miss Yeoland," he began, as they sat 
 down, "how's your baby?" 
 
 " Quite well, thanks," answered Pam, innocently, " and 
 she is really beginning to look like a human being at last; 
 she smiles and her eyes are blue, and her hair " 
 
 Conscience-smitten she broke off short, and then, meeting 
 his gaze, shaded by his abnormal lashes, burst out laughing. 
 " I am so sorry," she said, " but you don't mind, do you? " 
 
 " Not a bit. But you know, when all's said and done, the 
 joke has its serious side. I'm awfully keen on Buzzy, and 
 of course the poor girl can't marry a man with not one blade 
 of hair on his head ! " 
 
 " Why don't you try wigs? Graduated ones scant, 
 richer, then ambrosial ? " 
 
 " As if anyone rold fool old Buzzy ! " 
 
 " That's triTs. You think she'd marry you if it would 
 grow?"
 
 PAM DECIDES 277 
 
 Mr. Blythe et down his wine-glass. " Oh, yes," he re- 
 turned, confidentially, " she's awfully in love with me, you 
 know ; always was. She proposed to me when she was eleven 
 and I refused her because her legs were so thin." 
 
 "Then why don't you bully her? Men are so silly," 
 pursued Pam, softly, " to be so patient with women. Patience 
 and fidelity are the vices of the age, I think." 
 
 "H'm! Dorothy doesn't think so." 
 
 "Doesn't she?" 
 
 " No, poor girl. I say, do you like our friend the 
 Pole-Star?" 
 
 " I do. Immensely. Don't you? " 
 
 " Only know him a little. He used to be a friend of 
 Fane's, so of course none of the Penges knew him, until 
 Dolly met him again last winter and they got to be such 
 pals. He has a good eye " 
 
 " Two," corrected Pam, watching Lensky as he talked 
 to Lady Freddy. 
 
 "Two, then. And they seem fairly contented to spend 
 their time gazing at Dolly, don't they? Uncle Oliver he's 
 not my uncle, but one of my aunts married his brother 
 would be glad if it came off, I imagine. The divorce was 
 a great blow to Uncle Oliver. Only your bloods take to 
 that most useful institution, don't you think? He hates 
 having people know about it, though it certainly wasn't her 
 fault. Awful rotter, Freddy, poor chap, and we were all 
 so fond of him." 
 
 " What a communicative person you are, Mr. Blythe," 
 Pam remarked, " tell me more."
 
 278 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " I've told you all I know." 
 
 She shook her head. " Not you." Then she turned to her 
 other neighbour, an old gentleman who, having heard Blythe's 
 question about the baby, opened fire by enquiring civilly for 
 her husband. 
 
 When dinner was over, Lady Freddy came up to Pam 
 and took her arm. " Come out on the lawn, dear," she 
 said, " I want to talk to you." 
 
 It was a beautiful night, warm and still, and softly lighted 
 by a huge golden moon, and the two women crossed the lawn 
 to where an ancient fountain, brought piece-meal from a 
 villa near Florence, flung into the air from pipes played by 
 fat-bellied little mediaeval boys, three slender streams of 
 silvered water. 
 
 " I always feel so sorry for those poor little banished 
 Tuscans," Pam said, as they sat down on a stone bench, 
 " I know they are homesick and hate your father for bringing 
 them to this cold climate. The least you could do would 
 be to provide them with Jaeger flannels for the winter." 
 
 Lady Freddy was silent for a moment, her beautiful dark 
 face turned away. Then she answered slowly, " I was 
 sitting by this fountain near Fiesole when Freddy asked 
 me to marry him." 
 
 Pam said nothing, but laid a sympathetic hand on 
 Dorothy's. 
 
 " Father always wonders why I sit here so much, but oh, 
 Pam, did you ever see him ? " 
 
 " No, Dolly dear." 
 
 " But you know how badly he behaved, how I had
 
 PAM DECIDES 279 
 
 to divorce him, well " again she paused and Pam shiv- 
 ered involuntarily. " Well, you and Buzzy have been talk- 
 ing about Jack Lensky, I know; haven't you? And rather 
 hoping I'd marry him ? So now I'm going to tell you some- 
 thing I can't tell Buzzy; it would make her too wretched, 
 but you can put the other idea out of her head. I divorced 
 Freddy because I despised him, and because I'd have lost 
 all self-respect if I had kept on living with him. But it 
 wasn't that I didn't care for him." 
 
 "Oh, Dolly!" 
 
 " Yes, ' Oh, Dolly ! ' And of course you, with your 
 idealising and your own different character will despise me 
 for it, and never be able to understand," went on Lady 
 Freddy, rapidly, " but now that I've told you this much I'm 
 going to tell you more. He's a rake, and a liar, and a 
 gambler, a creature to be despised, and I despise him, but 
 I also love him." 
 
 There was a long pause, during which Pam's face grew 
 slowly white. Dorothy thought that she could not under- 
 stand ! 
 
 " I love him, I tell you, bad as he is, and if I saw him 
 coming over the grass now, and he wanted me nothing on 
 earth could hold me!" 
 
 " Yes it could," answered Pam, hoarsely. " I couldn't, 
 nor your family, but you wouldn't go." 
 
 Lady Freddy rose. " Wouldn't I ! Ah, my dear child, 
 I was a fool to tell you, but now you can put the idea of 
 Jack Lensky out of Buzzy's head. And I don't ask you 
 not to tell."
 
 280 PAM DECIDES 
 
 She started towards the house, her head held high. 
 " Luckily, he doesn't want me. I bored him. Jack knew 
 him, sees him even yet sometimes, and that's one reason 
 why I like him Jack so much." 
 
 " But what if Jack thinks that he has some chance 
 with you " suggested Pam, with a pang of pity for Lensky, 
 whom Fate seemed about to play such a curiously repetitive 
 prank. 
 
 Dorothy Fane shrugged her shoulders. " He can look 
 out for himself," she said, carelessly.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 'AND you are happy? " 
 
 Lensky studied her face, his own frowning with intense 
 interest as he put the question. As she answered, his frown 
 smoothed away, for it was met with a contented smile. 
 
 " Yes, I am happy. The baby is such a dear, and I am 
 so fond of the Penges, and in three weeks we are going back 
 to Chimes Lane." 
 
 They were sitting on the beach not far from the place 
 where she had promised to marry him, but she did not think 
 of this, nor, apparently, did he. Clad all in white, for the 
 day was warm, he sat with his hands clasped round his 
 knees and watched the quiet sea, 
 
 " You have not heard from Peele again ? ** 
 
 " No. And I am sure that he will keep his word in the 
 spirit as well as in the letter. He is not really bad, you 
 know, and well, you read the letter." 
 
 " It was a charming letter. I met him the other day. 
 He and his wife were staying with the Wights, and I was at 
 the Ryburys'. Shall I tell you about it?" 
 
 " Yes, please." 
 
 Pam's big, flat straw hat was tilted over her eyes, and 
 she was very sunburned, so his frankly investigating glance 
 failed to enlighten him as to what effect his news was hav- 
 ing on her.
 
 282 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " He is a very clever man, he and the Duke got to 
 talking politics one night after dinner and Peele was- 
 wonderful. Not exactly brilliant, or witty, but so tre- 
 mendously sound and convincing. He changed my mind 
 for me in about seven minutes. It is certainly a pity he has 
 given up active politics." 
 
 "Yes. There was a time when he was considered, by 
 those who know, to be one of the most promising men in the 
 Liberal party. And he was very keen. His health was 
 bad for a long time after his marriage ; he has some kind of 
 heart-trouble, which partly explains his idleness." 
 
 Lensky brushed some sand off his blue silk socks and 
 changed his position. " He went out of his way to be civil 
 to me," he continued, " and we had several talks together. 
 He didn't mention you, of course, but I could see that the 
 Duchess had told him." 
 
 " Oh, yes! He he spoke to me about it die last time I 
 saw him." 
 
 " About our engagement? ** 
 
 His matter-of-fact pronouncing of the simple wcrdv 
 seemed to her to present in a concrete form what had for s 
 long time been a mere shadowy idea. They had been en- 
 gaged, then, after all, she and this man, and he had not 
 forgotten it! 
 
 "Yes. The Duchess had told him that day, and that 
 was why he why he came." 
 
 "Oh! Well, he evidently wanted to be particularly 
 amiable to me. I am sorry for his wife." 
 
 "Why?"
 
 PAM DECIDES 283 
 
 " Because she adores him. It must be very disagreeable 
 iof a woman to adore a husband who doesn't care a button 
 for her!" 
 
 "Yes," answered Pam, very humbly. Lensky stared. 
 
 " Oh, you child," he cried, " do you feel as though it 
 were your fault? Well, it isn't. Women will never leam, 
 I suppose, that if their husbands are not in love with them 
 they will fall in love with Miss Jones if not with Mrs. 
 Smith or Miss Robinson! It is so often a case of mental 
 condition rather than the coup de foudre; but what woman 
 will believe it?" 
 
 Pam laughed. "You ought to write a book. Do you," 
 she added, enjoying the safety of asking him the question, 
 " judge of your own experience ? " 
 
 " Yes. When I met you, for instance, I was ready to 
 fall in love with somebody; not with anybody, observe the 
 difference and you came." 
 
 After a moment Pam commented with a nod, and a laugn, 
 "And then I went." 
 
 "Yes. You went, alas," with a rococo little air of 
 gallant regret. 
 
 Pam looked at him, and wondered whether she dared 
 warn him not to pin his hopes to Dorothy Fane. But. al- 
 though she felt as much at ease with him as if, she put it 
 hypothetically, she had been his grandmother, she did not 
 venture to mention Lady Freddy. 
 
 " Shall we go on ? " she began, after a pause. " I promised 
 to be home by four, and it must be nearly that now." 
 
 Their way led to the beach which, first curving into the
 
 284 PAM DECIDES 
 
 picturesque but not altogether fragrant village of Bumble* 
 mouth proper, gradually led eastward again. 
 
 " What about Wantage? " asked Lensky, as they left th 
 last of the Bumblemouth cottages behind them. 
 
 " He is still butterflying. To-morrow he comes down t 
 see Pammy." 
 
 " Do you call her Pammy? " 
 
 "Yes. Isn't it too hideous for words? I say, Jtck, 
 isn't it too bad about Buzzy and Sidney Blythe? " 
 
 "Why too bad?" 
 
 " I mean about his hair." 
 
 " Ah, bah ! If a woman I loved wouldn't marry me 
 because I was bald I shouldn't bother her! It's the only 
 thing I dislike about Miss Penge, and I hate it. Lady 
 Freddy wouldn't be so childish." 
 
 " Poor Dorothy ! Tell me about her husband." 
 
 " Poor old Freddy! He's a thorough bad lot, but I rather 
 love him." 
 
 " So does she," blurted out Pam, with one of the heedless 
 impulses she had so tried to get over. " I mean " 
 
 " Do you think she cares for him still ? " asked Lensky, 
 suddenly facing her. 
 
 " Yes, I do. I'd no business to say so, but I do." 
 
 "Then, Heaven help her." 
 
 He looked more moved than Pam had ever seen him, his 
 eyes darkened with distress, his mouth twisted as if with pain. 
 Pam's heart sank. She had not thought he would care so 
 much, but this evidently was more than mere sympathy,- 
 a strong personal feeling was, she could see, involved. And
 
 PAM DECIDES 285 
 
 for a moment she hated Dorothy for her inconsiderate 
 behaviour. 
 
 Before she had to speak, however, he had shaken off the 
 mood that distressed her, and changed the subject of con- 
 versation. They found Miss Wantage and Cassandra in 
 Mrs. Pounder's little garden. The baby, when she saw 
 Pam, laughed and held out her arms. Pam caught her up 
 and kissed her. 
 
 " Isn't she a dear? " the girl cried, " and you see how she 
 knows me ? " 
 
 De Lensky nodded, and inspected the child judicially. 
 " She has improved," he remarked, " but her nose is still 
 very queer. What's that horrid thing round her neck ? " 
 
 " It isn't horrid. It's arrow-root and very good for her 
 tooth. Isn't her hair delicious? " 
 
 " Charming. On the whole, I congratulate you. Bellina, 
 la piccina" he added to the nurse, who nodded in delight and 
 embarked in an ecstatic catalogue of the child's perfections, 
 sure of sympathy from the beautiful gentleman with the 
 beautiful smile. 
 
 The next time Pam saw Lady Freddy she promptly 
 attacked her on the subject of Lensky. 
 
 " Is Jack in love with you ? " she asked point-blank. 
 
 Lady Freddy smiled. " I'm sure I don't know. What 
 do you think? " 
 
 " I think well, I'm afraid he is, or going to be. 
 Couldn't you be just a wee bit less nice to him, Dolly? It 
 would be so awful, you know, if he got hurt." 
 
 Dorothy smiled again. " One would think you had
 
 286 PAM DECIDES 
 
 adopted him as well as Pammy," she said. "Well, he's 
 gone now, and I shan't see him till December, but if you 
 really think there's any danger, I'll be less nice. Though 
 I honestly believe Master Jack quite capable of taking care 
 of himself." Then she added, very kindly, one hand laid 
 on Pam's arm, " Don't get the old-maidish habit of taking 
 care of your friends, dear. No one can iron out one's mental 
 wrinkles but one's self " 
 
 Pam burst out laughing. " Oh, you darling ! Indeed I 
 do mind my own business as a rule, but I'm so fond of Jack, 
 and you told me yourself that you were so friendly with him 
 for your own reasons. And you are so awfully attractive, 
 you know ! " 
 
 Lady Freddy shrugged her shoulders. " Am I ? I know 
 one person who doesn't think so. However " 
 
 " I'm afraid you think too much about that person," 
 ventured Pam, full of pity for this woman whose story bore 
 such a strange resemblance to her own. 
 
 "Think! And do you think that I can help it? Oh, 
 Pam, you are so young, and know so little. I did the right 
 thing, didn't I ? And the ' only thing a self-respecting 
 woman ' etc. Well, I tell you now that there isn't a mo- 
 ment in my life that I don't regret it ! If he were mine now 
 I'd keep him if he murdered. And I'd be happier than I 
 am this way ! " 
 
 She clasped her hands until the knuckles whitened. " No- 
 body knows but you, but it is a relief to tell you. If he 
 beat me and did everything else possible, I'd not suffer this 
 way."
 
 PAM DECIDES 287 
 
 And Pam, listening, failed to understand. 
 
 She had succeeded in putting Peele out of her life, and 
 comparative peace had crowned her success. 
 
 This woman had divorced the man she despised, but no 
 peace had come to her. Why ? 
 
 " She must be stronger than I," decided the girl, humbly, 
 * her affections are so much deeper." 
 
 September waned, and October came; a rainy, misty 
 month, brown and russet and grey. 
 
 The Penges, who had stayed on so long because of an 
 attack of gout that nailed the inventor of the great pills to 
 his chair, left Hinchingly on the fifth, and on the tenth the 
 two Pams and Cassandra went to town. 
 
 Pilgrim, who had preceded them by several days, met 
 them at the Chimes Lane door with one of the heartiest smiles 
 seen on her grim face for years. 
 
 " Oh, Pam, how I 'ave missed you ! And 'ow well she 
 looks. 'Ow d'you do, Cassandra? " 
 
 Pam took the baby from her nurse and herself carried the 
 little creature over the threshold. 
 
 " Welcome home, Pammy darling," she whispered, her 
 heart warm. 
 
 Ah, how cosy it all looked. And how the fires blazed 
 and glowed, and how good her lonely dinner was, at the 
 round table in the Oak Hall. 
 
 It seemed years since that horrible travesty of a meal with 
 de Lensky, and a certain middle-aged contentment had set- 
 tled down on her. The storms had died, and the wreckage 
 was cleared away. And upstairs, -though how differently
 
 288 PAM DECIDES 
 
 from the way of her dreams, lay the baby In her cradle in 
 the long room with the two windows! 
 
 As to Peele, her love for him was like an unwelcome in- 
 mate of a household. It had come, and to stay. It sat in 
 the chimney-corner preventing all young mirth, all great 
 joy, but at least she was now used to it, could look it in the 
 face without flinching, and the calmness that inevitably fol- 
 lows the brave acceptance of any trouble, was hers. 
 
 And the unwelcome guest could not follow her to one 
 sanctuary. Into the room with the cradle he could not 
 come, and when the baby was in her arms he slunk away, 
 abashed.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 ONE morning Pam sat by the fire in the White Study with 
 the baby on her lap. Before them knelt Cassandra in 
 adoration, and behind her, a grim figure enough, but deeply 
 interested, stood Pilgrim. 
 
 It was a red-letter day, for it marked an important mile- 
 stone in the development of Miss Wantage's intelligence. 
 
 " It's only a minute now, Pilly," cried Pam, breathlessly ; 
 " don't stare at her so, or you'll frighten her. Now then, 
 hark, Baby! Listen, Heart's Delight!" 
 
 And verily, as Big Ben struck the hour, the baby turned, 
 as she had turned at the preceding quarter and smiled a 
 toothless but radiant smile in the direction from which the 
 music seemed to come. 
 
 " She is going to be very musical," announced Pam 
 sententiously. " Isn't it wonderful, Pilly? And she not 
 yet six months old! Che gioia, eh, Cassandra? " 
 
 " I'm not so sure, Miss Pam," remarked Pilgrim, " when 
 you was 'er age, you used to laugh like anythink when your 
 puppaw made 'is watch strike ! " 
 
 " I don't believe it ! You're always iconoclasting, you 
 old wretch! Come, Heart's Delight, pat-a-cake, pat-a- 
 cake " 
 
 Pilgrim, who had been summoned to witness the repetition 
 of the phenomenon relative to the chimes, retired with an 
 
 289
 
 2 9 o PAM DECIDES 
 
 injured toss of her new brown hair, and Pam and the 
 nurse were still busy worshipping when de Lensky came in. 
 
 " You, at this time of day! But be welcome, sit down. 
 What," she added, as the Italian withdrew, " is the matter ? " 
 
 Lensky looked for him, disturbed, and for the first time 
 she saw his hair slightly ruffled as if by the passage of a 
 restless hand. 
 
 " It's this," he answered, sitting down and explaining 
 with his usual directness, " Freddy Fane is going to marry." 
 
 "Freddy Fane!" 
 
 " Yes. A chorus-girl. I saw him last night and he 
 was a little drunk, he told me. It is -horrible." 
 
 Pam stared. "But why shouldn't he marry? And 
 whatever the girl is she must be good enough for him ! " 
 
 " Too good for him, but that's not the point. The point 
 is that Dorothy Fane will be awfully upset about it. She 
 
 I've seen her twice of late, did I tell you? And " he 
 
 broke off, biting his lips nervously. " And "-so I've come 
 to you." 
 
 "To me?" 
 
 " Yes. Someone must tell her, alone. She mustn't 
 just hear it accidentally, or she'd give herself away. She 
 in two words, will you tell her?" 
 
 For a moment Pam was silent, and then she answered 
 slowly, " Yes, I will, if you want me to." 
 
 " Thanks ! I knew you would. She's in town to-day with 
 Buzzy, at Claridge's. Will you let me send her a wire 
 in your name asking her to come here? " 
 
 " Yes. Anything you like. I am so sorry for her! "
 
 PAM DECIDES 291 
 
 " So am I," he returned gravely. 
 
 But Pam, though she longed to, dared not add that she 
 was still sorrier for de Lensky himself. There was to her 
 something inexpressibly pitiful in the slight disorder of his 
 hair, and his unwonted and marked nervousness distressed 
 her deeply. 
 
 " Please don't tell her I told you," began Lensky at 
 length, lighting a cigarette. " Just say you know it to be 
 true. I shouldn't like her to know we have talked her 
 over." 
 
 " We haven't talked her over. I don't believe you ever 
 talked over one of your friends in your life, no matter 
 with whom." 
 
 " I try not to," he answered with a certain simplicity; " no 
 one shows the same side to different people, and the side I 
 am shown is mine, and I never show it to a third person any 
 more than I'd read aloud to anyone a letter written to me." 
 
 " I read you Mr. Peele's." 
 
 " That was different," he returned; " I was trying to help 
 you, as if I were your brother, though you don't need much 
 help. I wish poor Lady Freddy were more like you." 
 
 " Good Heavens ! By the way, you'll lunch with me ? 
 It's half-past one now." 
 
 "With pleasure, if you'll let me go out and wire Lady 
 Freddy first." 
 
 When he came back the baby had fallen asleep and Pam 
 was huddled on the divan crooning to it under her breath. 
 
 " Ring twice, will you ? " 
 
 He stood waiting for someone to come, his gaze fixed
 
 292 PAM DECIDES 
 
 intently on Pam. She was far from belonging to the con- 
 ventional Madonna type, but she looked like a young gipsy 
 mother hushing her baby, her dark head bent. 
 
 When the nurse had carried away the child Lensky said 
 gently, " I am so glad about the little girl. She will be a 
 great comfort to you." 
 
 "Ah, yes, and a protection," she answered, her eyes 
 very grave, " and now let's go and eat much flesh and drink 
 much wine." 
 
 Her task of breaking to Lady Freddy the news of her 
 ex-husband's culminating offence was a hard one, and she 
 could have faced it with much greater confidence if she 
 had been prepared in some measure by Lensky. She knew 
 by his manner that there were complications of which she 
 was unaware, but she so thoroughly understood his peculiar 
 code of loyalty that she did not for a second contemplate 
 asking him for elucidation, and when he began chatting 
 about the Duchess, about Evelyn, about a variety of more 
 or less amusing town gossip, she followed his lead, instinc- 
 tively trusting in the wisdom of his way. 
 
 " There are no delightful potins this autumn," he de- 
 clared, " no woman has even accused another of cheating at 
 Bridge!" 
 
 " I hope you are not gambling awfully," remarked Pam, 
 as the maid left the room. 
 
 He laughed. " No. I am at present leading a blameless 
 life in that respect, tr'iste necessite, du reste. Moreover, 
 I'm never as bad as I'm painted : like another young man of 
 whom we've all heard."
 
 PAM DECIDES 293 
 
 " I'm glad of that. Dorothy told me awful tales in 
 September." 
 
 " I know. They were true, I told her myself. But I 
 shall never ruin myself at cards, though I confess to you that 
 I know nothing so engrossing, so enchanting in the world, 
 as a game of bac. It carries one completely away, one 
 forgets everything else on earth, nothing else matters. It 
 is glorious excitement." 
 
 " You ought to try steeple-chasing." 
 
 " Steeple-chasing ! No ! I prefer chemin de fer any day, 
 to any kind of riding! " 
 
 "Well, I'm glad you say you'll never ruin yourself. I 
 don't like * bringing-up ' my friends, but I should hate to have 
 you really hurt yourself." 
 
 "You need not worry. I am not a spendthrift, and 
 I shall marry some day. My estates are entailed, and my 
 name is an old one." 
 
 Pam nodded. " Of course." But she resolved to make 
 Dorothy Fane see the necessity of letting him know that she 
 never could marry him. 
 
 After luncheon they sat talking for an hour, and then 
 he left, promising to return the next day to learn the result 
 of her interview with Lady Freddy. 
 
 "To-morrow is my twenty-ninth birthday, by the way," 
 she added, giving him her hand, " so we'll take a walk to 
 celebrate, and then can you dine with me ? " 
 
 " With great pleasure. Au revoir, then." 
 
 Lady Freddy came at four o'clock, looking very hand- 
 some and a little excited.
 
 294 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " Only came up yesterday," she explained, " and am go- 
 ing to Paris on T\iesday. How are you, and is anything 
 wrong? " 
 
 " Sit down. I have something to tell you " 
 
 "And I to tell you! Sid's hair is beginning to grow. 
 That is, we think it's hair! Something is coming up on his 
 scalp the past ten days, and we spend our time watching it. 
 Buzzy is so absurd, she wants to sprinkle bone-dust over it, 
 and goes on in the most insane way, but she is very happy 
 about it." 
 
 " I am so glad. Only I think she might have taken him 
 on trust." 
 
 " So do I ! I but what is the matter? " 
 
 Suddenly Pam lost her nerve. " Nothing. I but you 
 look as if something had happened. What is it?" 
 
 Lady Freddy blushed scarlet. " Oh, I well, yes, I'll 
 tell you. I I am going to see Freddy to-morrow." 
 
 " Going to see " 
 
 "Yes." Her dark face so curiously like Pam's, for all 
 its beauty, glowed with shamefaced happiness. 
 
 " I couldn't stand it any longer, and I just wrote and 
 asked him to come to see me. I had a wire from him this 
 morning he is coming." 
 
 This, then, was what Lensky had known; and Fane him- 
 self must have told him. Pam's breath caught in her throat, 
 and then after a pause she rushed at her fence. 
 
 " You mustn't see him, Dorothy," she said, boldly, " he is 
 going to marry again.""
 
 PAM DECIDES 295 
 
 Lady Freddy sat .quite still. Then she asked quietly, 
 "Whom?" 
 
 " Oh a girl. That doesn't matter, does it ? I heard 
 it and wanted to tell you myself. I was afraid it would be 
 a shock." 
 
 " A shock," repeated the other woman, bitterly, " a shock ! 
 You don't know what the word means. It has broken some- 
 thing in me not my heart, I don't know what, but 
 something." After a long silence during which she walked 
 nervously about the little room, she went on, " Oh, take 
 my advice, Pam, and never love a man. Even good ones 
 hurt us, and bad ones like him crucify us. I am crucified 
 
 now, " Again she walked across the room, where she 
 
 stood staring at a print of an old man in pink drinking a 
 pint of ale in front of an ale-house. 
 
 " Buzzy thinks she loves Sidney, now that his hair is 
 growing. And there is only one word for what she feels, 
 and what I feel. It is laughable. Now I must go. 
 Thanks for telling me, Pam; you are a dear little thing. 
 I hope you'll always understand me as little as you do 
 now!" 
 
 " Perhaps I understand better than you think, Dolly." 
 
 Lady Freddy laughed. " You child ! Well, one thing, 
 I shall not go on bearing his name much longer. That 
 woman will be ' Lady Freddy Fane,' oh, my God ! I I 
 shall marry, Pam." Lady Freddy's face was rigid with 
 sudden determination as she took the girl's hand. " And 
 he shan't know that that I am such a fool." 
 
 " Wouldn't it be rather banal to marry out of pique ? *'
 
 296 PAM DECIDES 
 
 Pam spoke with deliberate coolness, but her effort had no 
 effect. 
 
 " No. No one will know ! And I could marry to- 
 morrow, if I chose! There may," she added, laughing more 
 naturally, " be hope now for your protege, Jack! " 
 1 Pam's brows met in a quick frown. " You shan't marry 
 Jack out of spite, Dorothy! " 
 
 Lady Freddy took the girl's chin in her hand and looked 
 into her eyes. " Dear loyal little Pam ! No, Jack is too 
 good for that, but I like him the best of all, and who 
 knows ? Ah, and he is coming to see me to-morrow ! " 
 
 When she was alone, Pam sat down on the rug and built 
 up her fire. She had never before recognised the fact that her 
 knowledge of Peek's suffering had greatly helped to mitigate 
 her own. He loved her in his way as much as she loved him, 
 and he longed for her even more than she longed for him. 
 p her jealousy lay dormant. 
 
 But suppose he were free, and she should hear that he 
 was going to marry another woman. 
 
 At the very thought she groaned aloud, and then, desert* 
 ing her fire, fled upstairs to the baby.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 IT rained on the fourteenth of November that year, rained 
 in a pathetic, hopeless way as if it didn't much care about 
 doing so, but could not help it. And it also fogged. 
 
 Pam, very smart in her one new frock, a dark, tailor-made 
 coat and skirt, and a mannish felt hat, went in the morning 
 to see the Duchess, who presented her with a little pearl 
 brooch and wished her many happy returns of the day. 
 
 " Thanks. One's twenty-ninth birthday isn't a very joy- 
 ous occasion, I suppose, but I feel strangely resigned to 
 growing old, somehow." 
 
 "H'ml What about poor Jack?" 
 
 "Dear Jack, he is coming this afternoon to help cele- 
 brate. But please don't waste any pity on him, Duchess. 
 He got over his attack of Pamania with the most unflatter- 
 ing ease, and we are now the best of friends." 
 
 " I know, but well, I've never asked any questions 
 about your breaking your engagement, and I'm not going 
 to begin now, but broken engagements have been known to 
 mend, " 
 
 Pam laughed. "Not this one! You must just make up 
 your mind to let me live and die an old maid, and before you 
 know it you'll be plotting against young Pam's liberty." 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know what Oswald would say if he 
 knew you had adopted a baby! Of course you are prepared 
 to have people in the future say she is your own" 
 
 297
 
 298 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " ' Say ? What do they say ? Let them say,' " quoted 
 the girl cheerfully. "If I had a motto, that would be it. 
 And I am sure my G.F. would have been delighted to know 
 that I am no longer alone. Not that I ever minded being 
 alone," she added, " but most people think one must. You 
 must come to lunch and see the baby, will you ? Pilly, in the 
 role of grandmother, is exquisite ! " 
 
 " She must be ! What do you hear from your mother? " 
 
 " Oh, I never hear from Mother. Father writes occa- 
 sionally. I heard from him in August, they are both well 
 and so pleased about the house. I shall soon have another 
 letter, for my birthday. Have you," she went on, chang- 
 ing the subject deliberately, " seen anything of the delectable 
 Ratty and his wife ? " 
 
 The Duchess laughed. "Yes. His importance on th% 
 impending arrival is something most impressive. It is to be 
 a boy. And I've no doubt Ratty will take to his bed on the 
 great day as the men of certain African tribes do." 
 
 " Poor old Ratty. I am so glad he's happy ; his misery, 
 absurd as it was, used to make me quite wretched." 
 
 " Yes, he was rather pitiful, different from de Lensky! 
 I can even now hardly believe that the serene Jack ever 
 was a Pamaniac." 
 
 " He wasn't," avowed Pam, sincerely, " he told me him- 
 self, down at Bumblemouth, that it was chiefly because the 
 time had arrived for him to well, to fall in love, and 
 that I appeared as the hour struck." 
 
 " Is he still worshipping Lady Freddy Fane ? " 
 
 Pam rose. " Yes, apparently. When I die, he ought
 
 PAM DECIDES 299 
 
 to have me stuffed and mounted as a souvenir of the one 
 plain woman he ever looked at ! " 
 
 She went home in a hansom, a rare treat for her in these 
 days of economy, to save her new clothes, and when de 
 Lensky arrived, at about three, he found her in an old coat 
 and skirt, and the hat she had worn that day in St. Giles' 
 Churchyard. 
 
 " I must have some exercise," she declared, shaking hands 
 with him, " so if you don't mind, we'll go for a tramp and 
 then come back for tea, unless you'd like to invite Pilly 
 and me to tea at your rooms ? " 
 
 " Come to tea by all means, but I should most awfully 
 mind a tramp in the rain! I loathe a wetting, ana I've got 
 on thin shoes." 
 
 She laughed. " All right, then let's go to the Abbey and 
 prance round and round the Cloister, will you? I must 
 have a walk." 
 
 He agreed without comment to this plan, and once again 
 it occurred to her how remarkably consistent he was. He 
 disliked getting wet, and said so without apology, either in- 
 different to the possibility of her thinking him a muff, or 
 tranquilly certain that she would not make this mistake. 
 So they took a four-wheeler to Old Dean's Yard and hurried 
 under dripping umbrellas into the Cloister where he had 
 first spoken to her. 
 
 " Now," he said, as they started walking briskly towards 
 Jane Lister's tablet, " tell me about Lady Freddy." 
 
 " I told her, and she thanked me," returned Pam, taking 
 a leaf out of his own book.
 
 300 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " Did she tell you nothing?" 
 
 She looked at him. " She told me several things, some 
 of which you know, some of which you don't. Do you 
 think I ought to say any more? " 
 
 " No. Well, thanks for telling her. I it troubled me 
 horribly." 
 
 " I saw that. You are very fond of her, aren't you? " 
 
 " Very. I like them all, but Dorothy is the one of whom I 
 am fondest. It made me perfectly miserable, knowing about 
 Fane's engagement, and that she would have to be told." 
 
 For several minutes they walked in silence, while Pam 
 turned over and over in her hurrying mind the question of 
 the best way for her to broach the subject that was oc- 
 cupying A. 
 
 " ' Jane Lister, deare childe,' " he read, stopping and look- 
 ing up at the words. " Do you remember?" 
 
 " Of course I do ! Nearly two years ago, too. Isn't it 
 strange to think that it is so long ! " 
 
 " It seems much longer to me," he returned, gravely. 
 
 " Does it ? Well, yes. I daresay it does. Look here, 
 Jack, may I say something to you ? " 
 
 He came closer, looking at her. " You may say anything 
 to me, dear friend." 
 
 " But it's really a a terrifically cheeky thing, you 
 won't be angry ? " 
 
 " No. What is," he smiled very sweetly at her, " the 
 terrific thing? " 
 
 On the grass beyond the arches the rain fell steadily; it 
 was very still in the old place, the last minor canon had
 
 PAM DECIDES 301 
 
 flitted past into the Abbey for the evening service. Pam 
 hesitated for a moment, and then, laying her hand on 
 Lensky's arm, looked into his beautiful, clear, eyes. 
 
 " You are very fond of Dolly Fane," she said, slowly, 
 "well, not just yet, of course, but later, I think I am 
 quite sure she would marry you." 
 
 Lensky turned very white. "Lady Freddy marry me! 
 What do you mean ? " he asked sternly. 
 
 " I mean just what I say, you needn't glare at me, you 
 promised not to be angry. I think that when the first pain 
 of that beast's marriage is over, she might marry you." 
 
 For several minutes he was silent, and when he answered 
 it was in a queer choked voice that half frightened her. 
 
 " Do you mean that ? Whether you do, or not, it is 
 abominable." 
 
 It was the first time she had ever seen him even annoyed, 
 and this anger was, she saw, very intense. It seemed so 
 utterly disproportionate to her offence, if offence there really 
 were, that she stared at his white face in absolute dismay. 
 
 " I I don't see why you are so furious," she protested. 
 " I asked you if I might say it." 
 
 " Do you really think I love Dorothy Fane ? " he re- 
 torted, paying no attention to her words. " Do you really 
 think that?" 
 
 "Yes I I did. And not only I. Several people 
 thought it." 
 
 " Several people! Did they know what you knew? " 
 
 He forced a laugh, but it was not a pleasant one. " You 
 don't seem to know that you are insulting me."
 
 302 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " That is ridiculous," answered Pam, shortly. 
 
 " Perhaps it is." He made a visible effort to control him- 
 self, but he failed. The door of his patience had given 
 way, and out rushed the waters of wrath. 
 
 "Two years ago I asked you to marry me," he said, his 
 accent very marked. "A year ago I asked you again. I 
 asked you to marry me because I loved you. Do you know 
 what love is? Does it change vvith a few short months? 
 Is it a cloak that one puts on and takes off as the weather 
 rhanges? Do you think I'm a school-boy not to know my 
 iwn mind? Do you think me a fool who did not know 
 what he was saying? What did you think my love was? A 
 'ancy, a a flirtation? I what are you, of what are you 
 -.nade, to judge me so? Of what worth are your feelings 
 that you so misunderstood mine ? " 
 
 " Please try to control yourself," answered Pam, " I dis- 
 iike heroics." 
 
 His voice changed again, growing a shade more unrecog- 
 j ;sable in its white anger. " Heroics ! Ah, yes. The scorn 
 <,' the Anglo-Saxon for the savage Continental! Did I 
 a<vioy you with heroics when without a thought for me you 
 broke our engagement? Did I bore you with melodrama 
 when you went away and I heard nothing of you for months? 
 And when I came to your Villa, was I over-emotional? 
 No ! You wanted a friend, and because I loved you I could 
 make myself into the semblance of one for you ; you wanted 
 a confidant and I listened to your stories of that other man ; 
 I even read his letters! I watched you holding that baby in 
 your arms, your arms that should have held my children.
 
 PAM DECIDES 303 
 
 You wanted an old woman to talk to, and I, who never lie, 
 never pose, pretended to be that old woman. And this is 
 what you give me in return. Not even enough under- 
 standing to know that because a man can control himself, he 
 
 is not bah ! You don't deserve love like mine ! Well, '' 
 
 Suddenly he broke off, and taking his handkerchief from his 
 pocket, wiped his forehead, his face that looked old and 
 worn. 
 
 Pam stood quite still. She had, then, lost her friend, or 
 what was worse, he had never been her friend. Her anger had 
 gone, leaving her feeling very young, and lonely, and pitiful. 
 
 A great sorrow for herself swelled her throat. Lensky 
 took his glass and polished it. Then putting his handker- 
 chief away, he said very gently, " I beg your pardon. Cart 
 you forgive me, before I go ? " 
 
 " I of course I forgive you. And can you forgive me ? 
 I must have hurt you a hundred times, but I didn't know." 
 
 He smiled. " Ah, yes, a thousand times, but you didn't 
 know. Now will you please go. I shall stay here a little 
 while, and go out by Victoria Street." 
 
 She held out her hand. " You mean, good-bye for 
 always?" 
 
 " Yes. It's the only way. Go home to the baby and be 
 blessed. Good-bye." 
 
 Her eyes filled with stinging tears. It seemed as if the 
 very foundations of things were giving way, now that he 
 had failed her. " Good-bye," she said with a little haughty 
 humble nod. Then she left him standing alone by deare 
 Jane Lister's tomb.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 IT was hard, after months of happiness m her belief in 
 Lensky's friendship, for Pam to have to entirely readjust her 
 state of mind regarding him. She had been extremely angry 
 when he first lost his head in the Cloisters, and her anger was 
 not unmixed with the Anglo-Saxon's scorn for what she had 
 roughly classified as heroics. If this white-faced, ranting 
 man was the real de Lensky, if this unbridled fury expressed 
 his genuine character, then where was the serene, bland- 
 tempered little gentleman in whom she had so oddly trusted ? 
 
 The lines in the face in the Cloisters had so changed it 
 that it was almost inconceivable that it was the one that 
 had grown to be so very dear to the solitary woman, and for 
 days she could not forget it. In her dreams it came to her, 
 haggard, threatening, almost terrible in its absolute sur- 
 render to fury, and as she went her daily round of simple 
 duties and pleasures it seemed to stare at her from corners 
 and lurk near her wherever she was. 
 
 The absolute silence that followed his disappearance from 
 her ken, served, too, to enhance the queer kind of frightened 
 loneliness that oppressed her. If he had written to say again 
 that he was sorry, she could easier have found her bearings, 
 but she heard not a word from him as time passed, and 
 November merged into December. 
 
 " Of course he wouldn't write," she told herself more than 
 once, " if he did, it would be utterly inconsistent " And
 
 PAM DECIDES 305 
 
 then she came to a halt, for the enormous, almost grotesque 
 inconsistency of his behaviour in the Cloister had pulled 
 into a shapeless heap of ruins the mental image she had set 
 up of him. 
 
 He had been savage, rough, almost brutal, he had in a 
 few words denied all his former conduct; gone his beautiful 
 equanimity, his grave gentleness, how was she to picture 
 him? If his imperturbable calm was but a pose, was his 
 violence the real keynote to his character? 
 
 Was he only a savage with a clever veneer of civilisation ? 
 Then, remorsefully, she admitted that she herself had been 
 greatly to blame. Engrossed in her own misery she had 
 barely considered the possibility of his suffering, and since 
 the day she had first seen him at the Villa she had been only 
 too glad to accept the clever travesty of contentment that he 
 presented to her, as the real thing. It was quite true that 
 she had underestimated the quality of his love for her; quite 
 true that she had used him, as he had said. And being 
 essentially though not always logically just, she soon came 
 to the point of forgiving him his Slavic outburst; she had, 
 in all innocence driven him beyond his powers of endurance, 
 and while an Englishman would have been much milder in 
 his outbreak, Lensky had, she realised, only after many 
 months of a marvellous self-control quite impossible to 
 ninety-nine Englishmen in a hundred, lost his head in his 
 own way. 
 
 Therefore she, who had brought him to this point through 
 sheer thick-headed stupidity, had no right to be angry with 
 him.
 
 306 PAM DECIDES 
 
 And her anger ebbed away, leaving only a miserable high- 
 water mark of lonely longing for the friend she had in 
 reality never had. How dull she had been ! How foolishly 
 unobservant. And how almost insultingly ready to believe 
 in the sudden death of his feeling for her. 
 
 Even the baby could not hold at bay the white-faced 
 phantom that had come to haunt the old house in Chimes 
 Lane. 
 
 " You look as if you'd lost your last friend, Miss Pam," 
 Pilgrim remarked once, with all the acidity of ignorant anx- 
 iety, and Pam gave a forlorn little laugh. " I have, Pilly, 
 dear," she returned, " or rather, the only one I ever had." 
 For now that he had gone, she realised better every day 
 what he had been to her. She had adored her grandfather, 
 she was very fond of the Duchess, and Buzzy Penge was 
 most sympathetic to her, but none of these people had been 
 a real friend. And to de Lensky there had been nothing 
 that she could not say. There were none of the queer, inex- 
 plicable reserves that blood-relationship usually imposes, none 
 of the shyness that frivolous age sometimes awakes in serious 
 youth, none of the superficiality of comprehension contingent 
 on a new acquaintance, however sympathetic. 
 
 In a word, Lensky had been to her someone, and some- 
 thing, quite undefinable and new. And now he was gone 
 and she was alone. One day she found in a book of quota- 
 tions one from Jean Paul that, retrospectively, fitted the 
 case to piteous perfection : " Thou speakest to me of things 
 which in all my endless life I have found not, and shall not 
 find."
 
 PAM DECIDES 307 
 
 " I thought he was something that ' in all my endless life 
 I have found not, and shall not find/ " she said, sadly. 
 
 So, with a weary heart she again set herself to the task of 
 fighting down and forgetting an enveloping trouble. It was 
 very uphill work, for this time she was not ashamed of the 
 feeling that bound her; her affection for Lensky was one 
 that she need not blush for, and pride failed to come to her 
 aid. She missed him a dozen times a day, for though she- 
 had not seen him often, the possibility of doing so had for- 
 merly been constant, and now he was as much gone as if he 
 had left the country. 
 
 For she knew that having said good-bye to her he 'would 
 never come back. He had done what made a pretence of 
 friendship impossible, and would now, she was sure, set to 
 work to make the best of things as they stood. Even if she 
 should meet him accidentally there would be no backsliding. 
 He would be polite, conventionally cordial and friendly, and 
 at the first opportunity slip gracefully away from her. It 
 was hopeless. He had gone, and she had lost him for the 
 rest of " her endless life." At this period the baby did her 
 best to enliven the household by really producing the tooth 
 her godmother had long expected, and following closely on 
 this event came another of a very different nature. 
 
 One evening as Pam sat reading in the White Study, 
 Cyril Wantage came in looking very much distressed. 
 
 " I've come to tell you that I've been turfed out by old 
 Butterflies," he declared, at once, sitting down and rubbing 
 his hands before the fire; " pleasant, isn't it? " 
 
 "Oh dear! Butwhv?"
 
 3 o8 PAM DECIDES 
 
 " Well, he saw me kiss his parlour-maid." 
 
 "Cyril!" 
 
 " I know. Disgraceful, infra 'dig. and all that kind of 
 thing, wasn't it? However, I enjoyed it and so did she, 
 and really it wasn't any of the old brute's business. He 
 thought it necessary to do the outraged hospitality act, I lost 
 my temper I wish I could lose it so I'd never find it again 
 and we parted. So here I am." 
 
 Pam drew a deep sigh. He had been doing so much bet- 
 ter than she had ventured to hope; his wife's death had so 
 seemed to steady him, and here he was, scarcely seven months 
 later, kissing parlour-maids. 
 
 She made no reference to Mary, however, and sat for 
 some time staring into the fire. "What are you going to 
 do ? " she asked, at last, looking at him. 
 
 " Look for another job, I suppose. How's the baby?" 
 
 " Very well. She has a tooth," returned Pam, absently. 
 " If you want to see her, ring, will you? " 
 
 She was very unwilling to say anything that might savour 
 of lecturing, but there was in his whole air something that 
 displeased her. Having taken the burden of his irresponsi- 
 bility on her shoulders she had never contemplated shirking 
 it, but this weak jauntiness recalled to her old fears for him 
 that she had almost forgotten. 
 
 "Ask Cassandra to bring the baby, please," she said tc 
 the maid who answered Wantage's ring. That he was the 
 baby's father bound her to this man, too ; she must continue 
 to help him as much as she could, but he must understand 
 that her financial condition was one that necessitated strict
 
 PAM DECIDES 309 
 
 economy. She was explaining this to him when the baby 
 appeared, and the new tooth was proudly displayed by the 
 nurse, who appeared to believe that she deserved all the 
 credit of the phenomenon. 
 
 " Jolly big kiddy, isn't she ? And, I say, she is beginning 
 to look like my mater! Upon my word she is, something 
 about the eyes ! " 
 
 He took the baby and played with her affectionately, dis- 
 playing much skill in his management of her small person. 
 Pam watched them silently. He was Pammy's father, and 
 as such must be helped, and kept straight. With a pang 
 she reflected that Ratty Maxse's father, whom she had 
 known only in his singularly unattractive middle age, must, 
 at Wantage's age, have been much like that pleasant though 
 forceless young fellow. 
 
 " And poor old Dick was so horrible! " she thought, with 
 a sigh. 
 
 " I say, look at her laugh ! Give daddy a kiss. Boo, 
 what a wet kiss, nassy baby ! " 
 
 " What a charming domestic picture ! " 
 
 Wantage turned as Pam started up to meet the Duchess, 
 who, burly and shapeless in a fur cloak, had come in unob- 
 served. 
 
 " I heard voices and baby-talk, so I came in without being 
 announced. I suppose you are this infant prodigy's father? " 
 
 " I am." He bowed rather charmingly, the baby crumpled 
 up against his waistcoat, and Pam introduced him to the old 
 lady. 
 
 " I was in the neighbourhood, my dear," the Duchess
 
 310 PAM DECIDES 
 
 explained, sitting down. " No, don't unhook me, I can't 
 stay and just ran in to say howdy. I've had a deadly day. 
 Kenny's house is being painted, as I told you, and she and 
 Jim are with me. They do bore me so together. I enjoy 
 both of 'em when the other isn't there; isn't it unfortunate? 
 And James' private secretary has left very suddenly, and a 
 stream of horribly ' gentlemany ' young men have been com- 
 ing since dawn, for him to choose from, it has been awful ! " 
 
 " I hope he got a good one," returned Pam, absently, 
 abstracting from the baby's mouth the penwiper that lady 
 was slily tasting. 
 
 " No, that's the worst of it. He writes such a vile hand 
 and loathes a typewriter, none of 'em wrote well enough 
 to suit him, so they've all gone their weary ways, and the 
 great post is still unfilled." 
 
 " Is that Mr. Peele, Duchess, may I ask," inquired Wan- 
 tage, with civil interest. " I remember meeting him years 
 ago, with poor old Charnley Burke." 
 
 " Yes. He married my daughter. Your baby is a very 
 pleasant person, Mr. Wantage; you must be proud of her." 
 As she spoke, the old lady rose. " Well, good-bye, Pam, 
 come and see me next week, they leave to-morrow. Henny 
 nas been ill again; I'm sure it's her appendix, but she says 
 it sn't, and I suppose she ought to know. Good-bye, Mr. 
 Wantage ' ' 
 
 Pam went with her to the door, and then went back to 
 the Study. She was grateful to Cyril for not, as she had 
 for a moiirent feared he intended doing, proposing himself 
 for the vacant secretaryship.
 
 PAM DECIDES 311 
 
 I am sorry that you have lost your position," she said, 
 as he smiled up from the rug where in the character of some 
 strange wild beast he was growling and gambolling for the 
 baby ; " let's send her upstairs and get some newspapers and 
 try to find something that might suit you,"
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 TWO days later Pam received a letter from James Peele 
 postmarked Torpington. She was sitting in the nursery 
 when it was brought to her, and for several minutes sat 
 staring at the address while the blood rushed to her face 
 with a heat that almost burnt her. 
 
 He had broken his promise, then, and after all the strug- 
 gles she should have to begin over again. And she had no 
 Lensky to whom to turn for strength. 
 
 She felt herself so helpless, so alone, that she thought with 
 a shiver, " If he insists on seeing me if he breaks his word 
 and comes, and I see him can I be brave and send him 
 away?" A quick memory of Dorothy Fane came to her, 
 too, as she sat in the quiet room near the sleeping child. 
 Lady Freddy had been strong only to be horribly, humili- 
 atingly weak afterwards. She believed that if she had not 
 been so strong she would have been happier! 
 
 And if Peele came, if, in his quality of master, he came 
 to her now, after her years of brave struggle, should she not 
 do better to yield to him? To let him love her, and to let 
 herself love him? For a moment she closed her eyes, and 
 remembered the feel of his arms roun-d her, the touch of his 
 lips on hers, and then with a fierce frown and shake of her 
 head, came to her senses. 
 
 " Fool ! " she called herself, angrily, " I am a fool, and he 
 is a knave. But I must read his letter and know how to 
 meet his attack 1 " 
 
 312
 
 PAM DECIDES 313 
 
 The letter ran as follows: 
 
 " MY DEAR Miss YEOLAND, 
 
 " You will, I am sure, excuse my writing to you on a 
 matter of business. I am in search of a private secretary, 
 and among some twenty young men who have come to me 
 to offer themselves for the position, the one I best like is 
 Cyril Wantage. I met him once years ago with poor Burke, 
 but I know nothing of his character except what he himself 
 tells me. He writes a good hand, which is very important 
 for me, and as he tells me that you are personally interested 
 in his welfare, I should be doubly glad to employ him. He 
 begged me not to mention his application to you, but I am 
 hoping that you will confirm his statements, and that you 
 will be pleased by my giving him easy and well-paid 
 employment. Trusting that you are well and happy, I am, 
 
 " Yours sincerely, 
 
 "JAMES PEELE." 
 
 Pam rose and went into her room, instinctively taking her 
 anger with Wantage away from his child's bedside. It was 
 abominable, outrageous, of him to have done this thing; to 
 have used her name as a means of currying favour with 
 Peele. And how artfully he had concealed his design from 
 her, letting her make a list of advertisements for him to 
 answer, and trying to persuade Peele not to tell her of his 
 application. 
 
 That Peele had written to her was, she admitted, excusa- 
 ble, and his letter was, in itself, faultless. Even if he had 
 not wished to please her by helping her protege, as Wantage
 
 3 14 PAM DECIDES 
 
 had obviously declared himself to be, it was most natural 
 that he should write to her for references. And that she 
 held in her hand the success or the failure of Wantage's sly 
 scheming, made matters only worse. 
 
 Should she write and refuse to recommend the baby's 
 father for this delightful post? Should she, by refusing to 
 help him, be the first to push him into the downward path 
 for which his indolent feet were so evidently bound? Or 
 should she assist him by using, even thus indirectly, her influ- 
 ence over Peele? 
 
 After an hour's brooding thought she wrote and sent off 
 the following letter: 
 
 " MY DEAR MR. PEELE, 
 
 " I had no idea that Mr. Wantage was going to apply for 
 the position of your secretary, but if he pleases you, can see 
 no reason why you should not engage him. 
 
 " Yours sincerely, 
 
 " PAMELA YEOLAND." 
 
 This matter disposed of, she lay down on the divan in the 
 White Study, and went to sleep. Dreams so rarely have 
 any perceptible bearing on the thoughts occupying the mind 
 of the dreamer, it was rather remarkable that Pam should 
 dream of Peele, but so it was. 
 
 She was standing by the fountain at Hinchingly, with 
 Lady Freddy, who told her, as they stood in the sun, of her 
 engagement to Jack Lensky, Pam, to her own great sur- 
 prise, was anything but pleased by the news, and was silent, 
 wondering why she felt so sorry. It was a great depth of
 
 PAM DECIDES 315 
 
 loneliness into which she seemed to have sunk, and tears 
 came into her eyes. " Can I be jealous? " she asked herself, 
 angrily incredulous, and with bitter shame she was obliged 
 to admit that she was. 
 
 Lensky, then, had at last really forgotten her, and no 
 longer loved her. She could never again make him beside 
 himself with fury as he had been that day in the Cloisters of 
 the Abbey; it was no longer in her power to bring to his 
 tranquil face those anguished, terrifying lines that she had 
 seen there. He would now meet her with pleasant, super- 
 ficial amiability, would neither seek nor shun her; her day 
 was done, and Dorothy Fane's begun. 
 
 Then, still in the blazing summer sun, Lady Freddy left 
 her. " I am going to meet him," she said, and walked away 
 towards the house. Pam stood still, a tempest of anger and 
 pain in her heart, and watched a man rapidly crossing the 
 lawn toward Lady Freddy. 
 
 It was Lamartine, as she had first seen him, that day in 
 the fog, two years before; the exquisite, dandified Lamartine 
 in the glossy top-hat, with a white flovv :r in his coat. And 
 he was going straight to Lady Freddy, without a look for 
 Pam, who wanted him so miserably. Forgetting all shame 
 in her loneliness, she stretched out her arms and cried, " Oh, 
 look at me, look ! " 
 
 And then he turned, but he was James Peele now, and 
 with a low cry he took her in his arms and kissed her as he 
 had kissed her in the Oak Hall. 
 
 And she woke, shaking and pulsing with exquisite pain, 
 blushing with horror over her unworthy rapture, hating
 
 316 PAM DECIDES 
 
 herself for her dream. It was Jack she had wanted, her 
 old Jack whom she had believed her friend, and it was 
 Peele who came, Peele whom she hated and dreaded, and 
 whom she loved. 
 
 For several minutes she sat on the red divan, seeing again 
 the stern, nervous, emotion-shaken face she had so tried to 
 forget. She had feared the sight of his face, and avoided it 
 manfully, and now to crown all her troubles it had come 
 to her in this dream with the most appalling distinctness. 
 Would it always stay there, before her eyes? 
 
 Her recent obsession, Lensky's changed face, disappeared 
 entirely under this new one, and seemed, as she looked back 
 on it, as a very minor affliction. 
 
 " Perhaps I'm going crazy," she almost moaned. " I'm 
 certainly losing my nerve." 
 
 But the next day an unexpected visit raised her danger- 
 ously fluctuating spirits, Sidney Blythe, come to show her 
 his new hair. 
 
 "Can you see it?" he inquired, bending down into the 
 firelight. " If you can't," he added, accommodatingly, " you 
 may feel it! " 
 
 Pam laughed. " Thanks, but it's perfectly visible to my 
 penetrating eye! It's most becoming. You don't think it's 
 going to be red, do you?" 
 
 " Red ? " he shrieked. " Red ! Nonsense. It was always 
 light-brown, why should it be red? " 
 
 " I beg your pardon ; no doubt it was the firelight and 
 when is the wedding to be? " 
 
 " In February." He was suddenly serious, his pleasant
 
 PAM DECIDES 317 
 
 face gaming greatly as he spoke. " Poor Buzzy, it was hard 
 on her, wasn't it ? " 
 
 " And on you. But even if it hadn't grown, she'd have 
 married you in the end," answered Pam, gently. 
 
 " Yes, she would. As a matter of fact she had promised 
 a week before there was a sign of a hair to be seen. She 
 sent you her love, by the way, and says she would have come 
 to see you, only Dolly is not well." 
 
 "Dolly isn't ill, I hope!" 
 
 He hesitated. " No, but she is not well, either. Fane 
 is an awful brute, but I imagine she still cares for him, and 
 he's going to marry again." 
 
 "Poor Dolly!" 
 
 " Yes. I am very fond of her, and I know you are, too, 
 but she hasn't Patricia's character." 
 
 " Patricia never was put to her tests," suggested Pam, 
 mildly. 
 
 " Of course not. I only meant that it would have been 
 better if Dorothy had either stuck to Fane or stopped both- 
 ering about him when she had once got rid of him." 
 
 Pam burst out laughing. " Oh, most wise judge ! How- 
 ever I quite agree with you that it would have been better 
 for her." 
 
 Blythe rose. " I must be off. Glad to have found you. 
 How's the baby, by the way? " 
 
 " Well, thanks. Good-bye. Give my love to all the 
 Penges, including the Earl of Fauntleroy Penge. And I 
 am so glad about your hair. Good gracious," she added, 
 looking at him closely, " your eyelashes ! "
 
 318 PAM DECIDES 
 
 He nodded. "Yes, the wretched things are shrinking 
 visibly. It is a blessing, I can tell you. People used to turn 
 and stare at me in the street, and now I get no more atten- 
 tion than any other young Greek god ! " 
 
 " But oh, the beautiful lashes ! Well, if you're glad, I'm 
 glad. Good-bye." 
 
 At last Buzzy was going to be happy. Pam had borne 
 her many troubles with a sort of unconscious stoicism, but 
 now she felt very tired and discouraged, and her dream had 
 still further depressed her. For she realised even more 
 strongly than before that if chance should bring her face to 
 face with James Peele she could never again have a peaceful 
 minute. 
 
 He had promised not to see her, and he had kept, and 
 would no doubt continue keeping, his word, but at best she 
 was trusting to chance, and might at any moment be be- 
 trayed by that capricious goddess. Perhaps, after all, it 
 would be best to rent her house, her beloved house that of 
 late had given her so little joy and go to live somewhere on 
 the Continent. The one thing in the world that seemed to 
 her absolutely necessary was that she should be safe from 
 the danger of ever meeting Peele. And perhaps bravery, 
 for her, lay in flight, as it had lain for greater and better 
 people before her. 
 
 With a deep sigh she went upstairs and put on a hat and 
 - warm coat, for it was a bitterly cold day. 
 
 " I'm going out for a tramp, Pilly dear," she told the old 
 woman, whom she met on the stairs ; " I have a grand plan 
 in my head, which I will tell you when I come back."
 
 PAM DECIDES 319 
 
 "Oh dear, Pam, no more travelling, I 'ope? I'm that 
 tired of rushing about the world! I'm getting old, I sup- 
 pose." Pilgrim looked indeed old and tired, and Pam's 
 heart smote her. "If we do make a move it will be a 
 final one," she said, gently; "I'm not so young as I used to 
 be, myself good-bye." 
 
 As she opened the house-door she nearly ran into a man 
 who was about to ring. " Oh, Miss Yeoland, I beg your 
 pardon " 
 
 He wore the Duchess's dark-blue livery, Pam saw, and 
 looked very much agitated. "Is anything wrong?" she 
 asked, nervously. " Her Grace " 
 
 " No, Miss, there's nothing wrong; with 'er Grace, 'that 
 is, Miss, but Lady 'Enrietta died yesterday, Miss. And 'Er 
 Grace is very much broken by the news " 
 
 " Lady Henrietta ! Dead ! " Pam leaned against her 
 house-door and felt the stone step under her sway like a 
 boat. 
 
 "Yes, Miss. It was very suddent; 'er Ladyship went 
 back to the country three days ago and Mr. Peele 'e went 
 back followed her the day before yesterday, and was com- 
 ing back to Berkeley Square yesterday. Instead of which, 
 Miss, 'e wired to say 'er Ladyship 'ad died suddently. 'Er 
 Grace has been very bad, and to-day Mrs. Williamson sug- 
 gested we should fetch you, Miss." 
 
 The stone step ceased rocking and the smoke-blackened 
 wall opposite was once more a solid body. 
 
 " Call a hansom for me, will you ? " she ordered the man, 
 and a minute later was hurrying towards Berkeley Square.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 AT the station at Torpington the Duchess was met by her 
 nephew, the young Duke, and taken to Peek's house, while 
 Pam fell to the lot of a tall man, in a grey pony overcoat. 
 
 " My name is Baring-Smythe, Miss Yeoland, and as we 
 are poor Peele's nearest neighbours, we are to have the pleas- 
 ure of putting you up. My wife sent me to meet you." 
 
 Pam murmured a few words of conventional thanks, and 
 followed her companion through the dingy waiting-room to 
 his carriage. 
 
 "The old lady has been ill, hasn't she?" Mr. Baring- 
 Smythe asked, as they stepped into the victoria and he 
 wrapped her in a fur-lined rug. 
 
 " Yes. I thought the day before yesterday that she would 
 not be able to come. She had a serious operation on her eyes 
 a year ago, iridectomy, they call it and she has not been 
 very strong ever since. And Lady Henrietta's death was 
 so frightfully sudden." 
 
 " Awf'ly sudden, poor lady. My wife saw her the day 
 she came down, and she seemed all right. They say it was 
 appendicitis she wired Peele and he brought Biddulph, who 
 operated, but it was too late. Awful thing, awful." 
 
 Mr. Baring-Smythe had a loud, rather deep voice that 
 seemed vaguely familiar to Pam, but she could not place it. 
 And his talk went on in a well-meant flow, as the carriage 
 
 320
 
 PAM DECIDES 321 
 
 made its way through the town. " Rotten little place, Tor- 
 pington; my wife says she can't even get a reel of cotton 
 in it, but they always say that," he added, humorously; 
 "helps 'em to get up to town oftener! That's the post- 
 office, and that's the Methodist Chapel. Hope you're not 
 cold? My wife thought the fresh air would do you good, 
 or I'd have come in a brougham. I wanted to drive you 
 out myself, but she wouldn't let me. Thought a victoria 
 more comfortable for you after your journey." 
 
 Pam hardly listened to him. She was watching the streets 
 they passed through, remembering some of them, recalling 
 days long ago when she had walked in them, days when she 
 was seventeen. 
 
 There is, of course, always, even to very happy people, 
 a certain gentle melancholy in going back to a place where 
 one dreamed the dreams, hoped the hopes, of his early youth, 
 and to Pam, brought back here by a serried force of uncon- 
 querable circumstances, a fresh pang lay in every house, 
 every turning that she recognised. 
 
 The afternoon was clear though cold, and the low sky 
 yet an hour from dusk. 
 
 " The Duke came yesterday, I believe," went on Mr. 
 Baring-Smythe, at the end of a long period of vague prattle ; 
 "nice chap, and very fond of Peele. You know Peele, of 
 course ? " 
 
 " Yes," returned Pam, almost impatiently. For the car- 
 riage had come out on the road she had travelled one early 
 spring day twelve years ago, when, all unconsciously, she had 
 taken the turning that led her to James Peele. And now, in
 
 322 PAM DECIDES 
 
 this dumbly unwilling, protesting way, she was going ovei 
 the same road. 
 
 '" Nice fellow, isn't he?" 
 
 " Oh yes, very." 
 
 " And she, poor Lady Henrietta, was delightful. My 
 wife liked her immensely, though they of course had very 
 little in common, Lady Henrietta being so smart, and all 
 that, and Augusta just a country bumpkin's wife ! I always 
 say we are only country bumpkins, living all the year 
 round in the country, and going to town only for an occa- 
 sional visit." 
 
 The road had now crept to the top of the gradual hill, 
 and stretched straight ahead, between lightly frosted fields. 
 Against the sky-line, a clump of trees and a chimney ; Peele's 
 house. 
 
 Pam shivered. So, after all, her struggles had been in 
 vain. Fate's great hand had taken her in its mighty grasp 
 and led her hither. 
 
 " Shall I marry him? " she asked herself, miserably; " shall 
 1 have the strength to refuse ? " 
 
 " That's poor Peele's place. Oak Barns, my little place, 
 is just beyond the turning there, to the right. Ah, there's 
 Peele's carriage with the Duchess, just going in, these nags 
 of mine aren't so bad, after all, are they? The Duchess had 
 at least three and a half minutes' start of us " 
 
 Oak Banns was a modern, villa-like house with a fine 
 wide hall, in which, waiting to receive her guest, Mrs. 
 Baring-Smythe was standing. 
 
 She was a red-faced woman with a sensible figure, and
 
 PAM DECIDES 323 
 
 large, red hands. She wore a grey dress trimmed with black 
 lace, and an amethyst cross on a chain round her neck. 
 
 Obviously embarrassed, this lady murmured some kind of 
 a greeting to Pam and then hurried her up the stairs. 
 
 " I'm sure you'll like some tea and a nap," she said, cor- 
 dially, but in an evident hurry, opening a door and ushering 
 the girl into a pleasant room; " it's only four, and we don't 
 dine until half-past seven, so you'll have plenty of time for 
 a good rest." 
 
 And Pam obediently drank her tea and lay down on a 
 very slippery sofa. To sleep was another matter. She had 
 had but little rest the last two nights, for the Duchess, utterly 
 broken down by the shock of her daughter's death, had clung 
 to her piteously, asking for her every time she left the room, 
 reproaching her for every movement she made. So Pam 
 had sat by the bed where the poor old woman lay, and 
 counted the long hours as the clock on the stairs struck. 
 Lady Henrietta's sister, Lady Maria O'Reilly, had come 
 direct to Torpington, and there was no one to help the 
 Duchess get to where her dead daughter lay, except Pam. 
 " You will come with me, dear, for Oswald's sake," she 
 had said, and Pam, after a moment's fierce inward struggle, 
 had quietly assented. 
 
 So here she was in this strange house, and to-morrow she 
 must go to the funeral. " Das Ende von Lied," kept going 
 through her tired brain, " The End of the Song." She had 
 fought, she had struggled, and now she was beaten, con- 
 quered by force majeure. That Peele would want her to 
 marry him she knew, and she doubted her force to resist him.
 
 324 PAM DECIDES 
 
 But she also knew that she could not be happy as his wife. 
 He had proved himself a weakling, the unfulfilled promises 
 of his youth lay behind him; he had allowed himself to be 
 beaten in the race; he had failed. And nof, she knew, 
 because of his weak heart, but because of some inherent 
 weakness in his nature. " Just a common rush of pros- 
 perity to the head," she told herself, with a dreary laugh, 
 as she lay on worthy Mrs. Baring-Smythe's unyielding sofa, 
 watching the firelight play on the gay chintz curtains. " And 
 he is not even good. He would have made me bad if I had 
 let him. And yet when he looks at me as he used to 
 what if I couldn't say no? I'd love him and despise him all 
 at once, and be miserable the rest of my days. Oh, well, 
 I'll be miserable if I don't marry him, so what does it 
 matter? " 
 
 Dinner was a solemn meal, and Pam was so sleepy that she 
 could hardly keep awake. 
 
 Mrs. Baring-Smythe belonged to the order of ladies whose 
 idea of hospitable civility consists in the asking of numerous 
 personal questions " to show interest." Pam answered 
 these questions mechanically, and swallowed her yawns with 
 her food. 
 
 Yes, the Duchess was better to-day. Yes, Pam had known 
 the Duchess nearly all her life. No, she didn't know the 
 Duke. Yes, she knew Mr. Peele. Yes, she found him 
 charming. Yes, it was a terrible tragedy. Yes, she lived 
 in London. In Westminster. Yes, her father was alive. 
 So was her mother. In Japan. No, they never came to 
 England. No, she had no sisters. No, she didn't miss those
 
 PAM DECIDES 325 
 
 sisters she had never had. No, she would not have any more 
 game, thanks. 
 
 And so on, and so on, while Mr. Baring-Smythe beamed, 
 and Mrs. Baring-Smythe enquired. 
 
 Yes, she was to go to the funeral, of course. No, the 
 Duchess was going with Lady Maria O'Reilly, her other 
 daughter, and Lady Maria's daughter. Yes, Pam would go 
 with Mr. and Mrs. Baring-Smythe, please 
 
 At last Pam found herself in bed, and fell asleep almost 
 at once.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 "HER GRACE would like to see you.Miss," whispered the 
 Duchess's maid, as Pam followed Mrs. Baring-Smythe into 
 the house of mourning the next day. Up the metamor- 
 phosed stairs the girl crept quietly, vaguely glad that the old 
 place had been improved out of recognition, and through the 
 picture-gallery where Peele had once shown her a picture he 
 loved. It was early, for she had known that the Duchess 
 would wish to see her before they started for the Church. 
 
 " How is Her Grace, Honeywell ? " 
 
 " Very calm, Miss, thank you, and she slept better last 
 night, thank you." 
 
 There was an overpowering scent of flowers even in these 
 upper rooms; Pam felt giddy and half sick. 
 
 When she reached the Duchess's room she found the old 
 woman sitting before her dressing-table, staring blankly at 
 her own image in the glass. " How are you, my dear? I 
 am better, thank you, but and I want you to see her. 
 Come." 
 
 Pam had braced herself for all sorts of trials that day, 
 but this was an unexpected one. " Do you do you think 
 Mr. Peele would like it? " she asked. 
 
 " Nonsense ! And she was fond of you years ago, and 
 only the other day she said that the next time she was in 
 town she was going to see you. Come." 
 
 Without a word, Pam followed the Duchess into Lady 
 
 326
 
 PAM DECIDES 327 
 
 Henrietta's morning-room, where the coffin stood. " He 
 will come, I shall see him now," the girl thought, stiffening 
 her muscles and preparing for the dreaded instant ; " I w ill 
 be strong." But he did not come, and she stood looking 
 down at the dead face of the woman she had doubtlessly, 
 though involuntarily, robbed of her happiness. '' If he 
 hadn't loved me, he must have loved you," she thought. 
 
 Lady Henrietta Shanklin had been in her youth one of 
 the most beautiful women in Europe, and now, in her 
 coffin, a certain air of that youth seemed to have come back 
 to her, so that to Pam, who had not seen her for many 
 years, she looked but little changed since the old days. 
 
 " Isn't she exquisite ? " whispered the Duchess, wiping 
 her eyes. " And to think that her beauty could not bring 
 her happiness ! " 
 
 Pam's throat contracted. She was ashamed. All these 
 days she had thought only of herself and of Peele. Now 
 the other side of the shield was presented to her, and she 
 realised in a flash what the life of the other woman had 
 been. 
 
 She turned away while the Duchess looked her last at 
 her girl, and then, one arm round the old woman's shoulders, 
 she led her back to the room where Honeywell was waiting 
 to put on her bonnet. 
 
 " I I will go down now," said Pam, kissing the poor 
 old suddenly thin face under its cloud of crape, " and I 
 must go back by the five o'clock train." 
 
 " Yes, my dear. You have been very good to me. Oswald 
 would be glad, if he knew, perhaps he does," she added,
 
 328 PAM DECIDES 
 
 with one of the pathetically absurd flashes of piety that come 
 to the religionless in times of affliction. 
 
 " Yes. And you are really going to Ireland to-morrow? " 
 
 " Maria says I must ; I'd much rather go to Berkeley 
 Square, but she says it would be bad for me " 
 
 " Then, good-bye, dearest Duchess. Please write to me 
 and let me know how you are and when you are coming 
 back." 
 
 The old woman promised, crying weakly as she clung to 
 the girl, and at last Pam was able to get away, and return 
 to the darkened drawing-room, which was half full of black 
 figures. 
 
 " How she?" whispered Mrs. Baring-Smythe, huskily. 
 Mrs. Baring-Smythe was weeping, as was quite proper, and 
 her crape smelt strongly of dye. 
 
 The slow minutes passed, a clock struck, too loud in the 
 oppressive stillness. And then in the hall, footsteps and low 
 voices were heard. Someone blew his nose shamelessly, the 
 house-door was opened. The coffin was coming. Pam 
 stood with her eyes fixed on the floor, as the shuffling feet 
 descended the stairs. He, she knew, was close behind the 
 heavy burden that had been slim Henrietta Peele. And 
 though she would not look up she could see him, correct, 
 grave, all black but his white face. She heard his footsteps 
 now, and once or twice, on his way to the door, they paused, 
 as someone shook hands with him. Mrs. Baring-Smythe 
 sobbed convulsively, " Poor fellow, just look at him! " But 
 Pam did not look; her eyes were closed as he went out of 
 the door.
 
 PAM DECIDES 329 
 
 Other footsteps followed, 'the Duchess, a huge, unwieldy 
 black packet, dragged along by the young Duke, the 
 O'Reillys, a cousin of Peele's, and others whom Pam did not 
 know. Wreaths and flowers followed, apparently an end- 
 less flow of odiously strong-scented flowers. Oh, for some 
 air! 
 
 Outside, on the frozen gravel, restless horses stamped, and 
 slow wheels crunched. The hearse and the first carriages 
 had started. Henrietta Peele had left her house, and made 
 way Pam hated Peele, and she hated herself. She would 
 run away to the Continent and hide forever she would 
 
 Following Mrs. Baring-Smythe into her carriage, she 
 frowned so ferociously that Baring-Smythe, whose spirits 
 had risen at finding himself again, so to speak, under his 
 own roof, feared that he had looked too cheerful, and apol- 
 ogised. 
 
 " I'm so infernally sensitive, felt as if I'd die in there, 
 
 you know Come along, Wilfred, you're to go with us." 
 
 A young man with staring aquamarine eyes took his place 
 opposite Mrs. Baring-Smythe, and was introduced to Pam 
 by that lady between her loud sniffs. 
 
 " George, give me that extra handkerchief, please, Miae 
 Yeoland, Mr. Belford, my nephew." 
 
 Mr. Belford seemed oppressed by a desire to whistle, his 
 red lips constantly puckering and then convulsively straight- 
 ening under his vis-a-vis' stern eye. 
 
 " Poor Peele! I never was so sorry for anyone in my life," 
 remarked Mr. Baring-Smythe, and Pam knew instinctively 
 that he made the same remark about the chief survivor &:
 
 330 PAM DECIDES 
 
 every funeral to which he went. ( " Looks much broken, 
 don't you think, Wilfred ? " 
 
 " Oh, awfully. She must have been a st a great beauty 
 when she was young." 
 
 " It's the poor little boy / think about," remarked Mrs. 
 Baring-Smythe. " So young, and motherless! " 
 
 It was one consolation to Pam that she felt no joy in the 
 prospect of seeing Peele. She knew that her powers of 
 resistance were about over, that when she saw him she could 
 fight no longer, but at least she was not base enough to re- 
 joice in his freedom. She feared, she dreaded him, she 
 scorned her own weakness with a healthy scorn, and even 
 while she recognised her own weakness she was bracing her- 
 self for a final struggle. 
 
 During the drive to the Church she sat thinking, thinking, 
 trying to make some plan for the immediate future. If, 
 when she saw him, she was obliged to lay down her arms, 
 should she do the conventional thing and go away some- 
 where, waiting for him to seek her out when the time had 
 come? Or should she stay on in Westminster? Or 
 which of the two would be the conventional thing? 
 
 Her head swam. She could no longer think, and things 
 seemed to have been definitely taken out of her hands. If 
 only she had de Lensky to turn to, but she had lost him. 
 She was alone. Feeling as though she must faint, she fol- 
 lowed Mrs. Baring-Smythe out of the carriage at the church- 
 yard gate and stood with downcast eyes while the Vicar 
 said, very simply, the most beautiful words of hope ever
 
 PAM DECIDES 331 
 
 written. " I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the 
 Lord and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never 
 
 ! 
 
 In front of her, close to the coffin, stood Peele, she knew, 
 but she did not look at him. What if, as she did so, a shame- 
 ful happiness should come to her? 
 
 For the next few minutes the girl was hardly conscious 
 of her surroundings, and then, as the crowd poured out of 
 the church into the church-yard, she caught Baring-Smythe's 
 eye and pressed her dry handkerchief to her mouth to hide 
 the smile she could not repress. For she recognised him, 
 and knew that this pompous, worthy, country gentleman was 
 none other than the Englishman whose exclamation to his 
 cheerfully disreputable French companion had that evening 
 at Monte Carlo warned her of James Peele's presence ! 
 
 How funny, how absurd it was. What if she should 
 whisper to him, now, as he stood with his hat pressed to his 
 chest by the grave-side, " How is Fernande?" 
 
 "Yet, O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, 
 O holy and most merciful Saviour, deliver us not unto 
 the bitter pangs of eternal death. Thou knowest, Lord, 
 
 the secrets of our hearts " Pam started. The secrets 
 
 of our hearts. What if, suddenly, all these people should 
 know the secret of hers, of that man's standing she knew 
 in the correct attitude of manfully borne affliction? And 
 then, quite quietly, she realised that she must marry Peele. 
 That she could no longer struggle. That Death itself had 
 conquered her. " I shall be unhappy," she told herself, " and
 
 332 PAM DECIDES 
 
 ashamed of him, and ashamed of loving him, but he will 
 make me marry him. And I shall grow worse and that 
 I have tried to be good will not help me. I give up." 
 
 Suddenly some slight movement of someone in front of 
 her caused a break in the black wall of people between her 
 and the grave, and unconsciously looking up, she saw Peele's 
 face. 
 
 " We therefore commit her body to the ground ; earth 
 
 to earth, in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection " 
 
 But that was not his face. That was the face of a middle- 
 aged man with a reddish nose and ugly lines round his eyes. 
 Where then was James Peele? It was he who was chief 
 mourner at this funeral. This man, who stood in Peele's 
 place he was a weak, inert-looking person, with discontent 
 and self-indulgence and even pomposity written all over him. 
 Bah! 
 
 Suddenly the eyes with the lines round them met Pam's, 
 and the face flushed. 
 
 Yes, this man was Peele. It was this face that she had 
 so feared seeing, these eyes she had so dreaded meeting, 
 and the other man, her Peele, the one who had lived on in 
 her memory, in her heart, was dead. 
 
 Her tribute to his memory was a slow, painful, shamed 
 blush that seemed to burn her whole body and quicken her 
 heart-beat. Then she drew a deep breath. She was free. 
 She was a widow, possibly ; the man she had loved was dead, 
 even now the clergyman had buried him, and she must 
 wear mourning for him all her life, but she was free. 
 
 " I am not well," she whispered to young Belford, who
 
 PAM DECIDES 333 
 
 stood next her, as the crowd began to move away from the 
 grave ; " would you mind walking home with me ? " 
 
 Without a word of excuse they stole away, leaving Mrs. 
 Baring-Smythe indignantly astonished, and her husband 
 mildly facetious about young people liking to be together. 
 But Wilfrid Belford never forgot that walk over the iron- 
 bound fields to his uncle's house. 
 
 Pam spoke not a word, but flew across the uneven ground 
 like a big black bird. Her face was as white as the frost in 
 the crannies among the clods over which she skipped, but she 
 did not look ill, and her eyes were black with excitement. 
 When she had reached the house she thanked him and 
 rushed upstairs without another word, and when the Baring- 
 Smythes returned they found their peculiar guest at the door 
 with her luggage by her side. 
 
 " I must rush back to town," she said, hastily, " and I can 
 just make the express if you will let me have the car- 
 riage " Her good-byes were polite and sufficing, but 
 
 she offered no explanation for her extraordinary behaviour, 
 and to this day Mrs. Baring-Smythe believes her to have 
 been a little mad. 
 
 Pam never could recall one detail of her homeward jour- 
 ney. She was soaring in freedom ; chains had dropped from 
 her very soul ; the whole world was hers, and she was young 
 again. She was not in the least ashamed of her change of 
 feelings, for to her it was not a change. She had loved a 
 man who no longer existed, that was all. Not because 
 Peele had lost the austere beauty that had been his, nor be- 
 cause he had grown old. These things, she knew, would have
 
 334 PAM DECIDES 
 
 made no difference to her, and truthful as she always was 
 to herself, she admitted without argument, without excuses, 
 without self-laudation, these several facts. 
 
 " It is," she told herself, as the train drew into Euston, 
 " simply that he has, since I saw him, grown to be another 
 man. And I do not love that man ! " 
 
 She recalled Lensky's stare of surprise, when, that day at 
 the Villa, he had read Peek's letter. No wonder he had 
 been amazed I
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 "EIGHTY-SEVEN Chimes Lane, Westminster, cabby" 
 
 Ah, this old London! Is there any place in the whole 
 round world like it? When it frowns as well as when it 
 smiles; in its dingiest as well as its gayest quarters; in sum- 
 mer or in winter, it is, to its true lovers, unique and adora- 
 ble. And Pam was a faithful, indulgent, tender lover, and 
 leaning forward in her hansom, watched the crowded streets 
 with a deep glow in her eyes. 
 
 " How shall I live now, you old town?" she said to it 
 under her breath, " now that I am not afraid ! " 
 
 It was, after all, as much fear as love from which she had 
 suffered; a crippling, unnerving fear. Her immense relief 
 brought to her a glow of love for humanity that reddened 
 her cheeks and shortened her breath. All those people pass- 
 ing in the street interested her; she would have liked to 
 know all their stories, to sympathise with them. To know! 
 After all, that is what counts. 
 
 She recalled a verse she had once cut from a newspaper, 
 and learned. 
 
 "Life is my lover. I will know his heart, 
 His mind, his soul, his weakness and his strength. 
 Study him will I, therefore, till at length, 
 I know not him from mine own self apart. 
 Wherefore I look on all he shows to me, 
 Sights beautiful, sights evil, and sights sad; 
 For naught in him unworthy is, or bad, 
 335
 
 336 PAM DECIDES 
 
 As all he is and has been he must be. 
 His hands are strong and mine are -weak and white 
 Sometimes he grasps mine till they ache and burn, 
 Yet never from his wide gaze will I turn, 
 For I must know him in his cruel might. 
 Sometimes we laugh, sometimes together weep, 
 And when I know him quite, then can I sleep." 
 
 " I will learn, I will try to know" thought the girl, 
 unable to put into words the feeling that possessed her. 
 " And I will try to be useful and good." 
 
 She was ashamed of her loss of courage when on the eve 
 of being brought face to face with Peele. After all her 
 struggles to have been so weak! 
 
 But now she would waste no more time. She would 
 make of her life something worthy, something beautiful, and 
 she would endeavour in every way to teach the baby, as she 
 grew older, to use the hours as they came, and to appreciate 
 and understand the world in which she lived. 
 
 It was a very cold evening and the lights had frosty 
 halos. At Trafalgar Square she burst into a sudden laugh, 
 recalling her talk with Ratty on the steps of the National 
 Gallery. Poor Ratty, she had been very hard on him! 
 
 Suddenly up went her umbrella. " Stop, cabby, stop ! I 
 want to speak to that gentleman there, in the long coat. 
 Jack! " 
 
 Lensky, who was leisurely crossing the street, turned at 
 the sound of her voice. " Jack I want to speak to you ! " 
 
 He came obediently to the cab, and then, recognising her, 
 held out his hand.
 
 PAM DECIDES 337 
 
 " How do you do ? " he said, politely. 
 
 *' I I am very well. I want to tell you something." 
 
 He leaned over the wheel, peering up at her transfigured 
 face. " What has happened ? " 
 
 " Many things. Get in and go on a little way with me, 
 I'll set you down where you like " 
 
 But he drew back. " I am very sorry," he murmured, in 
 a conventional tone, " but I cannot." 
 
 She flushed. " Oh ! you mean you will not." 
 
 " If you prefer the expression." 
 
 His face was absolutely emotionless. 
 
 " But oh, I am so happy, and I must tell you. Vou- 
 ch, please come," she stammered. 
 
 " No. I am glad that you are happy ; believe me, I am 
 sincerely glad, but I will not come with you. And now, 
 you will excuse me " 
 
 He smiled as he again held out his hand, but even his 
 gentle smile was inexorable, and she knew that in another 
 moment he would be gone ; she would have lost him forever. 
 And that she could not bear. 
 
 Losing all sense of pride, intent only on making good use 
 of this last chance, she said, laying her hand on, not in, his, 
 " Listen ; I I want you. You must come. So many things 
 have happened, everything, my whole life is changed, and 
 just this once you must come." 
 
 Resignedly, but with unfailing politeness, he obeyed, and 
 when the hansom had started, said gently, " Well ? What 
 has happened ? " 
 
 She knew that he had come with her only because his code
 
 338 PAM DECIDES 
 
 did not permit him to refuse a woman's pleading, that he 
 hated being with her; that he would at the first possible 
 moment escape. And yet she was happy. She had missed 
 him so atrociously, and now here he was, his imperturbable 
 profile outlined against the dark side of the hansom, his 
 hands clasped on his umbrella. 
 
 " I am so glad to see you," she began, after a pause. 
 
 " Thanks." 
 
 " And what has happened is this. I have just come from 
 Lady Henrietta Peele's funeral." 
 
 " Yes. I read about her death." 
 
 * And I am so happy ! " 
 
 He turned, without the slightest change of expression. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " I mean that it is all like a bad dream, that I have 
 seen him," -as she spoke the cabman drew up sharply, and 
 a fire-engine roared its way towards them, drowning her 
 voice. When it had passed she went on, nervously, " and 
 I am cured." 
 
 " You mean that you no longer love him? " 
 
 " No. That I never loved the James Peele whom you 
 knew. My James Peele is dead. Do you understand? 
 He has so changed that he is a stranger to me. Oh, please 
 be glad with me ! " 
 
 Lensky smiled pleasantly as they turned into the shabby 
 quiet of Westminster. " I am indeed glad ; gladder than I 
 can say." As he spoke he made a movement towards sig- 
 nalling the cabman with his umbrella, but Pam caught his 
 arm. " Jack," she burst out, almost incoherently, " you
 
 PAM DECIDES 339 
 
 mustn't go; I can't let you go I I missed you too 
 horribly " 
 
 Very gently he drew his arm from her hand. "You 
 must let me get out," he said, " I am glad you are happy, 
 but I cannot be your friend, and I will not try to be. And, 
 this is painful." 
 
 They had reached Chimes Lane, and in a moment the 
 hansom would stop. "Jack," said Pam, desperately, "will 
 you marry me ? " 
 
 It was nearly dark here, and he leaned over, vamly trying 
 to see her face. The flower in his coat brushed her cheek. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " he asked, inevitably. 
 
 " i mean it, indeed I do. I have missed jou so; I 
 have been so lonely, I want you, I want you! '' 
 
 There was a long pause, and then he said, quietly, " Lone- 
 tiness is not enough for marriage. You remember that day 
 in the Abbey Cloister? I I am not an old woman, Pam, 
 and I love you." Her heart was beating wildly as she 
 answered. 
 
 " And I love you. I didn't know, because it is so dif- 
 ferent, but I do love you." 
 
 " I shall not be content with what you give Pilgrim, or 
 the Duchess." 
 
 She hesitated, searching for words. Then at last she said, 
 as the cabman, who had passed the house, turned and drew 
 back towards it, " I think you needn't be afraid. He was 
 first, and I shall never forget it, but of all people in the 
 world I love you best, and you may love me as much as 
 you like. I never thought it would be like this."
 
 340 PAM DECIDES 
 
 Without a word he took her into his arms, and for the 
 first time kissed her. 
 
 " O Lord our God," 
 sang Big Ben, though only the cabman heard him, 
 
 "Be Thou our Guide, 
 That by Thy Help 
 No foot may slide." 
 
 Then, as the chimes whirred into silence, and his fares 
 made no move towards getting out, the cabby peered down 
 at them, and after a silent chuckle said, hoarsely, " Aighty- 
 seven, Laidy." 
 
 THE END
 
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 Lady Betty Across the Water. By C. N. and A. M. Will- 
 iamson. 
 
 Lady of the Mount, The. By Frederic S. I sham. 
 Lane That Had No Turning, The. By Gilbert Parker. 
 Langford of the Three Bars. By Kate and Virgil D. Boyles. 
 Last Trail, The. By Zane Grey. 
 Leavenworth Case, The. By Anna Katharine Green. 
 Lilac Sunbonnet, The. By S. R. Crockett. 
 Lin McLean. By Owen Wister. 
 Long Night, The. By Stanley J. Wcyman. 
 Maid at Arms, The. By Robert W. Chambers.
 
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