ARCADIA
 
 PAM 
 
 By BETTINA VON HUTTEN 
 
 Author of 
 
 "Pam Decides," Our Lady of the Beeches," "Violett," 
 etc. 
 
 With Illustrations by B. MARTIN JUSTICE 
 
 A. L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 
 
 NEW YORK
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1904, 
 
 BT 
 BETTINA vox HUTTEK 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1905, 
 
 
 MEAD & COMPACT. 
 
 Published, February
 
 To you, dear Aunt Susan, 
 
 I dedicate this Book 
 
 As an inadequate token of my admiration 
 and love for you 
 
 &v. H.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THIS book, O critics, is written in defence of no theory, in 
 defiance of no wise and beautiful social law. 
 
 It is a round, unvarnished tale, told in no spirit of either 
 approval or disapproval of anything which in it comes to 
 pass. There is a saying about the wicked flourishing like 
 the green bay tree, and another about the hardness of the 
 way of the transgressor; and that both these sayings contain 
 truth cannot be denied by any man or woman who has eyes 
 to see. 
 
 The world might be a happier and better place if virtue 
 were always rewarded, and sin always punished, but this is 
 not so, and doubtless was not so intended. 
 
 And I, who relate, am not a preacher. So, good critics, 
 gibbet my literary inabilities, laugh at my literary follies, 
 weep over my literary dulness, but impute not to me the 
 views of my characters ! 
 
 B. v. H.
 
 PAM
 
 PART I 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 TO the last day of his life the scent of heliotrope recalled 
 to Christopher Cazalet's mind a vivid picture of the dusty 
 white road, the rough wall to his right as he climbed, the 
 brilliance of the southern skies, the glare of the sun that 
 afternoon. 
 
 Long before he caught sight of the flower's royal colour 
 against the sky, the hot waves of drowsy odour came over 
 the wall to him and seemed to mingle inextricably with 
 the tangle of thoughts in his excited brain. 
 
 A girl, running down the hill with a great basket of 
 sun-dried linen balanced on her head, smiled as she passed 
 the little old man, but he paid no heed, for he did not 
 see her. 
 
 Joy at his daring in coming, pride in his success in 
 finding the place, fear of being badly received, a child- 
 like, godlike love of the beauty of the day and the view 
 behind, to which he turned every few minutes, and a sen- 
 suous delight in the hot sweetness that seemed to be, in some 
 unexplained way, the essence of the whole story these 
 things, woven and interwoven in his mind, were never 
 to be forgotten. And then, at a turn in the road, cluster- 
 ing about the tops of the great carved posts at the sides 
 of a gilt-iron gateway, great tufts of dark purple heliotrope 
 hung in the sunlight. In his ecstasy Cazalet took off his 
 hat and stood looking up, a grotesque enough little figure 
 in his old-fashioned black coat, his large feet widely turned 
 out, his bald head gleaming. " Heliotrope! " he exclaimed.
 
 2 P AM 
 
 "What would his lordship say?" A moment later he was 
 plodding on again through the dust, for the name cut in 
 the black marble square at the side of the gate was not the 
 one for which he was looking. 
 
 Tired as he was he was not altogether sorry that the 
 way was longer, particularly as the stretch of wall which 
 now ensued was adorned along its top with a tangle of 
 little pink roses and masses of the flower he loved the 
 best in the world, and now for the first time saw in the 
 perfection of its southern luxuriousness. It was absolutely 
 certain that the person whom he had come all this way to 
 see would care very little about seeing him, and it was as 
 certain that his lordship would be very angry if he ever 
 knew. But in the meantime his lordship was many miles 
 away, and Cazalet's trumpet-like nose was enjoying a feast 
 such as it had never had before. 
 
 " Villa Arcadie." That was it, and Cazalet, as he read 
 the half-effaced letters to the right of the rusty gate, put 
 on his hat and brushed his boots carefully with his hand- 
 kerchief. The gate was ajar, and a few seconds later the 
 old man was walking slowly up the neglected drive, shaking 
 his head slightly at the evidences of an at least comparative 
 poverty. The shaggy grass under the trees was sparse and 
 uncut, weeds grew in the road. " Poor young lady ! " 
 
 Then, as another waft of heliotrope reached him, he added 
 briskly, " But it is Arcadia! " 
 
 The drive was not long, but it was cunningly planned 
 in a series of curves, so that Cazalet came to the house 
 with a suddenness that startled him; a square, pink villa, 
 looking, with its green shutters all closed, as though dozing 
 in the heat. 
 
 A few orange trees drooped in shabby tubs at the edge 
 of the terrace, and to the right, against the splendid blue 
 of the sea, a great magnolia blazed back at the sun, its glossy
 
 P AM 3 
 
 leaves and vivid cream-coloured flowers gleaming in the 
 glare. Cazalet felt suddenly very warm, and wished he 
 had not dusted his boots with his handkerchief. 
 
 And so this was it! This simple, shabby house was 
 Pauline Yeoland's "Arcadia"! The little man sighed, 
 and for some reason tears came to his eyes as he went slowly 
 to the door and rang. 
 
 He heard the bell somewhere in the distance, but no one 
 answered it, and after a pause he rang again. Then, wiping 
 his eyes gingerly on a corner of one of his gloves, he pre- 
 pared to meet the butler, for Christopher Cazalet was used 
 to butlers. 
 
 The door opened suddenly, before any slow footsteps 
 had given him warning, and letting a gush of cool air out 
 into the heat, but there was no butler. 
 
 A child stood in the dusk of the brick-paved hall, a little 
 girl of about nine, who held in her arms a small monkey 
 to whose misty dark eyes her own, as she looked coolly at 
 the stranger, bore a grotesque resemblance. 
 
 "This is Villa Arcadia?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Mr. Sacheverel's place?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I wish I wish to see Mrs. that is Mrs. Sacheverel." 
 
 The child shifted the monkey to the other arm. " There 
 isn't any Mrs. Sacheverel," she returned politely. " I sup- 
 pose you mean my mother, Pauline Yeoland ? " 
 
 Cazalet caught his breath ; he had never been told of this. 
 
 " Your mother ! Yes yes I mean Miss Pauline." 
 
 His evident confusion surprised the child, and after a 
 gravely interrogative look she drew back into the hall. 
 
 "Won't you come in and wait?" she said, with a curi- 
 ously grown-up air; "they are not at home now, but they 
 will probably be back before long."
 
 4 P AM 
 
 Cazalet followed her past two doors, and then into a 
 room nearly opposite the house-door, where, he had time to 
 reflect, the kitchen ought to be. The room was filled with 
 a cool green dusk, but his small hostess evidently did not 
 consider it necessary to open the shutters. Sitting down on 
 a little gilt sofa, she motioned him to a chair, and settled 
 the monkey on her lap. 
 
 " It is very warm to-day," she began conversationally. 
 
 " Very." 
 
 "You should not have come so early; one is apt to get a 
 bad migraine in the sun. I shall never go out in it when 
 I am grown-up." 
 
 "You do now?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, sometimes ; you see, I am only ten." 
 
 Cazalet did not smile, for she was very serious. 
 
 "But I think you said that your mother is out?" he 
 resumed after a pause. 
 
 " Yes. They went down through the trees to the sea, 
 and it is cool there. May I offer you some refreshment? " 
 
 " I should like a glass of water I am thirsty." 
 
 " I know," answered the child sympathetically, going to 
 the bell ; " the dust makes a man's throat like a lime-kiln. 
 It is unsafe to drink pure water when one is overheated, but 
 I will give you some strop a I'orange it is refreshing." 
 
 During the minutes that ensued before the answering of 
 the bell, she sat playing lazily with the monkey, and mak- 
 ing an occasional remark, obviously out of politeness. 
 
 When at last the silence had been broken by slow foot- 
 steps outside, and the door opened, a middle-aged woman 
 with a hard, sharp face came in, starting when she saw 
 the visitor. 
 
 " I didn't know any one had come," she began apolo- 
 getically, when Cazalet, rising, turned to her. 
 
 " How do you do, Jane? " he said nervously.
 
 P AM 5 
 
 " Mr. Cazalet! You here, sir? " 
 
 " Yes, it is really me, Jane. I it is my vacation, and 
 I thought I would come and see how you were getting 
 on." 
 
 The woman clasped her hands, and gazed at him, utterly 
 forgetting, as he had done, the presence of the child. 
 
 " I can't rightly believe it is you," she said. " 'Is lord- 
 ship 'is lordship is not " 
 
 Cazalet shook his head and waved his hand in horrified 
 negation. " No, no ! his lordship is very well unusually 
 well, this summer." 
 
 "Then perhaps 'e sent you, Mr. Cazalet?" 
 
 " Oh, no! Oh, no, indeed, his lordship did not send me! 
 As a matter of fact, Jane, he does not know that I have 
 come." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Cazalet! What will 'e say when he 'ears?" 
 asked the woman, evidently half-frightened by the thought. 
 
 Cazalet gave a little nervous laugh. " But he won't 
 hear, Jane. God forbid that he should. And as to that, 
 his lordship thinks me at the present moment eating peri- 
 winkles at Margate." 
 
 " What are periwinkles? " The child's voice startled 
 them both. Unobserved she had come quite close to them, 
 and, the monkey's little face pressed to hers, their four dark 
 eyes stared in solemn curiosity at the old man. 
 
 " Periwinkles? They are well, shellfish, you know." 
 
 " And why didn't you tell his lordship that you were 
 coming? " 
 
 " Dear me ! " ejaculated Cazalet helplessly. 
 
 " Never mind now, Miss Pam, there's a good little girl." 
 
 " Hold your tongue, Pilgrim ! " the child answered, not 
 moving her eyes from Cazalet's face. " Go and bring some 
 water and sirop d'orange for Mr. Cazalet. That's why I 
 rang."
 
 6 P AM 
 
 " Your mamma will be very much displeased if you bother 
 Mr. Cazalet." 
 
 " My mamma is never displeased. And some of the little 
 cakes the ones I hate ! " went on the child with a sort of 
 patient inexorability. " Why didn't you tell his lordship 
 that you were coming?" 
 
 " Why am I to have the cakes you hate? " asked Cazalet, 
 in return. 
 
 " Because they are good. Make haste, Pilgrim, and 
 you may send Antonio with the refreshments." 
 
 The woman sighed. " You see how it is, Mr. Caza- 
 let; there's no doing anything with her. Well, sir, I shall 
 hope to see you again before you go; I should like to ask 
 after one or two people at 'ome, if I make so bold ? " 
 
 "Make haste, Pilgrim, will you?" 
 
 When the servant had left the room the child went on, 
 her eyes still fixed on Cazalet's face. " Now tell me, please, 
 why you didn't tell my grandfather? " 
 
 " Because he well, upon my word, I hardly know what 
 to say to her! " With the curious instinct of man he went 
 to the window in his despair and, pushing open one half of 
 the shutters, stood looking out at the wonderful blue of the 
 southern sea. 
 
 There was a short pause, and then the voice behind him 
 resumed with a majesty which, absurd as it was, reminded 
 him irresistibly of his lordship. " You really might as well 
 tell me; they always do in the end, you know, so there's 
 no use in making a fuss." The last phrase was so familiar, 
 both in substance and in inflection, that Cazalet wheeled 
 about, half-startled and half -amused. 
 
 " Bless my soul ! Miss , I don't even know your name, 
 
 but you are so like his lordship your way of speaking, I 
 cneum that it is remarkable ! " 
 
 '"Yes, I am considered very like him; we have the same
 
 P AM 7 
 
 trick of tramping up and down with our hands behind our 
 backs when we are nervous or troubled." 
 
 " I see. I wonder how soon they that is, your mother, 
 will be coming; I am rather in a hurry." 
 
 She sat down as he spoke, and for the first time she 
 laughed, a sudden, delightfully rnerry laugh that brought 
 dimples to the corners of her mouth, and danced in her eyes. 
 
 " Oh, you wicked old man ! You are not a bit in a hurry. 
 You are only afraid of me ; you don't want to tell me. Very 
 well, I suppose I can tell you instead. You didn't tell my 
 grandfather that you were coming here because you were 
 afraid!" 
 
 "Afraid! That is too much," said Cazalet. "What I 
 do with my holiday is surely " 
 
 " None of my grandfather's business. Just so ; and yet> 
 that is why you didn't tell him. He must be a very funny 
 old man ! " 
 
 She stood in the parallelogram of vivid sunlight he had 
 let in, her little slim figure in its faded cotton frock very 
 erect, the monkey on her shoulder. He noticed with sur- 
 prise that her hair, less dark than he had at first thought,, 
 was arranged in a great flat knot on top of her head. 
 
 "Funny! well, no. I don't think any one ever called 
 his lordship funny " 
 
 " I mean because he hates mother." 
 
 " Hates! " Poor Cazalet's head almost swam, but at this 
 juncture, to his great relief, a young footman in a shabby 
 livery came in with a tray, which he set down on the table, 
 and of which the little girl at once began to do the honours. 
 
 " Oh, yes, he hates her, of course he does! If he didn't 
 he would not have been so nasty to her that time. It really 
 wasn't her fault, you see," she went on, bearing a glass full 
 of thickish yellow liquid to him, her left hand balancing 
 the monkey, " that father was married."
 
 8 P AM 
 
 If the sweet drink which he hastily swallowed had been 
 flavoured with petroleum poor Cazalet would not have 
 known it. 
 
 He had imagined all sorts of receptions for himself, but 
 this outdid the most startling his mind had been able to 
 conceive. 
 
 " You are a strange child," he stammered, setting down 
 his glass. " I never saw a little girl at all like you." 
 
 " Yes, I daresay. What I meant was," she went on, strok- 
 ing her monkey and speaking with thoughtful slowness, 
 " that my grandfather was very unjust to mother. Of 
 course she and father were sorry about Mrs. Kennedy, but 
 they couldn't very well kill her, could they?" 
 
 "Oh, dear me!" murmured Cazalet under his breath, 
 picking up his hat. 
 
 " Mrs. Kennedy was father's wife," pursued the child 
 gravely, evidently mistaking his exclamation for a question. 
 " His name used to be Kennedy, you know." 
 
 " And your name what do they call you ? " 
 
 " Pamela, just Pamela. It appears that children whose 
 parents are not married have only one name." 
 
 Before he was obliged to reply she had risen suddenly and 
 gone to the nearest window. " Oh ! " she cried, her face 
 suddenly glowing, " here they are ! "
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 BEHIND the villa a gentle, olive-covered slope led to 
 the sea, and through the trees, as though they had just 
 risen from the blue water, came Pauline Yeoland and 
 " the man," as Christopher Cazalet had most often heard 
 him called. 
 
 Over the softly stirring lights and shadows cast by the 
 trees on the coarse grass, one of his arms lying across her 
 shoulders, moving slowly, as if from pleasant fatigue, their 
 movements harmonising like the voices in an often-sung 
 duet, they emerged from the trees, passed up a little flight 
 of stone steps, and came towards the house, not talking, 
 yet evidently in closest companionship of mind and feeling. 
 
 She wore white, and carried a lacy parasol, against which 
 her bright hair stood out in high relief; her skirt was long, 
 and she held it up a little as she walked. 
 
 The man wore white flannels, and a bit of red shone out 
 from beneath his dark face. 
 
 Cazalet, as he stood watching their approach, felt his 
 heart throb hard. What would they say to him? He was 
 an uninvited guest, and they might even consider him an in- 
 truder. 
 
 Pam, standing in front of him, did not speak; she was 
 studying his expression in the reflection in the window, and 
 it evidently satisfied her. 
 
 At last, as her parents crossed the last plot of grass before 
 the house, the child called, without moving, " Mother, some 
 one has come ! "
 
 io P AM 
 
 " Some one has come? Who, dear? " 
 
 The young woman stood still and closed her parasol. 
 "Madame de Vaucourt?" Then, seeing the old man, as 
 Pam came through the window, she shook her head smiling. 
 " I can't see, it is so bright out here. Who is it, Pam?" 
 
 "Mr. Cazalet!" 
 
 Cazalet followed the child as she uttered his name, but 
 Pauline did not recognise him. "Cazalet?" she repeated 
 vaguely, and then before she could speak she had remem- 
 bered, and dropping her parasol came towards him, her hand 
 held out cordially. 
 
 "Cazzy! You! How glad I am! Guy, this is Mr. 
 Cazalet, whom I have known all my life." 
 
 The big man with the handsome blue chin shook hands 
 heartily with his guest, and then turned to the little girl, 
 who stood looking on with something like the satisfaction 
 of a stage-manager who has arranged a good scene. 
 
 "Well, Pam?" 
 
 "Well, father!" 
 
 Cazalet's eyes were wet as he dropped Pauline's hand. 
 
 " It is good of you to be so kind to me," he said, clearing 
 his throat. " I it was bold of me to come." 
 
 " Bold ! It was dear of you, Cazzy ! " 
 
 The brilliant face had grown, it seemed to the man who 
 had not seen it for twelve years, more tender, and the 
 smile gentler, than of old. 
 
 " It was my holiday," he explained falteringly, " and 
 I had never been out of England before I thought I would 
 come here, and see how you were." 
 
 " My father, then, doesn't know ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, his lordship would not that is, my holiday 
 is my own, Miss Pauline," he returned with some dignity. 
 
 " Of course it is. But I don't believe, Cazzy, that he 
 would mind so much as you think."
 
 P AM 11 
 
 " His lordship has not spoken to me on the subject for 
 years, but I took it for granted that it would be wiser not 
 to tell him of my intentions." 
 
 She seemed on the point of speaking, a little smile curving 
 her lips, and then was silent. " I hope he is well ? " she 
 asked at length, watching " the man " and their daughter 
 playing with the monkey. 
 
 " Very well, I am glad to say." 
 
 "And my sister?" 
 
 " Mrs. Maxse is well too." 
 
 But she had not listened; and he saw that her interest 
 was perfunctory, as her eyes rested on Sacheverel's dark 
 face. She had grown very far away from her old home, 
 Cazalet felt. 
 
 Presently, as the monkey, after being tossed by Sacheverel 
 up into the air like a baby, was returned to Pam, Pauline 
 called, picking up her parasol, " Guy, would you mind tell- 
 ing Pilgrim to prepare a room for Mr. Cazalet?" 
 
 Sacheverel nodded, and went through the window, the 
 child with him. 
 
 " But I couldn't think, Miss Pauline I beg your par- 
 don." 
 
 " Nonsense, of course you are to stay here. You are the 
 only person of the old days who has come, Cazzy and I 
 love you for it." 
 
 She loved him for it him, her father's steward! It was 
 so like her, the exaggeration; she had changed so little. 
 
 " How did you know where we were?" she went on a 
 minute later as they entered the room and she threw open 
 the windows, letting the light stream in on the shabby fur- 
 niture, but also on the masses of flowers and the thousand 
 little things that go to make a room comfortable and home- 
 like. 
 
 Cazalet hesitated. " His lordship told me once that you
 
 12 P AM 
 
 were living here, and I had often wondered, and I have 
 a good memory." 
 
 " Ah, yes, I see. You think he is still very angry? " she 
 asked, the queer little smile again stirring her lips. 
 
 " Angry ah, yes, Miss Pauline. His lordship " 
 
 The old man hesitated, his plain face red and troubled, 
 and as they followed the others into the pleasant, shabby 
 room she laid her hand for an instant on his arm. 
 
 " I know, Cazzy I know. It was good of you to come, 
 and I am glad to see you. Tell me, did Rosamund's boy 
 live?" 
 
 " Oh, yes," returned the old man hastily, in evident relief 
 at the change of subject ; " he is a great tall fellow now." 
 
 "What is his name?" 
 
 " Ratty, they call him ; it is some French name, I believe." 
 
 " Ratty 1 How extraordinary! " she laughed gaily. 
 
 Cazalet watched her with delight. He knew that she 
 deserved anything rather than the obviously unfeigned hap- 
 piness that shone in her lovely eyes, but he had always been 
 too fond of her not to be glad that things had turned out 
 as they had. 
 
 " You have made friends with Pam, I see," she went on, 
 presently taking off her hat and patting her curly hair in 
 a way he remembered; " isn't she funny? " 
 
 " She is remarkably like his lordship! " 
 
 "Isn't she? It is perfectly absurd, sometimes; she has 
 a way of walking up and down with her hands behind her 
 back " 
 
 Cazalet laughed. " I know when she is nervous. She 
 told me!" 
 
 " Oh, she told you! Isn't she delicious? " 
 
 " She is very clever. And she seems to understand 
 things," he began, hesitating. 
 
 She shook her head gravely. "Yes I know what you
 
 mean. I suppose it startles you?" She rose from the 
 chair into which she had sunk, and stood looking thought- 
 fully at him. 
 
 " You see, Cazzy, I have never tried to hide things 
 from her, or from any one else; I was not ashamed. You 
 probably can't understand that, but it is so. I have never 
 called myself by any name but my own, or pretended to 
 be married. And when she was born, we decided at once 
 not to sacrifice to any gods in which we do not believe, even 
 for her; she knows all about it." 
 
 "And you call her Yeoland, too?" 
 
 "Of course. What else? Oh, I know all you think, 
 for you think what every one does, except a few. I am 
 different, you know; I always was. It doesn't bother me 
 a bit, the opinion of the world. I suppose it's true, Cazzy, 
 what they say, about all the Yeoland women being ready to 
 ruin themselves for love. We are none of us really good, 
 you know, except poor Rosamund, and she," she added with 
 simple conclusiveness, " was so very plain. I remember once, 
 when I was a little child, hearing some one say that no 
 woman with Yeoland blood ever had any morals, and I sup- 
 pose it's true." 
 
 She spoke in a tone of mild speculation, not unlightened 
 with amusement, but the old man winced. 
 
 " For God's sake, Miss Pauline, don't say such things! " 
 he cried involuntarily. 
 
 Her smile changed, as she looked at him, to one of great 
 gentleness, and laying her ringless right hand on his arm, 
 she said kindly: " I am sorry; I didn't mean to shock you, 
 but you know as well as I do all about my aunt, Lady 
 Renshaw, for instance. She stayed at home, and kept up 
 appearances, so she was accepted by the world; whereas 
 I I have one lover, who is for me the only man in the 
 world, but as he couldn't marry me, I came to him anyway,
 
 i* P A M 
 
 and I would die for him to-morrow and I am an outcast! 
 It is funny, isn't it ? " There was no bitterness in her voice, 
 and the old man, trembling with a mixture of feelings, knew 
 that she was sincere. 
 
 " If you had been unhappy " he ventured. 
 
 . " If I had been unhappy, I might have repented arid re- 
 turned home to be forgiven. But as it is, Cazzy, I pity 
 every other woman in the world because she has not Guy! " 
 
 As she spoke, Sacheverel came in and she ran to him. " I 
 have been telling Mr. Cazalet how bad we both are," she 
 said, slipping her arm through his. 
 
 "Bad?" 
 
 " Because we are happy." 
 
 Sacheverel turned and looked at the little old runaway 
 from the camp of the Philistines. 
 
 " Is it bad to be happy ? " he asked. 
 
 Cazalet looked at him keenly, and the steward had some 
 knowledge of human nature. The man's strong dark face, 
 while full of a certain hardy animalism, was not bad, and 
 its expression of rapt contentment was rather splendid. 
 
 " For if it is we are damned, dearest," he added, turn- 
 ing to the woman. 
 
 And as he watched them Cazalet realised that here, in 
 spite of sin and irregularity, was that rarest thing in the 
 world, a real union.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 PILGRIM, with her neat brown gown and severe mien, 
 was not at all the kind of woman who fits into the frame 
 of a moonlight summer sky by the Mediterranean. 
 
 She was a gaunt woman, with many sharp angles in her 
 person, and an appallingly regular row of porcelain teeth, 
 over which her faded lips closed as tightly as if she were 
 afraid some one might steal them. 
 
 But as she walked up and down that evening on the ter- 
 race farthest from the villa, waiting for the steward, the 
 poor woman's mind was in as great a whirl as if she were 
 young and beautiful, and waiting for a lover. 
 
 Whatever one's position and station may be, one has but 
 one life, and Jane Pilgrim had sacrificed hers that night 
 twelve years ago, when she had accompanied her young mis- 
 tress to Dover, where Sacheverel, the tenor, was awaiting 
 them. 
 
 And while the mistress, rapt in the perfect warmth of 
 her great love, felt no cold, the maid, standing alone and 
 bereft of her old garment of self-respect, shivered and ached 
 under the bitter winds that shook her as they blew un- 
 heeded by the woman for whose sake she had denuded 
 herself. 
 
 The joy was all Pauline Yeoland's; the shame all Jane 
 Pilgrim's. And the natural consequence of it was that 
 while Pauline in her happiness grew sweeter and gentler, 
 losing the carelessness and flightiness of former days, Jane, 
 all unrewarded, became bitterer and sharper as time went 
 
 15
 
 ib P AM 
 
 on. All of which is as things should not be, but as they 
 sometimes are. The sight of Christopher Cazalet that 
 afternoon had given the woman a great shock, calling back 
 old faces and old voices to her memory and bringing to her 
 the feeling of old times in a degree almost painful. She 
 so longed for a talk with the visitor that she would probably 
 have ventured to ask her mistress to be allowed to have a 
 few words with him, if Cazalet himself had not sent word 
 to her that he wished to see her, and would come out later 
 to smoke his pipe in her company. 
 
 At last he came, and they sat down on a stone bench 
 facing seawards. 
 
 " Well, Jane, and so here we are," he began, stuffing his 
 little meerschaum pipe from a leather bag. 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Cazalet. I'm sure it's a surprise to see you 
 here." 
 
 " It must be. The truth is, Jane, it is my annual holiday, 
 and I couldn't resist " 
 
 ' 'Is lordship, I daresay, wouldn't be pleased 
 
 " His lordship would be very angry. I had no idea of 
 ever telling him," the little man went on, " but, now I 
 am not sure." 
 
 "You're not sure, Mr. Cazalet?" 
 
 " You see, Jane, I had never heard that there was a child." 
 
 "Oh! Oh, yes. There's Miss Pam." 
 
 "How old is she?" 
 
 " Ten, sir." 
 
 " H'm ! It seems a pity. I mean, she is an extraor- 
 dinary little thing; very precocious. I had a long talk with 
 her." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " She has few delusions. She seems to understand her 
 mother's situation far too well. I confess I am puzzled< 
 Jane."
 
 P A M i? 
 
 Pilgrim was silent. She had not been called Jane since she 
 left Monks' Yeoland. 
 
 " And, of course," the steward went on, smoking thought- 
 fully, his bald head bent over the hand in which his pipe 
 was snuggled, " you took your choice then when you 
 went, and I can quite understand that living with them, 
 and seeing them so happy you have got so used to it all, 
 that it has lost its look of strangeness " 
 
 Jane Pilgrim rose suddenly. 
 
 "Me! I, Mr. Cazalet! / got used to it! That it's 
 lost its look of strangeness to me! Me, that has cried 
 myself to sleep night and night again! Me, that hussies 
 with gendarmes and chassoors turns up their noses at, be- 
 cause I live in such a house! Me, a respectable girl, the child 
 of lawful wedded parents! Mr. Cazalet, you don't know! " 
 
 Her face worked, her voice broke, and Cazalet let his 
 pipe go out. 
 
 " There, there, don't cry or rather do. It will do 
 you good. I beg your pardon, I am sure, Jane. I didn't 
 mean to hurt your feelings. But I am glad you feel it this 
 way, for you will understand what I am going to say. It's 
 about the child, Miss Pam." 
 
 Pilgrim wiped her eyes and rolled her handkerchief into 
 a ball as she listened. 
 
 " But there's no use, Mr. Cazalet ; she understands it as 
 well as you or I. They never pretend, you know. It's 
 awful. At first I used to call 'er ' Madame ' to the other 
 servants in the 'otels, but when she found out she nearly 
 killed me Miss Pauline, I mean. And Miss Pam " 
 
 " I know. She told me herself. But though she knows s 
 my good Jane, she cannot understand. And it seems to 
 me that if I could persuade his lordship to take the poor little 
 thing, do you think they would let her go? " 
 
 "To Monks' Yeoland? I know they would. Oh, Mr.-
 
 is P AM 
 
 Cazalet, it's an awful thing, but she doesn't love Miss 
 Pam as a wedded mother would. She is kind and good 
 to her, but it's all him really." 
 
 "Yes. I saw that. Then you think they'd let her go?" 
 
 Pilgrim hesitated. " I am almost sure. It would save 
 her, and I often worry about Pam Miss Pam, I mean. 
 It would be awkward when she grew older. The people 
 they see aren't the people for a young girl." 
 
 Cazalet did not answer, but his old face saddened. 
 
 " There are one or two gentlemen the Count de Vau- 
 court, who lives at the villa below us he comes. He's 
 married to his wife, but she was divorced, and her maid 
 told me that no one in Paris goes to see her. They come, 
 and an Italian lady. She acts in plays, and is very rich and 
 famous, but she isn't respectable. She is invited everywhere," 
 the woman added hastily, " but because she's an artiste, 
 Marie, the Countess's maid, says. They're the only women. 
 And the men well " 
 
 " They must be gentlemen," remarked the steward 
 sharply, " or he wouldn't introduce them to her." 
 
 " Of course they are gentlemen ; one of them's a duke. 
 But I don't like 'em, and what would they think of Pam 
 when she is grown whose child is she? Wouldn't they 
 just say ' What was good enough for the mother is good 
 enough for her ' ? Of course they would ! " 
 
 Cazalet nodded. 
 
 " That was what I meant. I shall tell his lordship, Jane. 
 He has grown older and is lonely, too. I hope they will 
 let her come. Mrs. Maxse is there with her son, and she 
 always was fond of Miss Pauline." 
 
 " Yes, Miss Rosamund is kind. Oh, Mr. Cazalet, do 
 try, sir. It would be a good work. It them two are 
 like a pair of children. They don't care for anything so 
 long as they can be together. I remember that day when
 
 P AM 19 
 
 Miss Pauline said she was going, how 'is lordship told her 
 ' Men are never true to women, but they at least pretend 
 to be to their wives. This fellow will leave you in a year.' 
 Oh, the things his lordship said to her! And they were 
 all wrong. Mr. Sacheverel never looks at any woman. 
 I don't believe he knows there are any in the world but 
 her. And leave her? 'E hasn't left her for a day in all 
 these years, Mr. Cazalet! It's all wrong. They ought to 
 be un'appy, for the moral, sir! though God knows I 
 couldn't bear to see her un'appy but they are the 'appiest 
 two people in the world. And to think how respectable 
 married folks do fight and hate each other! " 
 " Well, I shall speak to his lordship, Jane." 
 The steward rose and knocked his pipe against a tree. 
 " I shall then write Miss Pauline on the subject. God 
 bless my soul! What's that?" he added pointing to some- 
 thing white in a near shadow. 
 
 " It's only me," observed the white thing, rising, and prov- 
 ing to be Pamela in a frilly nightgown. 
 
 "Oh, Miss Pam! You have been listening! Fie on 
 you!" 
 
 The child laughed. " Why should I be fied on? I came 
 out for a walk because it is so warm, and you didn't hear 
 me, and I did hear you. If you'd have heard me you'd 
 have stopped talking. When," she went on, turning to 
 Cazalet, " am I to go to my grandfather's? " The old man 
 watched her curiously. 
 
 " Aren't you ashamed to listen to what was not meant 
 for you? " he asked, not reproachfully, but as a question de- 
 manding an answer. She shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " No. What is meant for me is never interesting. When 
 am I to go to my grandfather's ? " 
 
 " Your grandfather won't love you if you sneak," put ia 
 Pilgrim.
 
 20 P AM 
 
 " Hold your tongue, Pilgrim ! " 
 
 Then the child, whose hair, reaching below her knees, 
 hung about her small face and over her shoulders like a 
 mantle, turned again to Cazalet. 
 
 " When am I to go to my grandfather? " she repeated.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 EARLY the next morning Cazalet was awakened by a 
 loud knocking at his door, and a minute later Pam was 
 coiled up at the foot of his bed, her stiffly starched pink 
 frock like a fresh flower, her hands clasped around her 
 pointed knees. 
 
 " Mother sent Antonio to wake you, so I thought I'd 
 come. You must hurry, for we're going to a picnic." 
 
 "A picnic!" 
 
 " Yes. We are going on the Vaucourt's yacht to the 
 island for luncheon, and then on somewhere. They all 
 dine here to-night. Aren't you glad? " she added curiously, 
 studying his face. 
 
 " Oh, yes, of course ! but I think perhaps I had better not 
 go. You see, my dear, I am not that is, I am enly his 
 lordship's steward." 
 
 " Rubbish ! Mother says you're to go. It's great fun ; 
 I'm going. Madame Ravaglia is going, too, and she'll re- 
 cite. It's splendid when she recites ; makes one cold all down 
 one's spine." 
 
 Cazalet gasped. The great Ravaglia, to see whom, as 
 Pia Tolomei, he bad paid his fifteen shillings six months 
 before, and whose history was in every mouth he was to 
 meet her! 
 
 " I love her dearly," the child went on, hopping down 
 from the bed and making a low curtsey to herself in the 
 glass. "She teaches me to recite; I have great dramatic 
 talent. Oh, there's Caliban ! " 
 
 si
 
 22 P AM 
 
 Poor Cazalet was in such a mental state that if when 
 he opened the door the real Caliban of The Tempest had 
 come in he would hardly have been surprised, but it was 
 only the monkey, who fled, chattering and excited, into 
 his mistress's arms, and lay there like a baby while she 
 soothed him. 
 
 " He has got out ! They lock him up because he gets 
 so seasick, but he always feels when there's going to be a 
 picnic, and he always comes. Don't you, Cally? " 
 
 Then she added, " Well, I'll go now, and please make 
 haste, for it's after six and we always start at seven. It's 
 so warm, you know." Cazalet rose in a tremor of excite- 
 ment. 
 
 It was such a change from his quiet life in the silent house 
 in Yeoland. 
 
 Day after day, year after year, he rose there, knowing 
 just what the hours held for him. A talk with his lordship, 
 a ride over the estate, slow conversations with slow-minded 
 tenants, heavy English meals served by his good old house- 
 keeper, his sleep after luncheon, his London paper, more 
 work, his glass of whiskey and water, bed. 
 
 And this golden day whose bold ringers had forced his 
 shaded windows held for him what? 
 
 The old man almost scampered to the window and let 
 in the light. Before him stretched the sea, sparkling and 
 blue as the sky above it. A strong scent of heliotrope came 
 up to him from the garden, bringing with it a sudden vivid 
 remembrance of his feelings as, yesterday on the hot road, 
 it had reached him for the first time. 
 
 It was all wrong, of course he ought to go at once, and 
 his staying was a tacit approval of the family disgrace; but 
 his holiday was his own, and he was, after all, not his 
 lordship's servant. 
 
 Half an hour later a merry, rosy Ca/.alet, ten years
 
 P AM 23 
 
 younger than the old man who had only yesterday plodded 
 up the hill, joined the little party on the lawn. 
 
 Pauline, in a charming costume of blue linen, gave him 
 her hand with her old careless cordiality, and Sacheverel 
 was politely friendly. 
 
 " A perfect day for a picnic," he said, as the shabby young 
 footman started off down the hill with a bundle of parasols 
 and wraps. " I am glad you are to enjoy it with us." 
 Cazalet repeated his doubts to them, but Pauline laughed 
 gaily. " My dear Cazzy, you have proved yourself our 
 friend by coming, and as to that, you have always been my 
 father's friend." 
 
 Sacheverel took up his hat. " We'd better start, Pauline ; 
 it is rather late." 
 
 The way to tta sea led first through an olive orchard, 
 then through a perfectly kept park, which Pauline told 
 her guest was the property of their host, Count de Vau- 
 court, and then, twisting and turning curiously, it struck 
 into the bowels of the earth, and the steward found himself 
 in an underground gallery cut out of solid rock, and lighted 
 by an occasional air-hole, on which the bright sky seemed 
 to rest. 
 
 At the foot of the descent spread the brilliant blue sea, 
 and at the end of the stone pier, where the yacht was moored, 
 several people were standing about, talking and laughing. 
 The Countess, a handsome woman of about thirty-eight, 
 with a carefully done up face under a thick lace veil, greeted 
 the steward, who was introduced merely as a friend, with 
 civil indifference, and then, when a small, rather fat man 
 in knickers had shaken hands with him, Cazalet found him- 
 self making a low bow to a thin, yellow-faced woman in 
 an unbecomingly plain hat and a crumpled linen gown. 
 This was she who had made him cry like a baby in the 
 Italian play of which he had not understood a word. Pam
 
 24 P AM 
 
 stood on one side watching the little scene with her curious 
 air of detached curiosity, and when Cazalet, after a stum- 
 bling remark to the great artiste, had turned in his embar- 
 rassment to the little white yacht, the child came forward, 
 and sitting down by Madame Ravaglia, took her thin hand 
 in hers and kissed it reverently. 
 
 " Buon' giorno, piccina! " 
 
 " Buon' giorno, grandezza!" 
 
 The two, so unlike, smiled at each other, and Cazalet, 
 turning, saw with a little start that something identical 
 looked out from the two pairs of eyes. 
 
 And then, as they all went on board, the old man sighed 
 as he recalled the same look in the eyes of Caliban the 
 evening before. The veiled sadness of monkey-eyas has in 
 it something approaching the expression of those out of 
 which looks the sad mystery of genius. 
 
 There is an island lying flat on the water not far from 
 the slope on which Pauline Yeoland's Arcadia was situated, 
 and to this island, after a two hours' flight under the shore, 
 the yacht Delphine bent its wings. 
 
 A cool breeze had come up and the boat sped over crisp 
 ruffled waves that now and then broke into a white frill 
 and sparkled in the sun. 
 
 " The landing is in there quite hidden, you see," Pain 
 explained to Cazalet. " The island belongs to the monks, 
 but M. de Vaucourt has rented a little bit of the wood, and 
 we come often it's cooler than on the mainland." 
 
 It was very beautiful, and the old man who had drudged 
 and toiled for others all his life, who had never had any 
 pleasure, and to whom Love had turned a scornful wing 
 felt as though he were young for the first time. 
 
 Sacheverel and Miss Pauline were not married; the little 
 painted Countess was not visited; and as to the plain, silent 
 woman with the monkey-eyes 1
 
 P AM 25 
 
 Yet these bad people were all charming, and in his sudden 
 moral paralysis Cazalet felt that they were all charming 
 because they were all happy. 
 
 How gay they were! The Count had brought a great 
 basket on board, and its contents remained a mystery until 
 just before they landed on the island, when he opened it 
 and tossed from it handfuls of roses and heliotrope to the 
 women, whose cries of delight, softened by the water, fell 
 like music on the air. 
 
 "Take mine, please, Carissima! " 
 
 Pam had made a great bunch of heliotrope and was press- 
 ing it into the actress's hands. 
 
 " It is so sweet; it makes one dizzy with joy! I wish I 
 could die with smelling it too much ! " the child cried, and 
 Ravaglia fastened the offering to her gown with a big 
 jewelled pin. 
 
 The bit of purple sweetness in his button-hole seemed to 
 the steward an order that joined him to the community of 
 careless people he so enjoyed. He was not an old, hard- 
 working business-man; he was any age he chose to be, and 
 the world was full of beauty. 
 
 They breakfasted in a shadowy hollow in the woods, and 
 when they had gone on a little farther, leaving the servants 
 to clear away the debris of the meal, they all sat or lay 
 down, and Ravaglia recited to them. 
 
 What it was all about Cazalet had no idea, but the 
 magic of her wonderful voice was enough for the old man, 
 who closed his eyes and dreamed of things he had never 
 known. 
 
 Pauline and Sacheverel sat together, her, golden head 
 resting frankly on his shoulder, while the fat little count 
 and his wife listened hand in hand. 
 
 There was no decent English reserve, but Cazalet was 
 not shocked. It was Arcadia!
 
 26 ~ PAM 
 
 " Don't you want to know what she said ? " 
 
 It was Pam who had crept up to Cazalet. " You don't 
 understand Italian, do you?" 
 
 " No. I don't understand " 
 
 The child rose. " I will tell you ; I have heard it before 
 and have put it into English." 
 
 The others watched her with lazy amusement as she 
 began, her thin little body well-balanced, her eyes half 
 closed in close imitation of the artiste, but Cazalet, as she 
 continued, felt the rosy mists that had folded him being 
 rent as by a strong rough hand. 
 
 " and your mouth it is crimson like a pomegranate flower, 
 Sweet as honey on Hymettus's fragrant slopes, 
 And bitter as sea-salt's edge " 
 
 There was an attempt at rhythm in the rough translation. 
 
 " Catch me then close to your heart whose throbs 
 Break like great waves on mine; 
 Blind my eyes with your stinging hair, and forget 
 With me all but just that; the beat of the blood, 
 The burn of the kits, " 
 
 "Bravo!" 
 
 " Bravissima, Pam ! " 
 
 Cazalet rose, his wrinkled face red. 
 
 " Pam, come with me and show me the monastery," he 
 said hurriedly, conscious of his own confusion, and angry 
 with everybody, the child herself included. 
 
 " No, no. I want her to do ' Le Passionale,' " laughed 
 Pauline. 
 
 Sacheverel looked at the steward. 
 
 " You're right, Mr. Cazalet," he said ; "the convent is 
 very interesting. Go, Pam." And Cazalet drew a sigh of 
 relief. 
 
 A they went up the sandy road to the low building
 
 P AM 27 
 
 against the sky line, the old man was bitterly ashamed of 
 himself. How he had been drawn into the whirlpool! 
 
 He would get back to England as quickly as possible and 
 tell his lordship and Mrs. Maxse all about it; all about 
 Pam. 
 
 Surely they would not let the child, after all, their own 
 flesh and blood, stay where she was. It was impossible. 
 
 He sighed. He would have a bad half hour with his 
 lordship. 
 
 " Don't you like to hear me recite, Mr. Cazalet?" asked 
 the child curiously, as they walked hand in hand past a 
 garden in which a busy monk was digging. 
 
 " I'd rather see you playing with a doll, my dear." 
 
 "Would you? I had a doll when I was small; M. de 
 Sant' Anna's dog ate it." 
 
 "Dear me! But surely you have had others?" queried 
 the old man, surprised at the fierce note in her voice. 
 
 She turned, her eyes veiled with unshed tears. 
 
 " I never wanted another," she said. " Ah ! there is 
 Pater Demetrio. He will be glad to see me." 
 
 Cazalet knew that she had changed the subject on pur- 
 pose, and said no more about the doll.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 LORD YEOLAND sat on the north terrace in his wheel- 
 chair. It was a charming windless summer morning, and 
 from where the old man sat everything was green; the 
 beautiful sappy green of England. Even the walls of the 
 red house were hung with vines, and the terrace was gar- 
 landed with oaks and beeches. A distant clock struck 
 eleven, and Lord Yeoland raised his head sharply. Caza- 
 let had said eleven, and he was always prompt. It was a 
 good quality, a most excellent quality in others. No Yeo- 
 land had ever possessed it, as the old man acknowledged to 
 himself with a chuckle, but in others he had found it 
 invaluable. 
 
 There was little of the stern father of fiction in Lord 
 Yeoland. In spite of his gout he was still young-looking 
 for his years, and his carefully shaven pink face was round 
 and dimpled. 
 
 It had been a great blow to him when his favourite 
 daughter had informed him that she was going off with 
 Guy Sacheverel, but he had no long line of spotless women- 
 kind behind him to whose ashes he burnt incense and whose 
 ghosts 6arred the way to forgiveness. All the Yeoland 
 women were easy-going as to morals and, as the men had 
 most of them been successful in whatever kind of life they 
 had chosen, the doings of the women were less important 
 than they might have been. Pauline would have been wel- 
 come to Sacheverel as a husband, for the fellow was great in 
 his line, and a charming person, but her going to him in 
 
 28
 
 P AM 29 
 
 defiance of everything as she had done was rather too much, 
 even for a Yeoland, and her father had cast her off in the 
 approved style. 
 
 The Kennedy woman had come to see him and wept. 
 Though rather pretty she was an unattractive person, and 
 her nose was glossy; he had tried to persuade her that her 
 most dignified course was to divorce her husband. This, 
 however, she flatly refused to do, and finding that Lord 
 Yeoland could not overtake and shut up his destructive 
 daughter, retired to her suburb and was no more heard of. 
 
 Rosamund the old man's clever mouth gave a humorous 
 twist as he thought of his other daughter; Rosamund was 
 that exception to the rule a virtuous Yeoland; and she 
 was a good, tender daughter, a devout churchwoman, a 
 loyal wife, a careful mother. 
 
 But she had white eyelashes and no sense of humour. 
 Pauline had not been gone six months before her father, un- 
 known to every one, wrote offering to forgive and take her 
 back if she would give up Sacheverel. 
 
 This she refused to do, and he recognised in her brief 
 letter a happiness so complete that she hardly remembered 
 things that lay behind and beyond it. 
 
 One day in Paris he had passed her leaning on Sacheverel's 
 arm, and she had not seen him! So he had given up 
 hoping for her return. Once or twice he had written to 
 her. She had answered with absent-minded amiability, and 
 that was all. And now Cazalet was bringing her child to 
 him! 
 
 Poor Cazzy, who had believed him as implacable as he 
 should have been, and who had been pale with fright as he 
 told the tale of his flight into Arcadia! 
 
 It had amused the old man to feign the expected anger, 
 and to allow the good steward to persuade him by much 
 earnest eloquence to take the unfortunate child.
 
 30 P AM 
 
 At last he had consented, Mrs. Maxse had positively 
 jumped at the chance to do a good work, and it was a 
 quarter-past eleven, and yes, there they came! 
 
 Cazalet, when he had shown the child her grandfather's 
 solitary figure, discreetly retired, and she came on alone. 
 She walked well, erect, and as though the muscles of her 
 legs and feet were strong. Her dark frock and white sailor 
 hat suited her. 
 
 Her monkey in her arms, she came deliberately up the 
 steps, neither slowly nor fast, and when she had reached 
 her grandfather held out her small gloved hand with a 
 quiet air that surprised him. 
 
 "How do you do, my dear?" he said kindly. "I am 
 very glad to see you." 
 
 " I am quite well, thank you." 
 
 Her dark eyes, shadowed by unusually long and silky 
 lashes, were her only beauty, he noticed. Her nose was 
 rather round and her mouth too large. 
 
 " You are not much like your mother." 
 
 " No, I am like my father." 
 
 " Your father was a very handsome man, my dear." 
 
 " He is still a very handsome man ; and I am ugly, you 
 mean? I am at the ugly age." 
 
 The old man burst out laughing. " Are you indeed ! 
 Well, let us hope you will improve. You are ten, Cazalet 
 tells me." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " That is a monkey ? " 
 
 Her eyes twinkled. " No, it is a humming bird ! " 
 
 It did not occur to him to reprove her, and when he had 
 done laughing he continued : " I have heard nothing at all 
 about you since your birth." 
 
 Cazzy had told him of her quaint remarks, and he was 
 trying to draw her out.
 
 P AM 31 
 
 "I suppose not.' He was disappointed. 
 
 "Why do you suppose not? Why should she not tell 
 me about you? " 
 
 " I mean because you hate her." 
 
 He started. " Hate her! Nonsense. Who told you 
 that?" 
 
 " Pilgrim told me." 
 
 "Pilgrim? Who is he?" 
 
 " Jane Pilgrim, my mother's maid. She is my nurse now, 
 and I brought her here." 
 
 " Indeed ! I should have thought that she brought you." 
 
 " Servants do not bring ladies. May I have a bath, 
 please?" 
 
 Her change of theme was intentional, he saw; she had 
 had enough of Pilgrim. 
 
 " If you will ring the bell just inside that door to the 
 right, you may have as many baths as you please. When 
 you are dressed, come to my room. I wish to present your 
 aunt to you." 
 
 " You are laughing at me because I said that about Pil- 
 grim. One doesn't present grown people to children." 
 Then her sombre eyes suddenly flashed, and she burst out 
 laughing. " I am glad I came," she exclaimed. " I'm sure 
 we shall be great friends. I am exactly like you in some 
 
 ways 
 
 A few minutes later he returned to the subject of her 
 bath, and, shaking hands once more with him, she went into 
 the house. 
 
 When she had disappeared Lord Yeoland steered his chair 
 down the terrace, into the billiard-room, through a long cor- 
 ridor, to a lift in which he mounted to the second floor, and 
 a few minutes later knocked at his daughter's door. 
 
 Mrs. Maxse was writing, 
 
 "Ah, father!"
 
 32 P AM 
 
 Rising, she waited until he had manoeuvred his chair 
 into his favourite corner by the window, and then sat 
 down by him. 
 
 "Well she has come?" 
 
 "Yes. She is interesting." 
 
 " Poor child. It is very sad for her." 
 
 The old man laid his delicate finger tips together and 
 looked at her with pleasant authority. " Now, Rosamund, 
 I wish you to understand that I will not have her pitied. 
 She is very amusing and original, and I don't wish you to 
 spoil her." 
 
 " Spoil her! But I had no idea of such a thing." 
 
 " We use the word in different ways. You may kiss her 
 and pet her as much as she will let you," he added with a 
 little laugh, " but I won't have her wept over or com- 
 passionated with. She knows that most people's father and 
 mother are married, and that hers are not ; but that, Cazalet 
 tells me, she regards merely as an interesting peculiarity. It 
 appears that h'm! Pauline and the fellow are very happy, 
 so that the child has always been happy too." 
 "Happy! Poor Pauline!" 
 
 The elder sister drew a deep sigh, and her plain red face 
 paled a little. 
 
 " Yes, my dear. All these years, while you have been 
 lamenting over and praying for your lost sister, she has 
 been living in Arcadia. The villa is named Villa Arcadie, 
 it seems. Cazalet says she looks very handsome, and that 
 she and Sacheverel are utterly devoted to each other." 
 
 "Oh, father!" Mrs. Maxse's dull, gentle eyes filled 
 with tears. " How awful it is! " 
 
 " I disagree with you, Rosamund. As long as she chose 
 to give up everything for the one man, I am glad she finds 
 that she has got, so to say, her money's worth. Cazalet 
 tells me that coming home in the evening on the yacht
 
 P AM 33 
 
 Sacheverel sang; he says that he never dreamed of such 
 music. I must confess," he added, after a short pause, " that 
 I regret that my position denies me the pleasure of a visit 
 to Arcadia." 
 
 Mrs. Maxse, who had carefully guarded during all those 
 years the secret of her father's real attitude towards his 
 erring daughter, sighed. She had, long ago, made an at- 
 tempt to lead the sinner back to the path of righteousness, 
 but it had ended by Pauline, in a towering rage, having 
 requested her to leave the room, and since then the poor 
 woman, honestly mourning her sister, and sincerely praying 
 for the pardon which she believed to be impossible, had 
 heard nothing of her. 
 
 "Has she been taught anything?" she asked after a 
 pause. 
 
 " Pauline? Oh, the child. I'm sure I don't know. She 
 will be coming to my room shortly, to meet you. Where's 
 Ratty?" 
 
 " Riding." 
 
 "Where's Dick?" 
 
 " I don't know. I haven't seen him this morning." 
 
 " He's in debt again." 
 
 She clasped her hands nervously. " I know. Oh, father, 
 I am so ashamed! " 
 
 " You needn't be, my dear. It is not your fault. Nor 
 is it on you " He broke off. " I beg your pardon, Rosa- 
 mund." 
 
 She rose. " As the child Pamela is going to my room, 
 had we not better go down ? "
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 W^HEN Pam had been inspected by her aunt she was told 
 by her grandfather to go out and take a look at things. 
 
 " You will see everything much more satisfactorily by 
 yourself," the old man added. " People who show their 
 possessions and surroundings to a stranger are always biassed, 
 and they bias and bore the stranger." 
 
 Mrs. Maxse sighed. Her father's ways were to her to 
 this day the ways of an unknown being, their natures being 
 so unlike as to utterly forbid even a moderate understanding 
 of each other, although half unconsciously the poor little 
 woman realised that her view of him, like that of the tor- 
 toise of the hawk, was less comprehensive than his, as he 
 looked down, of her. 
 
 " Ratty would love to show Pamela the place," she 
 ventured. 
 
 " Which is really," interrupted Lord Yeoland, " why I'm 
 sending her now, before Ratty comes. Cut along, Pam." 
 
 And Pam cut along. She had seen deer browsing in the 
 distance as she had been driven up the avenue, and deer had 
 for her the charm they always have for imaginative child- 
 hood. 
 
 Crossing the square hall she went out into the old- 
 fashioned portico and walked slowly across the lawn. 
 
 The dimpled hollows of the park, filled with waving lights 
 and shadows, were most beautiful. It was very different 
 from Italy. 
 
 The flower-beds, a blaze of well-massed colour, were 
 
 34
 
 PAM 35 
 
 more gorgeous than any she had ever seen, and the splendour 
 of old oaks, each one a personality, was not wasted on the 
 child, whose quick eyes saw everything and whose quick 
 brain was appreciative in spite of her quite unusual ig- 
 norance. 
 
 In the middle of the lawn she paused, and, turning, her 
 hands clasped behind her, inspected the house. 
 
 The body of it was ugly, early Georgian, solid, preten- 
 tious, and ponderous in its lines, but to the left was a wing 
 of Tudor architecture, beautiful in its ivy-clad age, and to 
 the right, separated by a graceful arch, through which, ex- 
 tending thus between it and the main building, stretched a 
 walk of perfect turf, edged w r ith graceful limes, stood the 
 ruins of the old monastery from which the place took its 
 name. 
 
 The ruins, deftly propped and strengthened, were among 
 the oldest in that part of England, and their ragged lines, 
 sharply drawn against the sky and the green of the limes, 
 contrasted oddly with the solid comfort of the house itself. 
 
 Again to the right, beyond the bit of crumbling wall that 
 marked where the chapel had been, a square carp pond 
 gleamed in the midst of all the greenness. 
 
 The little girl sighed with delight. It was all very 
 splendid, and she was the grand-daughter of its owner. 
 
 She would go up into the tower some day; there was 
 sure to be a nook where she could hide with a book from 
 the boy Ratty, of whom her grandfather and her aunt had 
 several times spoken, and who was bound to be objec- 
 tionable. 
 
 In the meantime that surely was a deer, stepping daintily 
 through the distant trees. Shifting Caliban to her other 
 shoulder, she walked on. An hour later, her hands still 
 behind her, she entered the monastery ruins and, sitting 
 down in the refectory, drew a long breath. The narrow
 
 36 P AM 
 
 windows let in but little sun, and the vast place was dusky, 
 even at noon, for in its midst grew a great oak, and where 
 so long ago the monks' sandalled feet had trod acorns 
 rested in thick grass. 
 
 The child looked up at the great tree and wondered how 
 old it was. It must be, according to her simple lore, at 
 least four hundred years, in which case the monks must 
 have lived longer ago than that. She imagined them, as 
 she knew monks in Italy, burly brown-faced men in rough 
 woollen frocks. She imagined a long table with pewter 
 plates and thick glasses of oily black wine; in the niche 
 where she sat at the end of the room had sat, no doubt, the 
 reading brother behind his desk and read aloud to the others 
 while they broke their fast. 
 
 She wondered if they had said "Memento morl" to 
 each other, and gave a little shiver. She was beginning to 
 feel them. 
 
 From behind the oak she could almost see the face of 
 a young monk who sometimes had come to the villa 
 Padre Ignazio. She had liked him, for he had handsome 
 grey eyes and strong white teeth that flashed. 
 
 " And when they had eaten everything," she thought, 
 "they all said an Ave together; 'Ave Maria'" 
 
 Suddenly she rose, and setting down the monkey took 
 off her hat and pulled from her hair the three big pins 
 that fastened it to her crown. 
 
 The heavy mass waving down over her dark frock hung 
 like a cowl, hiding her ears and her shoulders. She was a 
 monk. And she was not only a monk of five hundred 
 years ago, but she was beautiful young Father Ignatius 
 translated backwards to that period. 
 
 She felt her eyebrows assume the patient curve of his; she 
 felt her teeth flash under a budding moustache. 
 
 " 'Ave Maria, gratia plena
 
 P AM 37 
 
 Her voice, full and slightly veiled like Ravaglia's, deep- 
 ened as she went on, and she heard her brethren join her 
 prayer which turned to Italian as she continued: 
 
 " ' Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis ' " her eyes 
 were full of tears and her voice shook " ' et in hora mortis 
 
 nostrae.' What a terrible, cold, black word, 'mortis!' 
 
 r i . ) 
 
 la morte. 
 
 11 1 say, you are a queer one." 
 
 The reincarnation of the Reading Brother gave a great 
 start, and then a cool laugh. 
 
 "Am I? I suppose you're Ratty? Well, Ratty, you 
 are too fat for your size, and I hate white mice, so don't 
 come any nearer, please." 
 
 The boy, who was coming slowly towards her, stopped. 
 The sensation of having the tables turned completely on 
 one is never quite pleasant, and possibly it is never less so 
 than when one is a male creature of thirteen much spoiled 
 by prosperity, and the turner merely a girl, and three years 
 younger than one's self. 
 
 " I shan't come any nearer," the boy returned sulkily ; 
 " and if I'm too fat, you are a precious lot too thin, let me 
 tell you. You're Aunt Pauline's daughter. Grandfather 
 told me you were prowling about." 
 
 " I wasn't prowling. How old are you ? " 
 
 " Thirteen and a half." Ratty had fully intended taking 
 and keeping the upper hand of this person, inferior from 
 every point of view, as it seemed to him; but somehow he 
 found himself answering her rapid fire of questions in an 
 inexplicably meek way. Afterwards he explained his atti- 
 tude to himself by calling it that of politeness, which has 
 occurred before. 
 
 " What's your real name ? " 
 
 "De Rattrec Gilbert Yeoland Maxse." 
 
 " Anc -qu live here ? "
 
 38 P AM 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Any brothers or sisters?" 
 
 " One ; a sister. I say, is the monkey yours ? " 
 
 " Yes ; don't touch him please. What's her name, and 
 how old is she? " 
 
 While the boy answered that her name was Evelyn and 
 that she was eleven, Pam rolled her hair into a long rope, 
 and, bending her head, coiled the rope into its usual place. 
 Then pinning on her hat she remarked casually: "Well, 
 I'm hungry, so it must be luncheon time. Good-bye." 
 
 But Ratty, with all the male's usual desire for what 
 seems to be turning inaccessible, pocketed his mice and 
 joined her. 
 
 " I'm hungry too. I say, what a lot of hair you have! " 
 
 Pam looked at him out of the ends of her eyes, scorning 
 the tribute of a turned head. " Yes, it is very beautiful 
 hair, but it is heavy." 
 
 " I suppose that is why you wear it done up at your age." 
 
 " Partly that, and partly because if I let it hang things 
 would get in it and it would have to be cut off." 
 
 " Well, if it did ? You'd be much more comfortable 
 with a short mane like Evelyn." 
 
 Then she turned. " I'd die if my hair was cut off, de 
 Rattrec Gilbert Yeoland Maxse ! " she said with passionate 
 solemnity. "I'd die, do you hear?" 
 
 The boy stared at her curiously, but the passivity of those 
 born fat and destined to live and die fat was his. 
 
 After a moment he asked, " What were you doing there 
 in the refectory ? " 
 
 "Did you like it?" 
 
 " Like it ? How do you mean ? " 
 
 Her eyes flashed at him. " I mean, wasn't it splendid, 
 the ' hora mortis nostras ' ? I never got down so deep 
 before."
 
 P AM 39 
 
 " It sounded like a bass-viol, if that's what you mean," 
 he returned, rather meaning, in a weak way, to be offensive, 
 but to her surprise she threw her arms about his neck 
 and gave him a hasty but grateful kiss. "Did it? Oh, 
 I am glad. You are a nice boy, even if you are fat. I'll 
 do a lovely one for you after lunch a poem, I mean." 
 
 They had reached the portico, and she stopped shot' 
 with a dramatic wave of her hand. " But you don't speak 
 Italian," she cried. " It is a pity but I will learn some 
 English ones 1 "
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE days passed by, and Pam hardly noticed their flight. 
 She was not at all homesick, and once when Mrs. Maxse 
 asked her if she did not miss her mother the child answered, 
 " No, but I am afraid she will miss me." 
 
 " Why should she miss you if you don't miss her? " 
 
 " Because I take care of her. I brush her hair always, 
 and I rub her wrists when she can't sleep, and so on. I 
 don't miss her, because I am amused; one is homesick only 
 when one is lonely." 
 
 Poor Rosamund Maxse sighed. 
 
 " I hope Evelyn would miss me if she were away," she said. 
 
 Pam flashed a queer look at her. 
 
 " Of course she would ; that is different. You don't 
 love Mr. Maxse, so of course you love her more than mother 
 loves me." 
 
 " Pamela! I'm you mustn't say such things," cried the 
 poor woman. " Of course I love Mr. Maxse ! " 
 
 " I don't think you do. I don't call it love. Now father 
 
 and mother " She broke off, gazing thoughtfully out of 
 
 the window. 
 
 " But if they love each other so much, I don't see why 
 you say Pauline should miss you so," went on Mrs. Maxse, 
 feeling that she was being undignified in arguing with the- 
 child, and yet urged on in spite of herself. 
 
 Pam laughed. 
 
 "That isn't love; it's comfort. And she likes my lov- 
 ing her." 
 
 40
 
 P AM 4i 
 
 Rosamund again could not resist; something in the child 
 seemed to lead her on against her will. " Then you do love 
 her? " she asked. 
 
 Pam turned. " Do I love her? Do I love her? And 
 you are her own sister ! " The scorn in her voice, instead 
 of irritating Mrs. Maxse, suddenly appeased her. 
 
 " I know," she said humbly enough. " It was always 
 that way with Pauline. I used to wonder why it was, for 
 it was not only her beauty. There were other girls as 
 beautiful as she, but it was for her that the sacrifices were 
 made. Beginning with Jimmy Leslie and ending, so far 
 as we know," she went on, " with poor Jane. I have often 
 wondered about it, for she did not care much for them" 
 
 " I know what it is. It's her temperament." 
 
 Poor Rosamund, who had no idea of what temperament 
 was, but vaguely believed it to be something bad and un- 
 speakable, gave a nervous start. " My dear child ! What 
 words you do use ! " 
 
 " I can't help it," insisted Pam, with civil obstinacy. " It 
 is that. Comte de Vaucourt said so." 
 
 " Comte who ? And to whom ? Surely he didn't talk 
 about such things to you ! " 
 
 " No. He was talking to Madame Ravaglia one day 
 in the garden when we first knew her. She was asking 
 him some things about father. She knew, of course, that 
 he was an artist, and, as it appears that artists do not often 
 love one person for long at a time, she said that she was 
 surprised that father still cared for mother." 
 
 " Oh ! " gasped her aunt. 
 
 " And M. de Vaucourt," pursued the child serenely, " said 
 that he explained it by the fact of mother's having a devil 
 of a temperament. It sounds worse in English, somehow," 
 she added apologetically, " but ' le diable ' is really nothing, 
 you know."
 
 42 PAM 
 
 A burst of masculine laughter interrupted her, and Dick 
 Maxse issued from behind the portiere, his good-looking 
 face red with suppressed mirth. 
 
 " ' A devil of a temperament/ " he quoted, his hands 
 in his trousers pockets, grinning down at his wife's niece, 
 "I believe you!" 
 
 "Dick!" 
 
 " Well, of course she has, my dear. I once wanted to 
 marry your mother myself," he added, turning to Pam. 
 " How would you have liked me for your father? " 
 
 " That is perfectly impossible," she answered coldly, " for 
 I am half of my own father, and if I'd been half of you I'd 
 have been well very different ! " 
 
 Maxse giggled, and lit a cigarette. " Well, how would 
 you have been, if you were half of me?" he asked. 
 " Would you have had my beautiful mouth, do you think? " 
 
 " It was disgusting of Ratty to tell you I said that," the 
 girl burst out angrily, rising, " and I thought so only at 
 first. I hate your mouth, and if you ever try to kiss me 
 again I'll bite you." 
 
 He glanced uneasily at his wife, and gave a nervous 
 laugh. 
 
 "You're a rude little beggar," he commented, but Pam, 
 without waiting to hear his remark, had marched out, slam- 
 ming the door. 
 
 As she went downstairs she heard footsteps behind her, 
 and turning, saw Cazalet. 
 
 " Oh, Cazzy, I am glad to see you. Where have you 
 been?" 
 
 " With his lordship, my dear. What is the matter ? " 
 
 His kind eyes had at once noted the unusual red in her 
 cheeks, and red with Pam was always a danger signal. 
 
 " I have been rude again to Mr. Maxse, but I do hate 
 him so. He makes my flesh creep, nasty jelly-fish ! "
 
 P AM 43 
 
 Cazalet suppressed a laugh that was not entirely without 
 the element of pleasure. 
 
 " Be careful, my dear! " 
 
 " Well, he is. Father is twice as big, yet father is as 
 hard as iron, and Mr. Maxse looks as if he'd collapse if you 
 pricked him. Bah!" 
 
 There was something unchildlike in her dislike of her 
 aunt's husband, and Cazalet realised it. " He is considered 
 handsome," he observed mildly, as they came out into the 
 sun, where his little dog-cart was waiting for him. Pam 
 got in without asking leave and he drove off. 
 
 " I know. He's handsome but I hate him. He kissed 
 me one day," she added half amusedly, " and I nearly 
 put his eye out. I only meant to scratch him, but he 
 wriggled." 
 
 Cazalet did not laugh. It had come to seem to him 
 his duty to preserve as best he could this wild vine planted 
 by his advice in the home soil. " You are too big to scratch 
 people," he said seriously. 
 
 " Then I'm too big to be kissed," was her prompt 
 reply. 
 
 They drove down the long avenue, past the lodge, and out 
 into the sunny high-road. 
 
 " I am coming to tea," Pam remarked at length. " I 
 haven't been for a long time." 
 
 " Did you tell any one? " 
 
 " No, but they won't be anxious. They are used to my 
 being late. All Yeolands are unpunctual, my G. F. says, 
 and when I am later than usual they send for Pilgrim, and 
 she tells them how much worse I used to be, and that con- 
 soles them." 
 
 " Well, it appears to me that you do about as you like 
 in most things." 
 
 They had reached the turn in the road and were off
 
 44 P AM 
 
 between golden stubble fields, beyond which the little town 
 lay hidden in a fold in the hills. 
 
 " I always do what I like." 
 
 "Always? That is impossible." 
 
 Their eyes met defiantly. " Well if I absolutely can't, 
 then I stop bothering and do some other thing that I want 
 to." The whole of philosophy in a nutshell. 
 
 Mrs. Hamp, Cazalet's housekeeper, was very fond of 
 Pam, and the child's coming was the signal for the pro* 
 duction of such wonders as damson jam, sweet biscuits, 
 and even exceedingly hard sweets done up in striped 
 paper, of which the house was at other times apparently 
 innocent. 
 
 Pam was hungry, and enjoyed her feast with child- 
 hood's pleasing greediness. 
 
 Cazalet watched her a little wistfully. 
 
 " Pam," he said after a long pause, " what do you hear 
 from your mother?" 
 
 " Nothing in particular. They are both well, and father 
 has been singing a great deal. Figs have begun, and Assun- 
 tina, the farmer's daughter, has twins. I wish," she added, 
 licking her spoon, "that I had twins." 
 
 " Bless me! Well, perhaps you may, some day." 
 
 Mrs. Hamp, who had come in on some housewifely pre- 
 text, laughed heartily. " Perhaps your husband might not 
 be pleased, though, Miss Pam. The doctor, poor dear gen- 
 tleman, was very much put out the last time 
 
 " I am not going to have a husband." 
 
 "Well, really! Now what a young lady you are, to be 
 sure! There's no danger of your being an old maid ! " ejacu- 
 lated the good woman hastily, to cover her own and her 
 master's confusion. 
 
 Pam laughed. 
 
 "Who said I was going to be an old maid? Of course
 
 P AM 45 
 
 I shan't. I shall have a lover, and he will adore me, as 
 father adores mother; but marriage is a betise" 
 
 Poor Mrs. Hamp left the room overcome. 
 
 " Imagine me being an old maid! " remarked Pam, helping 
 herself to damson jam.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 ONE of the advantages of being a nomad is that one has 
 almost literally no social duties. 
 
 One camps for a time where one likes, setting up one's 
 movable Lares and Penates in strange nooks whose strange- 
 ness gives no shock; the sofa-pillows are brought out to deck 
 a new corner; the vases filled with new flowers have a charm 
 of their own in their familiarity that prosy, stay-at-home 
 porcelain does not know. 
 
 All these things, provided that the one person who counts 
 is there too, wearing in Petersburg the little red slippers 
 you bought her that day in Cairo, or with the back of his 
 dear head leaning comfortably, in Palermo, against the pil- 
 low you embroidered for him in Christiania. Guy Sach- 
 everel and Pauline Yeoland knew these things, and while 
 they had made Villa Arcadie the home nest into which they 
 dropped after all their flights, they had travelled a great deal 
 in the careless bohemian way that Pauline, in spite of her 
 birth, seemed to understand better than he. His bohemian- 
 ism was that of habit, little bourgeois as he had been born ; 
 hers was that of the heart and soul. 
 
 "The third day of rain, Guy! Can the summer really 
 be gone ? " 
 
 " It looks that way, dearest. What shall we do ? " 
 
 " Go somewhere ; anywhere, where the sun shines, or 
 where it is a real decent winter, with snow and bells." 
 
 And in a day or two off they would go, accompanied by 
 grim Pilgrim and the child, who thus was quite used to 
 strange quarters and wagon-lits, and to whom the charm of 
 
 46
 
 F AM 47 
 
 the unknown and unexpected was as great as it was to her 
 mother. 
 
 Monks' Yeoland, with its sober splendour, so strongly 
 contrasted by the dreamy beauty of the ruins, delighted the 
 child. 
 
 It was totally unlike anything that she had ever known. 
 She liked the easy-goingness of life in hotels, she liked the 
 plays and opera to which Pauline, feeling carelessly that it 
 was a pity for the child to have no amusement, had sent her 
 with Pilgrim; but it pleased her to be surrounded by per- 
 fectly drilled servants, to have a sitting-room of her own, 
 and her bath-room with its gleaming white tiles was a source 
 of never-ending delight to her. 
 
 All the things that had rather bored her mother touched 
 in the child a chord that vibrated all through her in its 
 responsiveness. 
 
 Even the delicious food had its place in the great whole 
 which went to making her so content. She was frankly 
 gourmet, a quality that her father had given her, and Lord 
 Yeoland was much amused by her thoughtful appreciation 
 of his viands and wine. 
 
 " Ratty doesn't know claret from ginger-beer," the old 
 man said one day ; to which the fat boy replied stoutly : " Yes, 
 I do, grandfather. And I like ginger-beer and loathe claret ; 
 nasty inky stuff ! " 
 
 Pam raised her claret-glass and looked at it against the 
 light. " I like it ; it is smooth and a little sour, and I feel 
 as if I were drinking rubies," she remarked. 
 
 Dick Maxse, who had just come home from a fortnight 
 in town, and looked very seedy, groaned. " There are 
 occasions," he said to his father-in-law, " when claret is the 
 only wine a man can look at." 
 
 " Quite so; have some more, Dick! " 
 
 Lord Yeoland's eyes twinkled. Maxse was a scamp, a
 
 4C P AM 
 
 spendthrift, and a rake, but he had a saving sense of humour. 
 Pam, on the contrary, looked at the man whom she had been 
 instructed to call uncle, and whom she steadfastly called 
 nothing at all, with the frank disgust that he never failed to 
 bring to her eyes. 
 
 He looked up and saw her. 
 
 " What are you thinking about, Amelia? " he asked good- 
 humouredly. 
 
 " My name is not Amelia, and you know it." 
 
 " I beg your pardon. Well, Pamela, of what were you 
 thinking?" 
 
 " Of you. I was wondering why your eyes look so 
 horrid!" 
 
 " Shut up, Pam, you are a cheeky little beggar! " The 
 children sat side by side, and Ratty accompanied his admoni- 
 tion with a sharp kick under the table. 
 
 The next moment he had given a short yell, and bent over 
 his plate in pain. " I'll teach you to kick me, you little 
 canaglia! " the little girl cried. 
 
 Mrs. Maxse was not at luncheon that day, and the two 
 men, both inclined to look on the children in the light of a 
 God-sent amusement for themselves, laughed. 
 
 Pam turned to Maxse. " If any one had given me such 
 a knock, my father wouldn't have laughed," she said. " It 
 must have been a fearful blow." 
 
 "What would your father have done?" 
 
 " He'd have whacked the person who did it." 
 
 Maxse watched her closely; he was interested in her, for 
 in the child he felt the future woman, and she charmed him. 
 He would have given considerably more than he could afford 
 to have had Pam seven or eigh* vears older, for in his way 
 he was a student of humar. v.aturc. 
 
 '* Shan i wnacit you? " 
 
 Luncheon was over and they rose as she spoke.
 
 P AM 49 
 
 " If you like ; but I suppose you're afraid I'd bite you." 
 
 " If you bite me I'll spank you." 
 
 He was teasing, but his eyes appealed still to the woman 
 ihe was going to be. She looked at him. " If you spank 
 me I'll kill you," she said slowly. 
 
 For answer, he caught her and kissed her. 
 
 She did not struggle, but when he set her down she flew 
 at him like a wild beast, and with all her force butted him 
 in the stomach, so that he fell against a chair and then to the 
 floor. 
 
 "There!" she shrieked. The anger in her small face 
 distorted it, and she was white about the nose and mouth in 
 an alarming way. 
 
 Lord Yeoland stood silent for a moment and then said 
 to her sternly, " Go up to your room, Pamela, and stay there 
 until I send for you." 
 
 Without a word she obeyed him. 
 
 " You may go, Ratty." 
 
 Then the old man watched his son-in-law drink a glass 
 of water. " That was quite a blow, Dick." 
 
 "A blow, sir! I thought she would have killed me. I 
 I haven't got my wind back yet." 
 
 " Come out on the terrace with me, will you? You're 
 still rather green." For the time being gout was defeated 
 and Lord Yeoland walked as well as any one but for a slight 
 lameness, the result, it was said, of an old bullet. 
 
 The two men crossed the black and white stone floor 
 of the hall in silence, and sat down under a big oak outside 
 the door. 
 
 " What do you want me to do to her, Dick? " 
 
 The old man lit a cigar and leaned back comfortably in 
 his wicker chair. 
 
 " Do to her? I don't quite understand." This was 
 true, for Dick Maxse was not vindictive.
 
 50 P AM 
 
 " Yes. Shall I spank her, or shut her in her room, or 
 what? It was rude, what she did." 
 
 His air of complete detachment from whatever matter 
 chanced to be in hand often puzzled people, and Maxse 
 had even yet not got quite used to it. 
 
 " Well," he said ruefully, " I shan't be able to move 
 to-morrow, I daresay. It was a cruel return for a kiss, but 
 I don't want you to punish her. She does hate being kissed, 
 doesn't she?" 
 
 " By you at least. I have noticed that she is rather keen 
 on kissing Cazalet." 
 
 " Cazzy! Well, I am not a vain man, but " 
 
 Lord Yeoland laughed. " I agree with you, but the fact 
 remains that she does dislike you, so suppose you stop teasing 
 her!" 
 
 "Teasing doesn't hurt children," returned Dick, unex- 
 pectedly mulish, as often is the way with men of his type. 
 " It cures them of a lot of nonsense." 
 
 " That may be, but I don't wish you to tease Pam." 
 
 " Well, sir, upon my word I don't quite understand you ! 
 You began by asking me to name her punishment, and end 
 by " 
 
 " By forbidding you to tease her. Quite so ; that is pre- 
 cisely what I have done. The fact is, Maxse, you wouldn't 
 want to tease her (it is a new word for kissing) if she were 
 a boy, and you know it. She doesn't know it, possibly, but 
 she feels it, and that is, I think, why she knocked you 
 down." A faint smile stirred the old man's lips. " To 
 change the subject, how is your horse's foot? " 
 
 But Maxse rose and with a sulky answer strolled away. 
 
 Lord Yeoland watched him. Maxse's walk was very 
 characteristic, had a curious stranger chosen to study it. 
 His father-in-law knew the ins and outs of his character, 
 such as it was, too thoroughly for curiosity, but the springless
 
 P AM si 
 
 walk, the hunching shoulders, the movement of the heavy 
 hips, told their story so well that he sighed involuntarily. 
 
 He himself had been fast enough in his day ; he had drunk 
 a good deal, had played, and had loved not wisely but too 
 often. But there is a well-bred way of wasting one's life, 
 and Dick had not discovered it. He was as coarse in his 
 pleasures as a stableman, and had not learned the saving 
 grace of looking ill and interesting after a bout; he looked, 
 as Pam had expressed it, simply " horrid." 
 
 " Send Miss Pamela to me, Thomas," Lord Yeoland said 
 suddenly to the footman who came to remove the coffee- 
 tray, and a few minutes later Pam stood, very erect, before 
 him. 
 
 " Are you not ashamed of yourself? " he asked sternly. 
 
 The two pairs of eyes looked steadily into each other. 
 He had an idea that she was not taking him with sufficient 
 seriousness, and drew his white eyebrows down and frowned 
 at her. 
 
 " How could you so far forget yourself ? " 
 
 " I didn't forget myself. I won't be kissed, grandfather, 
 so there's an end of it." 
 
 " He is your uncle." 
 
 " He is not my uncle." 
 
 " He is you aunt's husband, which is the same thing." 
 
 " Aunt Rosamund isn't my real aunt, is she? " 
 
 " Of course she is your real aunt. What on earth do 
 you mean ? " 
 
 " I mean, mother isn't father's wife, you know, so I 
 thought " His face softened at her innocent seriousness. 
 
 " My dear, do you know that it is very, very sad, that 
 your mother is, as you say, not your father's wife ? " 
 
 " Sad? I don't think it is exactly sad, for they have such 
 a good time together." 
 
 " Nevertheless it would be much better if they were mar-
 
 52 P AM 
 
 ried. If they were, your name would be Sacheverel, that 
 is Kennedy, and yur mother could come here, and every 
 one would be glad to see her." 
 
 Pam suddenly sat down cross-legged on the grass and 
 rested her chin in her hand. " I know. Pilgrim is always 
 saying such things. But I don't think married people are 
 happy, do you? " 
 
 It was so ludicrous, and so pathetic at the same time, that 
 the old man did not know what to answer. 
 
 " Some married people are very happy." 
 
 " But most aren't. Poor Madame de Vaucourt hated 
 her other husband, and had to get a divorce from him; then 
 Aunt Rosamund and that man you don't call them happy, 
 do you ? " 
 
 Her eyes had their most monkey-like expression as she 
 looked at him. 
 
 " Well, I don't know ; they were very much in love when 
 they were married, or at least " 
 
 Instantly she pounced on the weak point in his statement. 
 
 " There ! You see ! They used to be, and now they 
 aren't! Well, just look at mother and father! Why, G. 
 F., they love each other so! It is beautiful." 
 
 " So Cazalet said." 
 
 There was a long pause. Then the old man sighed. 
 Something had happened, he was not sure what, but his 
 pleasure in the child as a queer little animal, born to amuse 
 him, had gone. For the first time he realised that she had, 
 somewhere, a soul, and that that soul must be cultivated. 
 
 " Well, my dear," he said, gently laying his delicate hand 
 on her knot of hair, " I have asked Mr. Maxse not to kiss 
 you, and I must also beg you to be civil to him. He is a 
 guest in my house." 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 She whirled round and stood facing hira, " I am sorry,
 
 P AM 53 
 
 You may tell him that I am very sorry. I will never 
 either scratch or knock him down again." Alas for discipline, 
 that at this remark they both burst out laughing. 
 
 But when she had run away he sat a long time, very 
 thoughtful.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 LORD YEOLAND had never had a son, and when one 
 had, to her own great surprise, been born to Rosamund 
 Maxse, the old man's joy had been great. 
 
 " You must name him, father," his daughter said to 
 him, as he sat by her holding the red-faced newcomer 
 rather skilfully in his arms, " if you won't have him called 
 after you." And Lord Yeoland had named him. 
 
 The Viscount Charles Adrian Joseph de Rattrec had been 
 a friend of his lordship's in their twenties. The two had 
 dwelt together with much satisfaction and a good deal of 
 extravagance in a certain quiet street in Paris which had 
 been less quiet after their advent than before it. 
 
 Oii sont les neiges d'antan is all very well, but ou est le 
 solell d'antan would have been better, for which of us, as he 
 or she grows older, does not dream more of the sunshine 
 than of the snows of yester year? 
 
 The golden warmth of the old sun, the hot sweetness it 
 used to draw from the nodding lilac-plumes, where are they? 
 
 Surely laughter is less merry, tears less spontaneous, than 
 of yore. In a word, ou est le soleil d'antan? 
 
 Lord Yeoland named his grandson as much in memory 
 of the old days as in that of his friend, de Rattrec, a bit of 
 sentiment over which he himself, who naturally had grown 
 from a charming, slightly cynical young man to be a charm- 
 ing, slightly cynical old one, half laughed. 
 
 Ratty Maxse was a monstrous baby, and speedily grew 
 into a monstrous child. He was dear to his grandfather, 
 but the old man wished he were not quite so overwhelm- 
 
 54
 
 P AM 55 
 
 ingly fat. The child was built in bulging curves, his legs 
 were like hams, his cheeks shook like properly made pink 
 jellies. Later, his back view, in knickers, was a temptation 
 to unmerited chastisement. 
 
 Pauline and Rosamund having been attractive children, 
 Lord Yeoland watched his grandson with an expectation 
 of sudden development of beauty that was not without its 
 pathetic side. He had had many disappointments, but this 
 rather ludicrous one was not the easiest to bear, for it came 
 at a time when hope, even in a buoyant bosom, begins to 
 quiet down. 
 
 It had been a shock to him when Pauline went away, and 
 his conscience, rudimentary as he had kept it through a 
 careful process of constant pruning, had sometimes whispered 
 to him that it might not have happened if he, just when she 
 was growing to womanhood, had not, owing to a very 
 enchanting and engrossing lady not known to court circles, 
 been living almost entirely in London, leaving her at home 
 with her dull sister to amuse herself as best she might. 
 
 Misfortunes usually going in flocks, it hardly surprised 
 him when his daughter's elopement had been closely fol- 
 lowed by the lady not known to court circles being suddenly 
 brought to see the errors of her ways and marrying a youth- 
 ful baronet, popularly supposed to be not quite right. 
 
 Lord Yeoland was in the early fifties then, and can hardly 
 be blamed for resenting, a year or so after the last sad event, 
 a series of those stiff-necked attacks of gout which warn a 
 man that he might as well stop dyeing his moustache. 
 
 His resentment, however, was both invisible and short- 
 lived, for he was too clever to fight against such odds, and, 
 realising that he had for years been burning his candle at 
 both ends, handed over his matchbox without a protest, and 
 became not ungracefully the old man that his way of living 
 rather than the number of his years had made him.
 
 56 P AM 
 
 Naturally, when he a few years later met M. de Rattrec, 
 a well got-up dandy with the ogling eye of the old days 
 still ogling but dim, his good stories still told but grown 
 musty, that silly old ass's airs and graces had disgusted him. 
 One is so hard on one's cast-off vices ! 
 
 Young de Rattrec, as has been said, persisted in remaining 
 the least attractive of children, and then in steadily develop- 
 ing into the least attractive of boys, and the old man, who 
 was still in the painful stage of hopeless hope when Pam 
 arrived, a small bundle of wonderful possibilities, turned to 
 her with an eagerness that had long fed on his disappoint- 
 ment in his grandson. 
 
 That summer afternoon when Dick Maxse had gone off 
 to sulk Lord Yeoland sat for nearly an hour turning over 
 and over in his mind all these things. 
 
 Pam, as well as being like her all too enchanting father, 
 was really astoundingly like himself, and this is in any child 
 a charm to any relative, quite irrespective of the advisability 
 of such resemblance. Her sudden fit of temper over Maxse's 
 kiss had really delighted the old man, for he knew that had 
 he been in her place he would have done precisely the same 
 thing. 
 
 And then he had been, in his careless way, fond and proud 
 of his beautiful daughter, and while it had not only suited 
 his sense of the fitness of things but amused him to play the 
 inexorable parent to the world, even to Cazalet, it had been, 
 as a matter of fact, only his conviction of Pauline's indiffer- 
 ence which had prevented his making the experiment that 
 the old steward had undertaken with such a mixture of 
 sentiments. 
 
 So Pam was dear to him for more than one reason, and 
 he realised as he sat there thinking under the oak that she 
 had brought him a new interest in life. 
 
 Her distinct personality delighted him; she was as thin
 
 P AM 57 
 
 and quick as Ratty was fat and slow ; she was full of dignity 
 and took herself seriously, but her sense of humour was quick 
 and deep. 
 
 Her reciting gave him pleasure, though not quite in the 
 way that she intended, for he knew Ravaglia, and recog- 
 nised her wonderful mimicry of that tragic woman. It had 
 amused him to turn her loose in the library and watch the 
 choice of further recitations that she made. 
 
 Some of Swinburne's splendid indecencies were among 
 her favourites, as they would have been among Ravaglia's 
 had the Italian spoken English ; and the sharp contrast of the 
 child's thrilling voice, deepened to the amazing travesty of 
 her model's, uttering what he called the purple words, and 
 the innocent pride in her eyes, gave him the most exquisite 
 amusement. 
 
 Once, after a recitation behind closed doors to her appre- 
 ciative and abnormally solemn grandparent, he said to her: 
 " Pam, word of honour not to recite these things to any one 
 but me." 
 
 "Not even to Ratty?" 
 
 "No! Good heavens, no !" 
 
 The child scratched the monkey's head pensively. " Very 
 well, G. F., I promise. Now tell me why? " 
 
 The old man was, as he put it to himself, staggered for 
 a moment. Then he decided to tell the truth, a proceeding 
 that he had found as a rule the most politic. 
 
 " Well, because, though very beautiful, and as you 
 observed a moment ago, very dramatic, they are not usually 
 the poems that small girls recite. Small girls as a rule recite 
 about well, about birds, and flowers, and angels and suck 
 things." 
 
 Pam nodded. 
 
 " I know. Awful rot. I much prefer things I can't 
 understand."
 
 58 P AM 
 
 He recalled the absurdly wise expression in her small 
 face as she had said it. How he had enjoyed her! And 
 now had he got to stop? Must he have her trimmed and 
 pruned ? 
 
 Another of his amusements had been to take her to the 
 picture gallery and make her use her powers of observa- 
 tion on the portraits of her maternal ancestors. " What 
 do you think of that one? " he would ask, stopping his chair 
 opposite the portrait in question, and watching her as she 
 studied it. 
 
 " He looks very kind, but stupid ; rather like a priest." 
 
 " Are they kind and stupid ? " 
 
 " They have to be kind, you know. And I don't think 
 many of them are the cleverest of their families." 
 
 " And the one above our friend Yellow Waistcoat? " 
 
 " He is nicer; more interesting, I mean. I'm sure he 
 had a dimple when he laughed, and he has beautiful hands." 
 
 And so it went. 
 
 One day she discovered in a corner a small portrait of a 
 man in Cavalier costume, with a long scar on his cheek. 
 " Oh, this one! This one I love, G. F. Who was he? " 
 she cried, her hands clasped. 
 
 " That's what you must tell me, my dear. You like 
 him?" 
 
 " Like him ? No. I if he were alive I should be 
 afraid of him, but I should adore him. I should love 
 him, really, you know, as mother loves father." 
 
 " He was an excellent young man," said Lord Yeoland, 
 watching her closely, " very religious and studious. That 
 lady in the crimson cloak was his wife. They had seventeen 
 children, and it is said that he could say the whole Acts of 
 the Apostles by heart. He used to do so every morning 
 before breakfast." 
 
 The child's eyes were fixed on his face, and when he
 
 P AM *9 
 
 ceased speaking she burst out angrily: " It is not true! I 
 don't believe he was religious and knew things like that by 
 heart. I don't believe that hideous old thing was his wife 
 at all. You are teasing me! " 
 
 ''Right! I wanted to see whether you'd believe me. 
 Now that you do not, suppose you tell me what you do 
 think about Sir Digby; he happens to be one of the few 
 about whose life I can give you a little information." 
 
 Pam stood opposite the picture, the sun streaming in on 
 her back, and splashing over the dark face of the man she 
 was studying. 
 
 " I think that he was bad," she said ; " really bad, you 
 know. I think he gambled awfully, for heaps of money, 
 and that he drank out of a big silver flagon and got drunk, 
 not sleepy or silly drunk, but the kind when they get angry 
 and fight. And I think he could sing, rather like father, 
 only not so well, and that he loved women very much." 
 
 " That one up there in blue really was his wife," put in 
 her hearer casually. " Well, go on he loved his wife " 
 
 " I didn't say he loved his wife. I don't believe," with 
 a sharp glance at the lady in question, " that he did. I said 
 he loved women in general. I think he made love splen- 
 didly, you know." 
 
 "Dear me!" 
 
 Lord Yeoland started, his rubber-tyred wheels silent on 
 the old oak floor. Her diagnosis was startlingly correct. 
 
 " You are about right. He was much as you say, and 
 the scar came from a duel. But you have described a 
 very bad man, young woman, do you know it? " 
 
 Pam laughed. " I know. He looks bad, but he is inter- 
 esting, and I love him," she said. " I find most good men 
 so very dull G. F. ! "
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 AND now his lordship had suddenly realised that he could 
 not, for his own peace of mind, go on enjoying his grandchild. 
 
 Cazalet had discovered and brought her to Monks' Yeo- 
 land with the tiresome purpose of having her brought up 
 and educated. 
 
 His lordship had delighted in her, had drawn her out, 
 with his old lack of all feeling of responsibility in the 
 development of his own children intensified strongly by the 
 facts both of her parentage and her power, in her pristine 
 condition, to amuse him. 
 
 Now, by a few words, she had so suddenly shifted him 
 to a new view point that he was almost giddy, and to 
 balance himself mentally caught at that most obvious of 
 supports, the Rector. 
 
 There was no help for it. She must be sent to Cunning- 
 ham. Cunningham would teach her the proper stuff and 
 drill her into the usual mental manoeuvres of young English 
 maidens. And spoil her he reflected ruefully. 
 
 Ratty's tutor, who had been at home since Pam's arrival, 
 indulging in a long convalescence after an attack of typhoid 
 fever, would soon be back. The old man frowned im- 
 patiently. 
 
 Bingham could teach Pam some few things, such as how 
 to add a column of figures, how to know a Latin verb from 
 a noun at sight, and how to spell. The old man took it for 
 granted that the child could not spell no Yeoland could; 
 and to him, whom she charmed, she was all Yeoland. So 
 
 60
 
 P AM 6i 
 
 between Cunningham and young Bingham she would do. 
 It was a great pity, but it evidently had to be. 
 
 Evelyn, Ratty's sister, coming across the lawn as he 
 reached this point, saw her grandfather and joined him. 
 
 " Grandpapa, have you seen Pam? " she asked. She was 
 a pretty blonde child with curls and sweet eyes. 
 
 Lord Yeoland was not fond of her, for no particular 
 reason, but she was of the type of women that he had all 
 his life designated as " rabbity," and she made him yawn. 
 
 " Yes, she was here a moment ago, my dear. I don't 
 know where she went. Did you and Miss Kester have 
 a nice time at the rectory? " 
 
 " Yes, thank you, grandpapa. Mrs. Cunningham showed 
 us her postage-stamp album and her school-books. Just 
 fancy, her school-books are all neatly covered with chintz, 
 just as she had them when she was a little girl, and they 
 all have her name written on the first page ' Charlotte 
 Louisa Percy.' Isn't it interesting?" 
 
 " Charming. Perfectly charming. I think you will find 
 Pam somewhere in the old garden, my dear." 
 
 "Oh, yes. I don't think I'll look for her, though. She 
 makes me do things I oughtn't, Miss Kester says." 
 
 Lord Yeoland brightened. "Does she?" he asked 
 briskly. "What kind of things?" 
 
 Evelyn was a nice child and had not meant to be a tale- 
 bearer, so she hesitated, and wished she needn't answer. 
 
 "What kind of things, I said," insisted the old man 
 sharply, for he wanted to stamp on Evelyn when she dug 
 holes in the grass with her toes in that way. 
 
 " I'm sorry I said it, grandpapa not bad things, you 
 know, only mischievous. Yesterday she made me pick a 
 lot of green winter pears." 
 
 "Made you? Why the why did you do it?" 
 
 " She she made me."
 
 62 P AM 
 
 " What could she do to you ? How could she make 
 you? Now for God's sake don't cry. I don't mind the 
 pears, I only want to know. How did she make you pick 
 a lot of pears if you didn't want to ? " 
 
 Evelyn bit her lip, but answered bravely enough : " I 
 don't know how, grandpapa, but she did. She just did ! " 
 
 " I see. Did she happen to tell you, my dear (you see I 
 am not at all angry), why she made you? " 
 
 " Yes. She wanted to see if she could. She always 
 wants to see whether she can make people do what she 
 wants." 
 
 "Ah ! And can she, as a rule ? " 
 
 Evelyn nodded, half proud of her erring relative's power. 
 " Yes, she can. She makes nurse give us jam whenever we 
 want it, and yesterday she wouldn't let Ratty eat one bit of 
 his. Ratty would have cried if he hadn't been so big. And 
 McWhirter cut a lot of gardenias for her the other day. 
 
 "Coaxes, does she?" 
 
 " Oh, no. She just says 'do it ' or, ' I wish you to do so 
 at once,' and then they we do." 
 
 " And what did she do with the gardenias? " 
 
 " She gave them to Mary Carroway; her baby died, you 
 know." 
 
 " That," remarked Lord Yeoland, laughing and rising, 
 " was generous of her at least. Why didn't you remind her 
 that the gardenias happened to belong to me? " 
 
 " I did, grandpapa." 
 
 "Well? What did she say?" 
 
 " She said that she didn't care if they were the queen's, 
 that she wanted them and would have them." 
 
 The old man crossed the lawn to the right, and walked 
 slowly down the slope to the path leading to the rectory. 
 It was a great pity. Originality, a most unusual quality in 
 women, seemed to be the child's by right of inheritance, and
 
 P AM 63 
 
 now he was giving her into the hands of Cunningham, who 
 would root it out and leave nothing but a scar in its place. 
 " However," he thought, with a glimmer of hope, " she has 
 a pretty strong will, it appears, and may refuse to be culti- 
 vated into the usual monotony." 
 
 And, indeed, Pam did not show any particular love for the 
 process placidly planned by the excellent Cunningham. 
 
 Sent to the rectory a few days later in a fresh frock and 
 her second-best hat, she surprised the good man by bringing 
 with her, in lieu of Caliban, whom she had been forbidden 
 to take, a small snake, which she produced from her pocket 
 and showed the Rector with pride, but a certain suspicious 
 gravity. 
 
 " My dear child, how very disgusting! Don't put it on 
 me, I beg of you ! " 
 
 "Who made it?" inquired the pupil solemnly, a formula 
 used by Miss Kester when she herself had been found killing 
 snails with her slipper. 
 
 " God made it, of course," returned Mr. Cunningham, 
 as was proper, " but He did not mean it for a domestic pet." 
 
 Pam returned the little creature to her pocket, which she 
 closed by means of a large safety-pin, and then sitting down, 
 folded her hands and looked up inquiringly. 
 
 It was a cool afternoon and the pleasant old drawing- 
 room was agreeably heated by an open fire, before which the 
 master and pupil sat. 
 
 " Your grandfather has asked me, my dear Pamela, to 
 have a talk with you, with a view to h'm! informing 
 myself somewhat as to the amount of religious instruction 
 you have thus far had h'm!" 
 
 " I have not had any at all." 
 
 The Rector knew this, but it seemed the place for a little 
 kindly horror. When he had done his duty in this respect, 
 he went on : " You are ten, I believe."
 
 64 P AM 
 
 " I shall be eleven the fourteenth of November." 
 
 " Just so. So we may count that you can be con- 
 firmed " 
 
 " I am not going to be confirmed ! " 
 
 " Not going " 
 
 Pam patted her pocket, in which the little snake had 
 begun to give wriggles of impatience, and smiled gravely 
 into Mr. Cunningham's face. 
 
 " No. I hope you don't mind ? " 
 
 "But, my dear child " 
 
 " I have never been christened, you see, so it hardly seems 
 worth while." 
 
 The Rector rose. He had christened and confirmed 
 Pauline Yeoland ; her " fall " had been a severe blow to 
 him, and he had never ceased to pray for her. Now here 
 was her own child telling him that she had not only so far 
 forgotten her dignity as Lord Yeoland's daughter as to run 
 away from home with a married opera singer, but that in 
 the two years that had elapsed before the birth of her child 
 she had so forgotten his teaching as not even to have that 
 poor little offspring of sin in the name of Christ given the 
 only name it could bear. 
 
 He walked up and down In pained silence for a moment, 
 and then turned. " But, Pamela, you must be christened. 
 I cannot understand " 
 
 " Oh, I was born on a yacht, you know, and then later 
 well, I suppose they forgot. I really don't mind a bit, 
 though," she added consolingly. 
 
 " My poor child ! " The good man's uninteresting eyes 
 filled with tears, and Pam jumped up and rushing to him 
 caught his hand. 
 
 " Oh, please don't ! Don't be so sorry. I never cared 
 a pin. They'd have let me be, I'm sure, if I had 
 wanted to."
 
 P AM 65 
 
 " It's not that, my dear, but that you are so such a 
 it is so dreadful that you have not been christened." 
 
 Her face lightened suddenly, and slipping her hands 
 around his arm she gave it a little squeeze. 
 
 " Oh now I see. Well, I will be if you want me to. 
 I'd just as soon as not; I mean christened. So please don't 
 be sorry. I can't bear to have people be sorry ! " 
 
 " You wish me to christen you! " 
 
 She smiled kindly at him. " Well, as long as you want 
 to, you may. I'm not particularly keen on it, but you may, 
 and whenever you like." 
 
 Her air of making a good-natured concession to an unrea- 
 sonable but favourite child would have convulsed any one 
 possessed of the slightest sense of humour, but a w r ise Provi- 
 dence had denied the good Rector that very great gift (per- 
 haps because his marriage was already planned in heaven, 
 ad Charlotte Louisa Percy was not destined to be a delight 
 to one who did possess it), and he did not even smile. 
 
 Pam arranged with him that the ceremony should take 
 place the following Wednesday in the church. It could 
 not be on Tuesday, as she had an engagement. 
 
 She did not mention that the engagement was connected 
 with two ferrets and her cousin a la main gauche de Rattrec 
 G. Y. Maxse.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 LORD YEOLAND assisted at Pam's christening with 
 the chastened demeanour of one who realises that his feelings 
 do not fit the occasion. The child's air of good-natured tol- 
 erance for an old-fashioned superstition, in which many 
 worthy people still believed, almost upset his gravity more 
 than once, but a glance at Cazalet's and good Mr. Cunning- 
 ham's happy faces steadied it for the time. 
 
 Mrs. Maxse, Evelyn, and Ratty were also present, and 
 the ceremony passed off in a manner satisfactory to them 
 all. When it was over and Lord .Yeoland had kissed his 
 grandchild's still damp brow, a scurrying noise was heard 
 behind them, and down the aisle scampered Caliban, chat- 
 tering irascibly. 
 
 Pam burst out laughing, and caught him up into her 
 arms. 
 
 " Oh, you bad boy! " she remarked sociably. " You have 
 run away again. And he couldn't imagine what Pam was 
 doing here in the cold, old church, could he! " 
 
 Even Lord Yeoland was a little startled by the every- 
 day sound of her voice in that Sunday environment, and 
 he hurried the little party out into the pale October sun- 
 light. 
 
 " Wasn't it lovely, Pam ? " asked Evelyn as they turned 
 towards home. 
 
 "What? Oh, being christened? Yes, very nice, indeed. 
 Oh! I forgot to thank Mr. Cunningham. Wait a minute. 
 Ratty, will you?" 
 
 66
 
 PAM 67 
 
 Ratty followed her and reached the vestry door just in 
 time to see her embrace the good man. 
 
 " Thank you so much ! " she said politely, with the effusion 
 of one whose tiresome act of duty is now happily a thing 
 of the past and done with ; "it is nice to have a real 
 name." 
 
 The Rector's eyes filled with tears. He would have 
 known how to deal with mere ignorance, with obstinacy, or 
 with actual opposition ; but this slip of a girl, with her tragic 
 eyes and her queenly manner of making him concessions in 
 this little matter that chanced to interest him, foiled him 
 utterly. 
 
 So he kissed her, told her that he would pray for her, and 
 sent her off with Ratty, who, very bulbous in a new suit, 
 awaited her outside the door. 
 
 " I say, Pam, you are a funny one," the boy began, with 
 a curiosity that he did not know how to express. 
 
 " I am not much like other children, that is true," she 
 returned indifferently. " Pilgrim says it's because I have 
 had such a queer life, but it comes from inside really." 
 
 Ratty's interest in and knowledge of his own inside being 
 strictly limited to his stomach, he did not answer. 
 
 The two children walked on for a few minutes in silence, 
 and then he began suddenly: " I say, Pam, Bingham \s 
 coming back to-morrow." 
 
 "Is he?" 
 
 "Yes. And lessons will begin. Oh, hang it, how I do 
 hate learning! " 
 
 " I don't. I like it." 
 
 " Wait till he makes you do a lot of nasty Latin into 
 English. He's an awful rotter." 
 
 " I'm not going to learn Latin." 
 
 " Yes, you are. Grandfather says you are to learn every- 
 thing with me."
 
 68 P AM 
 
 " I won't. I'm going to learn history, and how to write 
 like Evelyn ; that's all." 
 
 " You'll have to learn whatever grandfather says, Miss 
 Cocksure," retorted the boy. 
 
 "Pooh! I'm not his child; nor yours, either, Fat Boy, 
 and no one in the world can make me do what I don't 
 want to." 
 
 She slung the monkey to her other arm, and Ratty, look- 
 ing at her in vexed admiration, saw that her red lips were 
 drawn tight in a way very like his grandfather's. 
 
 " How do you do it? I mean not do what they say? I 
 often try, and I always fail sooner or later." 
 
 "Oh, you!" she returned with good-natured contempt. 
 " You couldn't do it because you care about things." 
 
 " Care about things? " 
 
 " Yes; about food, and holidays, and presents, and things." 
 
 " Well, don't you care about 'em? " 
 
 She stopped and looked at him. " No. When I want 
 to have my own way the only thing in the world that 
 interests me is getting it. I don't care if they shut me up, 
 and I forget all about the sweets and things they don't let 
 us have. I only want one thing at a time, and I want it 
 hard. That's the way I always get it." 
 
 Ratty sighed. 
 
 " I wish I were like you, but I'm not. I want, or like, 
 such a lot of things at a time." 
 
 " I know. So you always give in. It is," she added with 
 a sudden assumption of wisdom, " better for children to 
 obey; every one says so, particularly Pilgrim. Only it 
 doesn't amuse me to obey." 
 
 Ratty maintained a depressed silence for a few minutes; 
 the presence of such undeniable mental superiority in a mere 
 girl, who was his own cousin at that, dispirited him. Then 
 suddenly the cheering thought occurred to him that Lord
 
 P AM 69 
 
 Yeoland's will was popularly supposed to be fairly strong, 
 and that Pam would probably in the matter of Latin not 
 have quite the walkover that she anticipated. 
 
 " Well, we shall see," he observed, as they came out into 
 the lawn behind the house. " Grandfather told mother 
 that you were to learn everything I do, that's all I know." 
 
 Pam did not answer; the subject had ceased to interest 
 her. 
 
 That evening as Pilgrim dressed her for dinner the maid 
 asked whether she had of late had any news from home. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you. They are going to 
 Cannes for Christmas. Mother sent her love to you, and 
 she has a lovely new pale blue dinner gown, and wishes 
 you were there to lace it up. Claire is very nice, but not 
 like Pilly, she says." 
 
 Pilgrim's grim face softened. She had been very happy 
 at Monk's Yeoland, for to her surprise she had had a great 
 social success among the servants and villagers, all of them 
 clothing their curiosity regarding " Miss Pauline " in a 
 garment of cordiality towards their old comrade. 
 
 It was, of course, perfectly in accordance with the 
 unchangeable dictates of that most interesting mystery that 
 we call human nature, that Pilgrim's society should now 
 be more sought after than in the days before she had eloped 
 with her young mistress and her mistress's lover; but 
 Pilgrim knew little about human nature, and was therefore 
 touched and grateful for not being treated, as she had more 
 than half expected, as a pariah. 
 
 Thus the months passed pleasantly enough for the maid, 
 and she had grown both more agreeable and slightly rounder 
 as to shoulders and elbows in the comfortable atmosphere 
 of her old home. 
 
 So only a further reference to the inexplicabilities of 
 human nature can explain the fact that the reference to her
 
 70 P AM 
 
 mistress's new gown brought with it a sudden rush of the 
 most convincing homesickness for that mistress. 
 
 It seemed to her, as she stood with a brush in one hand 
 and Pam's splendid silky hair sweeping over the other, that 
 everything on earth was unbearable; that she must either 
 fly to the outer darkness she had just escaped and see and 
 touch Pauline Yeoland, or die. 
 
 Pam, looking at her little, thin shoulders and arms in the 
 glass, raised her eyes and noticed the woman's face. 
 
 "Why, Pilgrim! What is the matter?" she cried. 
 
 " Nothing, Miss Pam. I am an old fool, that is all," was 
 the answer, as the brush began to sweep steadily through 
 the hair. 
 
 " But you are pale and you are going to cry. Poor 
 old Pilly, what is it?" 
 
 Then Pilgrim broke down and wept until her nose was as 
 red as fire and her thin lips swollen. " I don't know what 
 it is," she sobbed ; " it just came over me how I want 
 to see her." Pam's arms were close around her neck, so 
 she could not see the child's face. 
 
 " Mother ! It's mother you want to see ! But you were 
 glad to come, Pilly! And I thought you liked it here so 
 much. Because every one is married, you know, and you 
 don't feel disgraced ! " 
 
 " Oh, Pam, don't ! I do like it I mean I did. But 
 after all, it is a bit dull, and then she doesn't care a fig for 
 me ; I know that as well as you, but I can't help it. Ever}' 
 one is dull after her." 
 
 Pam's eyes grew suddenly monkey-like. 
 
 She knew perfectly that her mother's utter forgetfulness 
 of every one and everything on earth besides Guy Sacheverel 
 did not tend to render her a splendid exception from the 
 dulness of the rest of human kind. Pauline was brilliant 
 only in her radiant golden and white beauty. She took
 
 PAM 71 
 
 no pains to be amusing; her careless good-nature would, 
 had she been plain, not have sufficed to endear her to her 
 servants, and even Pam's share in her affections were, the 
 child herself knew, comparatively small. Many people live 
 to a good old age thinking that those who love many are 
 loved much, but small as she was Pam had learnt the fallacy 
 of this useful belief. 
 
 She knew that her mother attracted people quite without 
 making an effort, or even caring a rush about it; she knew 
 that there was in her mother something that drew to her all 
 sorts and conditions of men and women. That this quality 
 is pitifully expressed by the long-suffering word " charm " 
 the child did not know, but she felt its power in her mother, 
 and now seeing the new exposition of it in the unlovely 
 Pilgrim, something seemed suddenly to be drawing her too 
 away from Monk's Yeoland back to the old life. 
 
 And for the first time missing her mother and father, 
 she missed them with such violence that she ached all 
 over. 
 
 " Don't howl, Pilly dear. You must dress me, you know, 
 or I'll be late for dinner. And I know what you mean. 
 I've had about enough of this. I think we'll not stay 
 much longer." 
 
 Pilgrim blew her nose and then gasped with surprise. 
 " But, Miss Pam we have come for good ! Your mother 
 gave you to 'is lordship." 
 
 " Rubbish! Ain't I me? No one can give me away." 
 
 " You are to be educated, though, and and it is much 
 better for you, of course; that life is not fit for a young 
 lady." 
 
 Pilgrim finished, as she spoke, the first of the long plaits 
 that had superseded the topknot as a state coiffure, and 
 slipped the little blue frock over Pam's head. 
 
 " I'm not a young lady; don't be nonsensical, Pilgrim.
 
 72 P A M 
 
 And don't pull my ear off. I tell you what I think. I shall 
 go back soon. I may come back next summer, though." 
 
 " If you run away, Miss Pam, they won't let you come 
 back," returned Pilgrim severely. She was, as frequently 
 happens, rather startled by the effect of her own words, 
 and showed an amiable desire to eat them. 
 
 " Oh, yes, they will." Pam clasped about her collar the 
 string of tiny pearls her grandfather had recently given her, 
 and gave a hasty, uninterested glance at herself in the glass. 
 " My grandfather will always be glad to see me. I amuse 
 him."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 MR. THEODORE BINGHAM, the tutor, rather thin 
 and very brown after his convalescence at the sea-shore r un- 
 expectedly reconciled Pam to a few weeks more of Monks' 
 Yeoland. 
 
 He was a well-favoured youth, with what she called 
 specks of gold in his brown eyes, and a pet pipe, very black 
 and disreputable-looking, which he smoked whenever he 
 could escape from the trammels of society for a few moments. 
 
 Pam at once told him that she loved him. 
 
 " Oh, Pam, how can you! " 
 
 Evelyn was genuinely shocked. Although she had no 
 lessons with her brother, she had come to his room on the 
 great occasion of Pam's presentation, half-frightened (for 
 Ratty had told her that there was bound to be a row) and 
 half curious to see how her redoubtable cousin would behave. 
 
 Pam's behaviour, she found, left much to be desired. 
 
 " Well, I do love him, Evelyn, so why shouldn't I say 
 so?" 
 
 Ratty laughed. " She won't love him long, Evy. Wait 
 till he begins with her Latin." 
 
 Pam, who had brought Caliban, sat down on the floor 
 and looked intently at the tutor's boyish face. 
 
 " I shall always love you," she answered ; " Ratty doesn't 
 know one thing about me." 
 
 " You can't love him until you know him," persisted 
 Evelyn with gentle obstinacy. 
 
 " Or until you see how he treats you," added Ratty. 
 
 73
 
 74 P AM 
 
 " It doesn't make any difference how long I've known 
 him. Do I love every one I've known a long time? 
 There's " 
 
 She paused, for she could hardly say that a long acquaint- 
 ance with the children's father had utterly failed to con- 
 vince her of that volatile gentleman's fascinations. "And 
 it doesn't," she went on, " make any difference what he does 
 to me. If I love him, I love him." 
 
 Bingham gave a merry laugh. 
 
 " You are a funny little person," he observed, " but I'm 
 glad you love me. I shan't love you, though, unless you are 
 a good girl and learn your lessons." 
 
 Pam rose. " I don't care whether you love me or not ; 
 that is," she added with slightly bored accuracy, " I'd rather 
 you did, but if you don't it won't make me stop loving you." 
 
 " It won't? Well, as long as we seem to be discussing 
 the tender passion, I may observe that as a rule reciprocity is 
 considered rather important as a hostage." 
 
 Ratty and Evelyn listened vaguely. The splendid words 
 employed by the tutor impressed them. 
 
 Pam shrugged her shoulders and rubbed her cheek to 
 Caliban's. 
 
 " ' Love is not love M'hich alters when it alteration 
 finds,' " she answered so matter-of-factedly that Bingham 
 at first did not notice that she was quoting. Before he 
 could answer she went on : " Well, I'm going to see Cazzy. 
 Good-bye," and left the room. 
 
 The talent for giving our friends an opportunity for 
 gracefully changing their minds, and doing diametrically 
 the opposite of that which they have been swearing to 
 do, is unfortunately a neglected one. 
 
 Ratty, had he allowed Pam to follow the dictates of her 
 mind on Wednesday night, might have changed the course 
 of her life, but fortunately or unfortunately he did not. and
 
 P A M 75 
 
 the next time he saw her reminded her triumphantly of her 
 vows of Tuesday regarding the Latin lessons. 
 
 " What '11 you do about the lessons, now that you love him 
 so?" the boy cried, munching his cake, for the interview 
 took place at tea. 
 
 "Lessons?" 
 
 " The Latin lessons." 
 
 " Oh, I shan't care now." Pam was absent-minded, for 
 Cazzy had to her great surprise taken her rather seriously 
 to task for some minor misdemeanour, and she felt that the 
 world could be very bitter. 
 
 Ratty gave a laugh, that ended, owing to a misdirected 
 crumb, in a snort. "Ha! Just like a girl. Now that 
 you see what a big chap he is, you're afraid ! " 
 
 The girl flushed. " I'm not afraid. Tutors don't punish 
 girls." 
 
 "Don't they! You wait." 
 
 " I shall do just as I like about the Latin. If I do study 
 it, it will be because I like him and want to please him." 
 
 The lessons were not to begin, owing to a sudden fit 
 of indulgence on Lord Yeoland's part, until November I, 
 and during the week before that date Pam's devotion to 
 Mr. Bingham increased rapidly. 
 
 It was to him that she flew whenever she could escape 
 from Ratty, whose fitful adoration, tempered with con- 
 tempt, bored her unutterably. 
 
 She took the tutor to see her favourite places in the 
 park, and the garden; she preached to him in the refectory, 
 using her voice for his benefit with all her skill, sinking to 
 depths and rising to soft heights that thrilled even the rather 
 unemotional spirit of the ex-football champion. And one 
 evening, when it was very damp and misty, she stole away 
 from the school-room and joined him on the terrace where, 
 among the ghostly rose-trees, he was smoking his evening pipe.
 
 76 P AM 
 
 " I love the mist, don't you ? " she began, taking his arm. 
 
 " Yes rather. You'll take cold, though, Pam ; don't you 
 want to put on my cap ? " 
 
 She laughed. " No. I have too much hair to need a 
 cap. Did you ever see my hair down I mean loose? " 
 
 " No. I say, you'll get a wigging if Mrs. Maxse finds 
 you out here. I ought to send you in." 
 
 " I daresay, but you won't," she returned carelessly. 
 " The moon is coming out oh, look, how lovely! " 
 
 And the moon is never more beautiful than when shining 
 through a white autumn mist on brilliant creepers and 
 ghostly yellowing leaves. 
 
 But Bingham loved an argument. " How do you know 
 I won't send you in ? " 
 
 " Because I amuse you." 
 
 "Well, what if you do?" 
 
 " How curious you are ! I mean that you will keep me 
 with you because I amuse you." 
 
 " Lots of things amuse me that I don't do, or ' keep with 
 me,' " he persisted, as they turned at the end of the terrace. 
 
 " Then you are a goose. I always do and keep things 
 I like. Other things are so boresome. Now look." 
 
 Without his noticing it, she had loosened her hair, and 
 now she came in front of him, holding it out at arm's length, 
 with both hands. 
 
 "Stand still there!" 
 
 The straggling moonlight fell over her strange little 
 figure, changing her face, making her at once a pathetic 
 mist spirit and a tragic woman. For the first time Bing- 
 ham saw her possibilities. The hair in its soft darkness gave 
 to her the air of being a woman who, with loose tresses, 
 looks younger than she is, and it hid the immature lines of 
 her figure. 
 
 At first she danced. Waving her arms, crossing them,
 
 PAM 77 
 
 bending backwards and forwards, kneeling, whirling, she 
 was dancing to charm him, and every movement was full 
 of innocent coquetry. He forgot who she was, that she 
 was a child, that she was an absurd little monkey; for her 
 appeal had reached his imagination and he gazed at her 
 dreamily, in silence. 
 
 Then suddenly she stopped and began to recite, in Italian. 
 He did not understand the words, but their meaning was 
 clear. It was, though he did not know it, one of Ravaglia's 
 most celebrated recitations, and given in a wonderfully 
 exact reproduction of the best of the great artist's intona- 
 tions. But what breathed life into it was the originality 
 of the child's mind, which shone through every word and 
 every gesture. 
 
 As she reached the climax her voice, hurried and vibrating, 
 broke, and with the one word "Amore " with which 
 Ravaglia had always moved her audiences to frenzy in 
 Latin countries, and to enthusiasm in England, she sprang 
 forward, her hands held out, her lips parted. 
 
 Bingham, hardly knowing what he was doing, caught 
 her in his arms and kissed her. 
 
 When he set her down he was red with anger against 
 himself. 
 
 "Bravo!" he cried, forcing a laugh. "Very well done 
 indeed. I quite thought we were both on the stage! " 
 
 " You you kissed me," she stammered. 
 
 He laughed again. "I did; why not? I have a lot 
 of little sisters about your age. I I must show you their 
 pictures." 
 
 She caught his hand and held it to her breast. " Yes ; 
 show them to me. And you must love me. Will you? 
 Will you promise? As much as you love them?" 
 
 " Yes, yes, I promise, if you are a good child," he returned, 
 much relieved.
 
 78 PAM 
 
 " I will be good. I will do anything on earth that you 
 want me to," she said, winding her hair into a rope, with 
 a curious circular movement of her head and pinning it on 
 her crown. " Only you must love me really, as much as if 
 I were your sister. I always wanted a brother." 
 
 " When my sisters are troublesome I give 'em awful 
 wiggings! " 
 
 "And you may give me wiggings. Oh, I will be verf 
 good! " she cried.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 " I WILL do anything but that." 
 
 Pam stood in the window, Caliban held tight in het 
 arms. 
 
 " But this is the only thing I want." 
 
 " I can't. I'll learn Greek, if you like? Greek is much 
 nicer than Latin, and much harder." 
 
 " Latin. Your grandfather says that you are to study 
 everything that Ratty does." 
 
 There was a pause. 
 
 " What is your first name? " inquired Pam suddenly. 
 
 " My first name? Theodore. Why? " 
 
 " Theodore means gift of God. I thought you were a 
 gift of God to me, because I have no real brother. But 
 when you torment me, I see that you aren't." 
 
 Bingham gave a vexed laugh. " My dear child, I don't 
 want to torment you. If you would just be reasonable " 
 
 " I won't." 
 
 " So it seems. Well, I have done my best. I am sorry, 
 but I shall have to tell Lord Yeoland that you refuse to 
 obey him." 
 
 " Very well." Her voice sounded a little mournful, but 
 had none of the note of intimidation that the tutor knew 
 in Ratty's at such threats. 
 
 " My grandfather w T ill be very much distressed," she 
 added, " and he is an old man." 
 
 Bingham nodded gravely. " I know such shocks are 
 dangerous at his age."
 
 so P AM 
 
 Sorrowfully they looked at each other as if in mournful 
 council over the health of some dear one. 
 
 Then suddenly Pam burst out into a peal of such merry 
 laughter that he joined her in a companionable forgetfuiness 
 of their position as outraged master and refractory pupil. 
 
 "It is so funny," she began, "isn't it? Now don't say 
 it isn't, for it is. I mean your trying to make me obey 
 you." 
 
 " I don't quite see the fun." 
 
 " Why, because the more you insist, the harder it will 
 be for you to give way." 
 
 " That's a point of view that had escaped my notice. 
 Doesn't it seem to you that the more you insist the 
 harder " 
 
 " No, for I shan't give in. Now I'll go down and talk 
 to my grandfather. I had better break the sad news 
 myself." 
 
 Her eyes twinkled as she left the room. 
 
 Bingham was puzzled. She was uncanny, with her 
 grown-up ways and her very unchildlike sense of humour. 
 However, Lord Yeoland would know how to manage her. 
 
 Lord Yeoland, who had had gout rather badly for a 
 couple of days, was not in the blandest of humours when 
 the child entered the room. She saw it, and sitting down 
 opposite him made conversation for several minutes before 
 springing her mine. She told him of the prospective mar- 
 riage between one of the under-gardeners and Lucy, the 
 housemaid with the dimple; she waxed eloquent over the 
 new litter of puppies in the stables and enthusiastic in her 
 account of the last book she had read. Then, suddenly, she 
 burst out, " Grandfather, I don't want to learn Latin, 
 please." 
 
 " Not learn Latin? Why not? " 
 
 "Because I don't."
 
 P AM 81 
 
 The old man looked at her. " Give me your reasons, 
 please," he said testily. 
 
 " Ratty says " 
 
 "Never mind what Ratty says. Confound the boy! he 
 grows fatter every day. Answer my question." 
 
 " Well, I don't want to, because I don't. I can't think 
 of a better reason." 
 
 " Nor I of a worse." 
 
 " First I said I wouldn't because Ratty said I must, and 
 then when I said I would, Ratty " 
 
 "Why did you say you would?" 
 
 " Because I liked Mr. Bingham." Caliban, who had 
 a very human understanding and was a sensitive soul, 
 snuggled his small head close under her warm chin as the 
 old man snapped out his question, and the child, stroking 
 the little creature reassuringly, said in her tenderest voice, 
 " Never mind, dear, he won't hurt you ; it's only the gout ! " 
 
 Lord Yeoland grinned ferociously. " What's only the 
 gout?" 
 
 " Your being cross. You frighten him." 
 
 "Aha! I beg your pardon, I'm sure; I have no business 
 to visit the sins of my toe on you and Caliban. You were 
 saying that you decided to obey me because you like Mr. 
 Bingham ; a most feminine line of reasoning. Go on." 
 
 "And then Ratty said it was because I was afraid. That 
 I was afraid Mr. Bingham would punish me. That it was 
 because he was so much bigger than I." 
 
 " H'm! " The old man's good humour was coming back. 
 " Bingham certainly appears to be several sizes larger riian 
 you. Well?" 
 
 " So, you see, I can't give in and obey Mr. Bingham." 
 
 " I don't see that at all, my dear." 
 
 " But I cannot let Ratty think I am afraid." 
 
 "Why don't you tell him you are not?" His interest
 
 82 P AM 
 
 grew apace. She was very quaint standing there, a long 
 pig-tail hanging over each shoulder and nearly to the floor, 
 lending a look of almost Egyptian sternness to her small 
 white face, the monkey's, so grotesquely caricaturing her 
 own, pressed to her cheek. " I really fail to see what Ratty 
 has to do with it." 
 
 " The people one lives with always have something to do 
 with it, grandfather." 
 
 He laughed. " That is true. Well, so your line of 
 action has been ? " 
 
 " I have refused to learn Latin." 
 
 " Have you told Bingham? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "What does he say?" 
 
 " He scolds and coaxes, and threatens to tell you." 
 
 " Which explains your having to come to tell me your- 
 self?" 
 
 She looked surprised. " No, I wanted to ask your 
 advice." 
 
 " Oh ! Well, I advise you to learn Latin. It is a 
 charming tongue." 
 
 " But I don't want to! And then Ratty is so disagreeable. 
 He thinks that because he is a boy he must tease me." 
 
 " What would happen if you simply said you have 
 changed your mind and decided to obey me? " 
 
 The irony of his suggestion entirely escaped her. 
 
 " I can't say that. Don't you see ? " 
 
 " You can if you want to ! " 
 
 " Then I don't want to." 
 
 Suddenly, without warning, the Yeoland spirit of irre- 
 sponsibility touched him on the shoulder. The sight of 
 her was so funny; her utter unconsciousness of the over- 
 whelming majority of the forces arrayed against her so 
 delicious; her conviction of perfect equality with any oppo-
 
 P AM 83 
 
 nent the fates might bring her so very pathetic, that he 
 greeted the spirit with a delighted laugh. 
 
 " Good ! I never could resist a woman. You shall learn 
 no Latin ! " 
 
 And then with a thoroughly childish joy she flew at 
 him and kissed him gratefully. " Dear G. F. Thank you, 
 thank you so much ! " 
 
 " What would you have done if I hadn't relented, eh ? " 
 he asked as she released him. " You wouldn't have liked 
 being forced to obey! " 
 
 She smiled. 
 
 " Oh, I shouldn't have obeyed ; only it would have been 
 very disagreeable for us all." 
 
 When he was alone he chuckled several times over the 
 interview, and mentally followed her in her triumphant 
 entry into the school-room. 
 
 Her communication, however, was destined to be post- 
 poned, for she found the school-room empty, and not until 
 tea-time did Mr. Bingham return thither. 
 
 When he did come, it was with Ratty and Evelyn and 
 a pair of fox-terriers whom Pam detested, out of sympathy 
 with Caliban, who gibbered with terror at their approach. 
 
 " Oh, please send Nip and Tuck out of the room ! they 
 frighten Caliban," she cried, coming forward from the 
 window-seat where she had been watching the sunset. 
 
 Ratty laughed. " They have a better right here than that 
 beast of a monkey! " he said roughly. 
 
 " Ratty ! I told you to put them out." 
 
 " Nonsense ; don't put on airs." 
 
 The dogs were now barking excitedly at the palpitating 
 little beast in her arms, and Pam's temper rose. 
 
 " Mr. Bingham, tell him he must." 
 
 But Bingham had seen Lord Yeoland a few minutes be- 
 fore, and an amused word from the old man as to Pam
 
 84 P AM 
 
 had irritated him. He was an easy-going enough youth, 
 as a rule, but he had made a point of making Pam have the 
 Latin lessons, and the fact that a little cajoling on her part 
 had caused his employer to give her her way in direct op- 
 position to his own wishes had ruffled him. 
 
 Now, the sight of the victor with the monkey whom he 
 had never liked in her arms brought a frown to his smooth, 
 young brow. " The dogs have a perfect right to be here if 
 Ratty wants them," he said shortly, sitting down. 
 
 Pam opened her eyes very wide and stared at him. They 
 had parted friendly enemies, and she could not understand 
 his sudden change of tone. 
 
 "Very well," she^said slowly. "Then Cal and I will 
 go. Aunt Rosamund will give us tea." 
 
 Instinctively she had long since learned that her small 
 presence lightened to the tutor the dulness of his hours 
 with Ratty; as she expressed it to herself she knew that 
 she amused him. Now she would go, and he would be 
 bored. But, being a woman-child, she shot her shaft before 
 going. 
 
 " Grandfather says that I need not learn Latin." 
 
 Bingham nodded carelessly. Unconsciously he treated 
 her as he would have treated a woman, and his weapon 
 struck her full in the breast. 
 
 " I know ; he told me. I am sorry, for you would have 
 liked it. Evelyn is going to learn it, aren't you, Evy ? " 
 And tenderly drawing the little girl to him he kissed her. 
 Pam stood still, turning white. 
 
 "Evelyn! Latin! Pooh she cannot!" 
 
 Bingham smiled, but his eyes were hard with triumph. 
 
 " Can't she? We shall see, shan't we, dear? " 
 
 Pam rushed from the room. Jealousy, that fire-clawed 
 demon, tore at her all night. That Bingham shouldn't care 
 about the lessons was bad ; that he should teach Evelyn was
 
 P AM 85 
 
 worse; that he should speak to Evelyn in that voice, and 
 kiss her, was absolutely unbearable. 
 
 The child lay awake all night thinking. For her to 
 relent and beg to be forgiven was as impossible as it would 
 have been for her to grow a foot before morning. For her 
 to live on at Monks' Yeoland and see Bingham smile at 
 Evy as he had at dessert was equally out of the question. 
 
 There was but one course to take, and she took it un- 
 hesitatingly. 
 
 She left the house at dawn with Pilgrim, whose own 
 feelings were too evenly divided between distress at going 
 and delight at the prospect of seeing Pauline, to allow her 
 to make any active resistance. 
 
 They took the train for London, which they reached by 
 nine o'clock, and went at once to Dover. 
 
 Thus, for the second time, Jane Pilgrim ran away frorr 
 Respectability and Monks' Yeoland.
 
 PART II 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE tall slim girl who, with a singular grace of shoulders 
 and hips, that seemed to have come unusually early, judging 
 from the undeveloped line of her figure, walked up the steps 
 into the Casino at Aix-le-Bains one evening three years and 
 a half later was Pamela Yeoland, and the elderly woman 
 decently clad in black, with a very smart bonnet, who 
 walked stiffly beside the girl, was Pilgrim. Pilgrim's Prog- 
 ress, as Guy Sacheverel called it, had gone on, since her second 
 flight from Monks' Yeoland, much as might have been 
 expected. 
 
 Following the fortunes of her mistress, growing a little 
 grimmer and a little bitterer every day, in her self-elected 
 outlawry, she had gone on wasting the whole love of her 
 heart on the gently indifferent Pauline, and protecting Pam 
 from the slights and unpleasantness that the child neither 
 anticipated nor resented when they did come, with a tender- 
 ness as thorny as ever was tenderness in this world. Sache- 
 verel was the only one of the trio who appreciated Pilgrim, 
 for Pauline was too careless, and Pam too used to the 
 woman to allow of her almost grotesquely illogical char- 
 acter's appealing to them. 
 
 And now that Pam was nearly fifteen, Pilgrim's eager 
 chaperonage of her waxed and increased in a way whose 
 touching side did not escape the handsome ex-singer. 
 
 As his daughter and the woman disappeared behind the 
 ^winging doors, Sacheverel, who was walking up and down 
 on one of the reading-room verandahs, awaiting Pauline, 
 
 86
 
 P AM 87 
 
 looked after them, a half smile on his face ; and when Pauline 
 came out of the room, some letters in her hand, he said 
 to her, " Pam and Pilgrim have just gone in. Pilgrim is 
 a delicious creature, dearest." 
 
 " Pilgrim? She is a good soul, certainly, but we'd 
 better go, Guy, it's nearly time, and I don't want to miss 
 the serenade." 
 
 " But that's just it ; she isn't a good creature. She's 
 full of gall and bitterness; she resents with all her heart all 
 the things about which you and I don't care a damn." 
 
 Pauline put on her glove and smoothed it daintily. " Pil- 
 grim? Oh, yes, she's cross enough. She nearly jerked all 
 my hair out the day Claire was ill, and Pam didn't come 
 to dinner; you remember." 
 
 "Oh, yes! Pam and Marguerite Monsigny! It was 
 funny, in a way." 
 
 " Pam had no business to dine with such a creature, but 
 then she didn't know, poor child! What a rage Pilgrim 
 was in! " 
 
 " Pilgrim gave me a most awful wigging. And of course 
 she was right, in a way. Pam is nearly fifteen, and her posi- 
 tion is peculiar." 
 
 Pauline nodded. " Oh, of course, but still Pilgrim was 
 very impertinent that day. I'm glad that she devotes her- 
 self to Pam; I prefer Claire." 
 
 " Well, Pilgrim in the Peace Bonnet is a watch-dog 
 warranted to keep even admiring glances from the greatest 
 beauty on earth. And our Pam, bless her, is hardly that," 
 he added with a good-natured laugh. 
 
 They went into the little theatre and sat down in the 
 box Sacheverel had taken for the opera, which was unusually 
 good that year. 
 
 " I suppose we really ought to bring Pam with us," he 
 began doubtfully ; " there's plenty of room."
 
 8 P AM 
 
 Pauline looked at him, her blue eyes tender. " Dear! 
 We should, neither of us, enjoy it half as much with her 
 here. And she is perfectly happy with Pilgrim." 
 
 " I daresay. She told me the other day," he added, laugh- 
 ing again, " that she didn't care to go driving with us ; that 
 she hated to feel de trop" 
 
 Pauline smiled too. Pam amused her, and she was fond 
 of the child, of course, but it was better to have Pam down 
 in the stalls with good Pilgrim. 
 
 This feeling Pam quite shared. 
 
 "Pilly, look! That's the King of Greece. And there's 
 that rich Brazilian. Doesn't he look exactly like a nigger? 
 And oh, look, there comes Monsigny! Isn't she glorious? 
 The King of the Belgians or was it Prince Belisoff? gave 
 her the diamonds. I wish I could have a pink gown like 
 that." 
 
 Pilgrim frowned. " Hush, Miss Pam. Don't stare so at 
 that woman." 
 
 " But every one stares at her. Almost more than at 
 mother. Isn't mother a dream in that gown ! " 
 
 Poor Pilgrim shuddered at hearing the girl composedly 
 comparing her mother to the notorious Parisian, but she 
 said nothing. It was quite useless to try to convince Pam 
 of things about which she had made up her mind, and hav- 
 ing met the beautiful Monsigny through finding and re- 
 turning a jewelled fan that the "artiste" as she called her- 
 self, had dropped after a concert, the girl adored the lovely 
 woman, although her father had insisted on limiting the 
 acquaintance, after the dinner, to bowing terms. 
 
 The little theatre had rilled and was now, at the hour 
 advertised for the beginning of the Cavalleria Rusticana, 
 respectfully quiet. 
 
 Pam's neighbour, a red-faced Englishman who had been 
 grumbling to the man on his right that his doctor, con-
 
 P AM 89 
 
 found him, had shut down on his Benedictine, subsided into 
 silence, and the conductor raised his baton. 
 
 Pam listened, but she was not particularly fond of music, 
 and found the audience more interesting by far than Mas- 
 cagni's masterpiece. 
 
 She had been in Aix for a fortnight, and therefore knew 
 by sight a great many of the celebrities who in that most 
 frivolous of watering-places do congregate. 
 
 There was Mimi Lalonde, famous for her beautiful feet 
 and her remarkably bad luck at " bac " ; in the next box 
 sat Frau Bendl, the great Wagnerian soprano, looking very 
 commonplace and comfortable in a stuffy red velvet gown 
 and a gold chain to her eye-glasses; opposite was Lady 
 Gower, who had recognised Pauline with a start, and been 
 at such pains to cut her publicly. Lord Gower, a dry old 
 man, much like a lizard, would be, Pam knew, in the salle 
 de jeu with a crowd of little Frenchwomen chattering 
 around him. 
 
 The music went on, and the curtain slid slowly up. Pam 
 gave a glance at the stage. She hated Santuzza, who roared 
 because a man wouldn't marry her, and the only episode 
 in the opera which really pleased the girl was that of Alfio's 
 biting Turiddu's ear. But that would not come for some 
 time; first the very unnaturally clean and merry peasants 
 must trip into church, and the tiresome Santa pray and 
 weep for a half hour at least. 
 
 Pam turned unobtrusively in her place and went on with 
 her inspection of the audience. 
 
 Her beautiful mother, leaning on the edge of the loge, 
 listened with a dreamy contentment. Beside her, Sache- 
 verel's dark face, grown a little heavier in the last years, 
 softened as the beautiful music wore on his senses. 
 
 Pam wondered what it was that so stirred them. 
 
 And then suddenly her face fell on a man who, standing
 
 90 PA M 
 
 in the left aisle, leaned against a box and, his arms folded 
 close on his broad breast, was watching her mother. 
 
 She had never seen this man; he was very tall and very 
 heavily built, though not fat. His clear-cut, slightly red- 
 dish face was smooth shaven, and the mouth was at once 
 its most interesting and its handsomest feature. 
 
 Something in the cut of his hair and that of his clothes 
 proclaimed him to be English, or at least freshly come from 
 London. He was watching Pauline Yeoland's fair face 
 with an intensity and a disregard of possible observation 
 which forcibly struck the child, who in turn was watching 
 him. 
 
 A few minutes later he came slowly down to his seat, 
 which was in the aisle almost facing Pam's, and arranging 
 himself as comfortably as possible in an obviously awkward 
 position, continued his rapt gaze at her mother. His abso- 
 lute immobility was, though the child did not know it, that 
 of great physical strength joined to sound nerves. 
 
 His eyes, she could now see, were reddish-brown and 
 rather prominent. They interested her less than the firm, 
 full lips. She had never seen such a mouth ; and the perfect 
 flower in the perfect coat, the fit of the large white gloves 
 these things added in a curious way to his air of being a 
 half-tamed animal. 
 
 Her eager mind roused, her vivid Imagination burning 
 with thoughts of the man, she was as engrossed as he, and 
 when suddenly, at a great bang of the orchestra, he started 
 and his eyes met hers, his face showed such quick apprecia- 
 tion of her interest, that without awkwardness she continued 
 to look at him, unconsciously turning significantly for an 
 instant to her mother's loge. 
 
 The big blush that crept over his face made her feel an 
 absurdly motherly sympathy, and her eyes expressed it so 
 distinctly that a half-shrug cut the blush short in its prog-
 
 P AM 91 
 
 ress, and he smiled at her with the indulgence one shows 
 to an innocently impertinent child. 
 
 Pam's pride was hurt ; she felt as if some one had slammed 
 a door in her face and, half to torment him with her supe- 
 rior knowledge of the woman in whom his interest was so 
 transparently keen, she met a smiling nod of her mother's 
 at that moment with such a vehement recognition that he 
 turned curiously, and then seeing what had happened, trans- 
 ferred his gaze from the distant and unapproachable mother 
 to the apparently kindly disposed child. Pam was inexor- 
 able for a moment, and then the eloquence of his red-brown 
 gaze vanquished her, and she smiled. 
 
 Pilgrim, whose eyes were glassy with the unlucky Santa's 
 woes, observed nothing, and Pam continued her study of 
 the big man with the frankness of ignorance and deep in- 
 terest. She was disposed to be analytical, in a small way, 
 of her own thoughts and feelings, but she could not account 
 for the queer charm the man had for her. The hair was 
 wearing away from his forehead ; he was quite old from her 
 point of view, and his face was red. Yet she longed to 
 know him and to talk with him. 
 
 At last Turiddu and Alfio had gone not to return, and 
 the curtain went down on the scurrying crowd of peasants. 
 The opera was over. 
 
 Pam turned to Pilgrim. " Pilly, mother wants me ; I'll 
 go up to the box. You stay here and then meet me by the 
 door when it's over." 
 
 " I'll come with you, Miss Pam." 
 
 " You won't. Your eyes are all bunged up you're a 
 fright. I know the way. Good-bye." 
 
 Slipping past the indignant servant who in spite of her- 
 self did not dare follow her, the girl sped up the aisle and 
 came out into the crowded foyer. When she had reached 
 the door of her father's loge she paused and turned.
 
 92 P AM 
 
 As she had known by some instinct, the big man was 
 behind her, dwarfing all the others with his bulky height. 
 
 " Mother, I'm going home," she said, entering the box. 
 " I'm tired, and I hate ' Paillaisse '! " 
 
 Pauline turned. " Very well, dear. Where's Pilgrim ? 
 Isn't that she still in her place? " 
 
 " Yes. She has a few tears left and wants to shed them 
 over that tiresome clown. I'll go through the garden and 
 take a fiacre. It's early." 
 
 Her mother nodded. " Go quickly, then, dear. You 
 should have brought her." 
 
 Three minutes later the child stood under a tree in a 
 secluded part of the garden, breathing hard as she watched 
 the big man hurry along towards her. 
 
 " You speak English ? " he began abruptly. 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " I am English." 
 
 "Thank God! I don't know a word of French " 
 
 He hesitated, visibly seeking for words. She looked very 
 young out here, with her long pig-tails hanging over her 
 shoulders and her skirt well above her ankles. 
 
 But a malicious demon of mischief laughed at him out 
 of her dark eyes and gave him courage. 
 
 " Look here," he began abruptly, " there's no use beating 
 about the bush who is she? " 
 
 " The lady in black in the box? " 
 
 "Yes of course." 
 
 " You appear to admire her." 
 
 " I do admire her." 
 
 " She is certainly very pretty." 
 
 He flushed as he had in the theatre. " Yes. You know 
 her; tell me her name." 
 
 Pam laughed. " Why should I ? " 
 
 " You meant to when you let me follow you out here."
 
 P AM 93 
 
 "You don't know what I meant. And no more do I," 
 she added half under her breath. 
 
 " I do. You're too young to have been just making a 
 fool of me, aren't you? " 
 
 " Depends on what you call making a fool of you. I do 
 know her, and I saw that you admired her." 
 
 " Tell me her name." 
 
 His accent was not that of an Englishman, and his curt 
 way of speech was also that of a newer civilisation. 
 
 " Excuse me, but are you an American ? " asked Pam. 
 
 "No; I'm an Australian; Charnley Burke of Victoria, 
 if you want my name and address." 
 
 There was a short silence, while the strains of Pagliacci's 
 entry into the village reached them from afar. 
 
 Then Pam went on, enjoying her power, vicarious though 
 it was, of reducing this big and evidently, at least in his 
 own opinion, important person to the humiliation of begging 
 for this longed-for information. 
 
 " You admire the lady, and you want to know her name? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And when you know it, what will you do ? " 
 
 " That depends. If she is English, as I hope and believe, 
 I shall ask some one to introduce me to her." 
 
 " I see. Well, her name is Pauline Yeoland." 
 
 " Ah ! And the man with her is her husband ? >: He 
 spoke with suppressed intensity, his big voice a little hoarse. 
 
 " No; she has no husband." 
 
 "What! Unmarried? Or a widow?" The joy in his 
 voice urged her to mercifully end his delusion. 
 
 " Unmarried, and " 
 
 " The man who is he? " 
 
 " Guy Sacheverel." 
 
 He frowned. " He used to sing, didn't he? Is she en- 
 gaged to him? They were alone."
 
 94 P AM 
 
 Pam understood now. He had fallen in love with her 
 mother! She gave a little shiver of delight. 
 
 " No, they are not engaged. She they live together." 
 
 He stared for a second and then burst into a hoarse, ugly 
 laugh. 
 
 " So she's another of them! It seems there is nothing 
 else here. I knew the others were, but she I thought 
 she was good." 
 
 His face was dark with anger and disappointment. Pam 
 was desperately sorry for him. 
 
 " Don't ! " she urged, clasping his arm, which felt as 
 hard as iron under the soft broadcloth ; " she is good. She 
 is an angel. You see, they couldn't do anything else. He 
 has a wife, a perfectly horrid person." 
 
 Charnley Burke looked down at her as if he had never 
 seen her before. "I see. Well, have I amused you? Go 
 and tell your angel that a fool from Australia adored her 
 for an hour, and dreamed, actually, of marrying her! Love 
 at first sight," he added to himself, but aloud, " and with 
 one of them, by God ! " 
 
 Although she did not understand what he meant, the 
 girl blazed at the sound of his voice, and drew away from 
 him with a quick movement. 
 
 "Don't you dare say things about her!" she cried furi- 
 ously. She's my mother!" 
 
 Then she was gone, and Burke stood staring after her.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 BUT for one of those chances which are at once so remark- 
 able and so common, Pam and Charnley Burke would never 
 have met again. 
 
 The Australian, after a much troubled night, decided 
 to leave Aix at once, as staying on and again seeing Pauline 
 could only increase his misery. At first, in his angry 
 disillusion, he had made up his mind to arrange a meeting 
 with the woman whose beauty had had such a tremendous 
 effect on his imagination, and then try issue with the man 
 whose back he had seen in the loge. 
 
 " He was lucky, why shouldn't I be? " Burke asked him- 
 self. He was rich, perfectly free, and nearly forty years 
 of varied experience had taught him that something in his 
 very vital personality was attractive to most w r omen. He 
 had, as he recognised with the primitive frankness peculiar 
 to him, fallen seriously in love now, for the first time since 
 his boyhood, and the longer he paced his room that night, 
 Pauline's lovely face distinct in his memory, the stronger 
 his love grew. 
 
 But since Pam's announcement to him and his brutal 
 interpretation of her childish words his love had changed 
 its character. During that hour in the theatre the man 
 would have been willing to kneel before Pauline as to a 
 goddess; in his heart he did kneel to her. All the best in 
 his nature was called out by her, and it came very near, 
 as sometimes happens with men of his stamp, to being 
 adoration. 
 
 95
 
 96 P AM 
 
 Then, by the irony of fate, the woman's own child had 
 dragged her down from the altar built by the man's ima- 
 gination, and as day came in at his windows and he still 
 paced up and down in his evening-dress, he laughed at his 
 own folly, and mentally bespattered his shattered idol with 
 mud she deserved no more than she had deserved the in- 
 cense of the night before. 
 
 He would stay; he would meet her, and what has been 
 can always be again. 
 
 Later, however, when a bath and breakfast had some- 
 what restored his mental balance, he changed his mind. 
 
 He would go at once, and forget all about the woman. 
 There was no sense in tempting fate to such an extent, 
 and what, after all, was he, to dare enter the list with a 
 man who, judged by the splendour of the woman who loved 
 him, must be splendid himself? 
 
 Thus, from a mixture of motives, some worthy, some 
 unworthy, the Australian decided to leave town at once, 
 and, a little pale and worn by his vigil, ordered his bill and 
 went out for a stroll to pass the time until the Paris express 
 left. Turning naturally into the Casino garden, he wan- 
 dered about until, observing a crowd gathered about a man 
 who was photographing the terrace, he half unconsnously 
 joined the onlookers, and stood absently watching the. prep- 
 arations. 
 
 Suddenly he saw a young woman, who was just in front 
 of him, look around with a keen glance, and then with 
 great skill slip her hand into the pocket of the man to her 
 left. 
 
 When the hand came out it held a small pocket-book. 
 Burke watched her with some interest as with a cool " Par- 
 don, m'sieur! " she forced her victim to make way for her, 
 and then sauntered carelessly away towards the nearest exit 
 from the grounds. Burke's great red hand was cruelly
 
 P AM 97 
 
 strong as it closed on the small one of the thief a moment 
 later. 
 
 She threw him a terrified look, and burst into tears and a 
 flood of words simultaneously. 
 
 " I can't understand a word of all that, but I want the 
 pocket-book," he repeated doggedly, and when he at length 
 augmented his formula by the word gendarmes, she handed 
 him the purse and flew away, wiping her eyes with a due 
 regard to her complexion. 
 
 Regretting that he had not had time to give her, out of 
 pity, something from his own pocket, Burke went back to 
 look for the owner of his booty. 
 
 The man, who had left the group about the photographer, 
 and was making his way up the steps, was easily overtaken. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, this is your purse," began the Aus- 
 tralian abruptly. 
 
 Sacheverel, for it was he, stared, and then felt in his 
 empty pocket. 
 
 " Thanks very much. Did I drop it?" 
 
 " No ; a young woman took it, and I took it from the 
 young woman." 
 
 After a short pause, during which the two men eyed each 
 other curiously, Sacheverel said, " Surely I know you? " 
 
 " I think not. And yet, I seem to know your face. I 
 was in London in '80." 
 
 " And so was I." 
 
 " 62 Barbury Street, Russell Square Mrs. Grubb's." 
 
 "Right! Webster?" 
 
 "Johnson? Kennedy?" 
 
 " Burke, by Jove, Charnley Burke ! Well, upon my word ! 
 How are you, and where have you been ever since? " 
 
 " George Kennedy ! Back in Australia, most of the time. 
 For God's sake come and have a drink, I'm half dead of 
 loneliness."
 
 98 P AM 
 
 A few minutes later, when they had celebrated their 
 meeting, and Burke was on the point of returning to his 
 hotel to announce his intention of staying on for a few 
 days, Sacheverel remarked : " By the way, I forgot to tell 
 you that when I went on the stage you knew, didn't you, 
 that I did go on the stage? I changed my name. You 
 have heard, probably, of Guy Sacheverel," he added simply. 
 
 Burke started, and there was a short pause. 
 
 " You are Guy Sacheverel ! Then it was you I heard 
 you once, as Romeo, in Melbourne," he went on with a loud 
 laugh, " and wondered all the evening who the deuce you 
 reminded me of ! " 
 
 His face had grown a shade redder in his embarrassment. 
 So it was George Kennedy's back at which he had gazed last 
 
 night, and it was George Kennedy " I saw you last 
 
 night at the opera," he went on abruptly, " at Cavalleria 
 Rusticana" 
 
 Sacheverel nodded, seeing Burke's confusion. The situa- 
 tion held nothing new, and hence nothing awkward for 
 him. He and Burke had for a short time been pretty close 
 friends years ago, and nothing now seemed more natural 
 to him than to go on, as they walked out into the sun: 
 " Yes, we have a little villa here, on the Chambery Road. 
 I see you know the the turn my life has taken. You will 
 think me very fortunate when you have met Pauline. Dine 
 with us to-morrow ! " 
 
 And that was all. 
 
 Burke's heart, when he got out of his fiacre the next 
 evening and pulled the rusty bell-wire of the Villa Orchidee, 
 beat loudly in his great breast. 
 
 He had even yet not quite got his bearings regarding 
 the woman with whom he had fallen so violently in love, 
 and George Kennedy. The one surprise had followed so 
 closely on the other, bringing his bitter disdain of the
 
 P AM 99 
 
 woman who had disappointed him to so sudden a halt 
 that his brain still whirled. 
 
 Sacheverel's manner had revealed much to the not un- 
 observant Australian, but he had not yet had time to com- 
 pletely readjust his ideas about Pauline Yeoland. 
 
 The thought of Pam, also, not unnaturally troubled him. 
 If the child had told her adventure, the consequences were 
 bound to be more or less unpleasant. 
 
 All these things whirled through his mind as he stood 
 waiting for an answer to his ring, and then, as the door 
 opened, admitting him to a little green garden at the far 
 end of which Pauline in a white gown was standing with 
 Sacheverel, Burke suddenly knew that Pam had not told, 
 and would not tell. " It would cut both ways," he reflected 
 hurriedly as he went up the path. " It was a hideous thing 
 for a child to do." 
 
 And he was right; Pam had not told. 
 
 When a few minutes later the little party of three went 
 into the house on the announcement of dinner, she rose 
 from a deep chair in which she had been curled, reading, 
 and coming forward, acknowledged her father's introduction 
 of Burke with a calm indifference that amused him to the 
 point of a vehement regret that no one was present who 
 could share the joke with him. 
 
 The dinner was a charming one, served in a rather bare 
 room with faded frescoes on the ceiling and walls. Three 
 long windows opened to the greenness of the garden; flow- 
 ers were banked on tables between the windows and grace- 
 fully massed on the dining-table ; the light, well-cooked meal 
 was perfectly served; and Pauline more beautiful even, 
 with her bare arms and shoulders, than he had pictured 
 her. 
 
 The man was too much in love to realise as yet anything 
 but the supreme fact of being with the woman he loved,
 
 ioo P A M 
 
 and, carried to the seventh heaven by that fact, he outdid 
 himself in clever talk and well-told anecdotes. 
 
 Finding that his entertainers knew of and cared for so- 
 called society topics as little as he himself, that Pauline's 
 share in the conversation was a very small one, and that 
 Sacheverel was interested in hearing about the changes that 
 had taken place in Australia since his visit there years ago, 
 Burke turned with relief to the subject he knew and loved 
 best life in that country. 
 
 Owning himself vast tracts of grazing land, and having 
 made his money in the old-fashioned story-book way, by 
 raising cattle and by finding gold, he told the story suc- 
 cinctly and well. 
 
 His strange accent, the occasional dialect words he used, 
 the light in his big, prominent eyes, contrasting so strangely 
 with the strong repose of his great figure all these things 
 charmed Pam, who ate hardly any dinner as she sat watch- 
 ing her vis-a-vis. 
 
 Once only she interrupted. He had told of a strike 
 among his employees, and how on being fired at by the 
 leader he had turned and shot him down where he stood. 
 
 " Did he die? " the child asked breathlessly. 
 
 Burke laughed. 
 
 " Yes, when I shoot a man he dies." 
 
 He was clothed as all men were clothed, he was educated 
 as well as many, he was a millionaire colonist in Europe 
 on a vacation, he played baccarat, and passed his time as 
 other men did. But he was, if not a savage, still a primi- 
 tive, and something in him appealed strongly to the hitherto 
 unstirred instinct in the child. It was the instinct common 
 to all women who have the necessary temperament and 
 charm to influence men, to study and experiment with the 
 man who, for the moment at least, interests them. 
 
 " I wish," the child thought, peeling an almond deftly
 
 P A M 101 
 
 with her long brown fingers, " that it was me he was in 
 love with." 
 
 There was in her mind, perfectly childish as yet in her 
 lack of understanding of the meaning of the strange things 
 she knew, no morbid idea of being herself in love with 
 Burke. It was merely that she realised his difference from 
 most men, and that his great strength, and something in 
 his eyes, impressed her all unconsciously with a desire to 
 know him better. Pauline listened with sweet careless in- 
 terest to the stories Burke told. She rather enjoyed him, 
 but that was as far as she ever got with any one. 
 
 Pilgrim's insight was not at fault when that unfortunate 
 victim of a social system told Cazalet that Pauline loved 
 Sacheverel so completely that she hardly even noticed the 
 people who worshipped her. For Burke was by no means 
 the first man who had allowed himself the luxury of falling 
 in love with Sacheverel's mistress. It is probable, too, that 
 travelling about as they did and meeting all sorts of men, 
 and of all nations, more than one of them might have tried 
 to win her from Sacheverel, had not her perfectly unaffected 
 disregard of their sighs and hints convinced them that such 
 an attempt would have been as laughable as to seriously 
 make love to the moon. 
 
 So when Pauline handed the big Australian his coffee 
 a little later in the garden and her hand touched his, his 
 start and flush were noticed not by herself, nor yet by Sache- 
 verel, but by Pam, who stood, her monkey in her arms, 
 under a lime-tree by her father. 
 
 The unobservant are usually looked on by those who ob- 
 serve them more or less in the light of children, so Pam v s 
 motherly feelings as she turned from Pauline's blindness 
 to flash a look that weighed between sympathy and amuse- 
 ment at Burke, was not unusual in itself. 
 
 When the child had withdrawn unobtrusively, and gone
 
 102 P A M 
 
 into the house, Burke heaved a sigh of relief. Her deep dark 
 eyes were too keen for him to be comfortable under their 
 gaze, and he preferred not to have them fixed on him. 
 
 The evening passed pleasantly enough, and proved but the 
 first of many such. 
 
 Occasionally they were varied by Sacheverel and Pauline, 
 and once in a while Pam as well, dining at the Casino with 
 Burke, but the Australian preferred the quiet meetings at 
 the Villa, for the curiosity of those who did not know the 
 history of this beautiful woman, with her unmistakable air 
 of breeding, was almost as offensive to him as were the os- 
 tentatious cuts of her old acquaintances and the free and 
 easy admiration of the men who saw in her merely one of 
 a class to which her manners were superior. 
 
 Her own utter indifference to all the several kinds of 
 attention to which she was subjected puzzled the Australian 
 at first, but as time went on and he found himself continu- 
 ally forgetting that she was not Sacheverel's wife, he began 
 to take it for granted almost as much as she did. 
 
 Sacheverel's attitude, however, remained a mystery to 
 him, until one day the ex-opera-siager explained it to him 
 in a casual phrase evoked by a vivid monosyllable on Burke's 
 part regarding the insolent staring of a Frenchman obviously 
 of the rastaquouere class. 
 
 " I can't pull his nose and fight him, can I ? " Sacheverel 
 returned. "And if I could, what good would it do? The 
 fact that she is not my wife is all that those beggars can 
 see, and that can't be denied. You can see for yourself that 
 we are the happiest man and woman in the world, and for 
 our great happiness that kind of thing, which is the price 
 we pay, is a very modest price." And Burke began to un- 
 derstand. 
 
 Pam bored him. She was too clever to venture to try to 
 sound him about his feelings, but she watched him with a
 
 P A M 103 
 
 clear, unfaltering gaze that got on his nerves, and more than 
 once made him frown savagely at her. 
 
 Only once she spoke to him about her mother, and that 
 one time it was he who created the opportunity by asking, 
 " Well, what do you think of me? " 
 
 Quick to seize the chance she returned, " I think of you? " 
 
 " Yes. You stare at me like a confounded little Hindoo 
 idol; I suppose you're thinking of me." 
 
 She smiled at the tone of his voice. " I'm sorry to have 
 made you cross. I was only wondering whether you are 
 still in love with my mother." 
 
 The blood rushed to his face. " And what conclusion 
 have you come to ? " 
 
 " I think," she returned, " that you are."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 TWO years had passed by; Burke had spent a winter in 
 Paris, and one in Italy, stopping two or three times at Villa 
 Arcadie, and passing the first of the summers yachting about 
 Norway, with Sacheverel and Pauline as his guests, and now, 
 the second summer, they were all back at Aix. 
 
 Burke had amused himself in Paris and in Rome; he 
 was no romanticist to fly all the attainable pleasures for the 
 sake of the far-off and unattainable good. He had lived 
 comfortably, and at the modern automobile rate; he had 
 learnt that there are few things, whatever moralists may say, 
 that money cannot bring to a healthy man who is still 
 young, and in consequence of his long years passed in com- 
 parative solitude he was not blase. So his doings were 
 chronicled as those of a distinctly gay bachelor, and tales 
 were told which need not be repeated here. 
 
 These things, however, did not alter the fact that he still 
 loved Pauline, though time had cooled the fire of that love. 
 At any time he would have done anything in the world 
 for her, though he had never put the fact into words either 
 to himself or to her. 
 
 He had come from London that morning, and as he 
 walked along the shady road towards the villa, perfectly 
 dressed as usual, and in some indefinable way looking more 
 civilised than of old, he realised that his joy in seeing 
 Aer had lost it old vibrant quality, and gained a delightful 
 note of peacefulness. Antonio, now putting on a little 
 flesh, and in a new livery, opened the door and greeted 
 
 104
 
 P A M 105 
 
 him with all the cordiality of an Italian who has served 
 long enough in a family to feel himself an integral part 
 of it. 
 
 The garden was trim and bright with flowers; new 
 awnings shaded the windows, and under the lime-tree stood 
 several comfortable-looking basket chairs and a table. 
 
 "La Signora is out," the servant told him with a sym- 
 pathetic gesture, " and il signore; but the signorina is there, 
 under the tree." 
 
 Burke went slowly over the grass towards the lime-tree. 
 He had not seen Pam for over a year, as she had been ill 
 on the occasion of his last visit to Villa Arcadie, and he 
 was not particularly desirous of seeing her now. However, 
 there she was. 
 
 She was reading, her head leaning against a yellow linen 
 pillow, and on hearing his approach looked up leisurely. 
 
 When she recognised him, however, she dropped her book 
 and rose quickly. 
 
 "You! I am glad to see you," she cried, shaking hands 
 with him. " Come and sit down in the shade. Father and 
 mother are off somewhere, as usual." 
 
 He sat down and threw his hat on the grass. 
 
 " You've changed," he began suddenly. 
 
 " Haven't I? How do you like my hair? " 
 
 There was not the slightest coquetry in her manner as she 
 turned and presented to him a back view of her small head, 
 which was completely covered with a net-work of broad 
 flat plaits. 
 
 " By Jove! It's famous. How old are you, Pam? ' 
 
 " Nearly seventeen. Long skirts, you see. It's great 
 fun. It amuses mother and father almost to death. Imagine 
 those two turtle-doves with a grown daughter ! " 
 
 Burke nodded. " It does seem rather a joke. Are they 
 both well?"
 
 106 P A M 
 
 " They are always well, you know. Father is growing 
 a little bald, poor dear and so are you! Poor old gentle- 
 men!" 
 
 Burke felt a slight twinge of irritation. " Your father 
 is four years older than I." 
 
 " I know. That makes you forty. Are you going to be 
 here all summer? " 
 
 " I don't know. It depends chiefly on them. The yacht 
 is in commission " 
 
 " I never think of the yacht without cursing you," the 
 girl returned, laughing. " It was horrid of you to make me 
 stay at Blankenbergh that summer. How I hated it; and 
 what a life I led poor Pilly! I don't see how you had the 
 heart to not ask us ! " 
 
 " I didn't want you, my dear. Children are sometimes a 
 nuisance." 
 
 " Oh, I was, of course, I know. Only I had been very 
 square to you about a certain incident, and I do think I 
 deserved some recompense." 
 
 It was the first time she had really directly referred to 
 their first conversation together. 
 
 " Nonsense you'd have caught it if you had told." 
 
 " If I had wished to tell, you don't suppose I'd have 
 minded ' catching it ' ? One has only to choose the lesser 
 evil, or rather the greater pleasure, and let everything 
 else go!" 
 
 " That's true," he returned, struck by the philosophy of 
 her observation ; " but they'd have been awfully angry with 
 you." 
 
 " And with you? " 
 
 Her eyes were solemn, but her tone quizzical. 
 
 " Ancient history, all that. And I'm not the first man, 
 I'm sure, to whom the same thing has happened." 
 
 " Of course not ; but you are the only one who has
 
 P A M 107 
 
 had the advantage of getting his information straight from 
 one of the family. Well, I'll not bore you; I am an 
 exceedingly amiable young person ! " 
 
 "Are you? I doubt it." 
 
 " I am, though. By the way, guess who is here ? IK 
 Aix, I mean ? " 
 
 Burke had no idea, and said so. 
 
 " My aunt, Mrs. Maxse, and my cousin Ratty. You 
 have heard of them. I saw them yesterday." 
 
 "No!" 
 
 " Yes. Poor Aunt Rosamund was very kind to me. I 
 am going to have tea with her to-morrow. They are at the 
 Splendide." 
 
 " Has your mother seen her? " asked Burke. 
 
 " Oh, no ! Mother wouldn't ; she has " the girl 
 paused and then went on with a little smile " cast off her 
 family, you know." 
 
 " But I should think she would like to see her only sister," 
 insisted the man gently, for in his mind an ideal woman must 
 love her sister. Pam looked at him, her eyes suddenly full 
 of the old monkey-look as the sun shone into their dark 
 depths. " Do you remember the woman in the Bible ? 
 1 Whither thou goest I will go ; and where thou lodgest I will 
 lodge, and thy people shall be my people ' ; that always 
 reminds me of mother. Now that I am older, you under- 
 stand? And that is why she does not care to see Aunt 
 Rosamund." 
 
 "But it is unjust; it is cruel. You know that for me 
 there is no one on earth like your mother," Burke went on 
 earnestly; "but still, according to the laws of society, she 
 did wrong; and if your aunt can forget that and forgive 
 her " 
 
 " Mother ought to be grateful and kiss her hand ! But 
 you see, mother does not think that she did wrong, and slv=
 
 108 P A. M 
 
 does not feel grateful! Oh, let's talk about something 
 else!" 
 
 Burke nodded, half relieved to get back out of the impasse 
 whither her unexpected raid into the realms of Scripture 
 had led him, and half curious to hear more of her opinion 
 on the subject. 
 
 " Of course she did give up a great deal ; everything that 
 makes a woman's life pleasant." 
 
 " Rubbish, Mr. Burke ! There is only one thing that 
 makes a woman's life happy, and that is the thing she took. 
 And having taken it, and found it better than all the rest 
 put together, would you have her pretend to be sorry? As 
 if a minute with father wasn't worth a million years with 
 poor Aunt Rosamund." 
 
 She had risen in her vehemence, and he saw how she had 
 grown, and how the lines of her figure had softened and 
 improved. 
 
 As he looked at her some one came up to them, unseen 
 by both until close at hand. 
 
 " What's that about a million years with mother? " 
 
 Pam turned. " Ratty! You here ! Just like you to come 
 creeping on one like that. Mr. Burke, my cousin De Rat- 
 tree Maxse." 
 
 Pam sat down again with youthful suddenness as she 
 spoke, and emptied the next chair of its books and papers. 
 
 " Sit down, Ratty. How's Aunt Rosamund to-day? " 
 
 " Pretty fit. I say, Pam, this is a jolly little bungalow 
 you've got here." Ratty looked around with an approval 
 not altogether innocent of patronage. He was a fat youth 
 with soft dimpled hands and a budding moustache. 
 
 Pam laughed. " Nothing like Monks' Yeoland, but not 
 bad for people in a small way. Will you have some tea? 
 I wonder what time it is ! " 
 
 It was nearly five, as two watches simultaneously proved.
 
 P A M 109 
 
 " Ratty, if you'll go in at that window to the right of 
 the door and ring the bell on the left of the sideboard, some 
 one will come." 
 
 The young man obeyed, and a few minutes later Pam 
 was pouring tea in a casual way that had in it something 
 of boyishness and was rather attractive. 
 
 " We won't wait for father and mother," she observed, 
 pouring hot water into the pot ; " they expected to be back 
 for tea, but that is not saying that they wilj turn up for 
 dinner even as you know," she added to Burke. " Are you 
 going to the play to-night? " 
 
 " I don't know ; are you ? " 
 
 " Of course, Madame Ravaglia is staying with us, did 
 I not tell you?" 
 
 "Ravaglia? Here!" 
 
 Ratty's utterance was somewhat impeded by bread and 
 butter, but bread and butter could not conceal the horror 
 in his voice, and his eyes bulged eloquently. 
 
 " Ravaglia ! Here ! If you are afraid of meeting her 
 you had better trek, my dear boy, for she might come out 
 for some tea, though I doubt it." Pam smiled at him, and 
 her amusement was genuine. 
 
 " But hang it, Pam ! you know as well as I do that 
 or rather I suppose you don't know," he added pompously. 
 " Men hear such things more than girls." 
 
 " Nonsense ! Of course I know. And not a button do I 
 care. I love Madame Ravaglia." 
 
 The fat boy rose. " Well, upon my word, I should think 
 
 my aunt " he began angrily, but she interrupted him 
 
 with authority. 
 
 " Don't be absurd, Ratty! And remember you are in the 
 house, or rather in the garden, of people who dare to do 
 as they choose. We are not afraid of a great artist's repu- 
 tation."
 
 no P A M 
 
 " Afraid? Who is? Only there is such a thing as pro- 
 pi iety, and there is another called impropriety; and for 
 a young girl of your age " 
 
 Pam looked at him with a curious expression in her eyes. 
 
 " You forget that I am not an ordinary young girl. My 
 parents are not married, and there is no regular, ready-made 
 position for me in the world, so I shall, thank God, be able 
 to make my own position. So either go home and keep 
 mum about where you've been, or else sit down and drink 
 your tea like a sensible boy." 
 
 Burke had listened so surprised as to be almost aghast. 
 On the rare occasions when he had thought of Pam, he 
 had taken it for granted that her childish eyes would one 
 day be violently opened ; that a casual word or some direct 
 unkindness would teach her with cruel suddenness the truth 
 she had just so clearly put before her lubberly young cousin. 
 
 And now the calm unconcern with which she had stated 
 the case showed him that the process had most mercifully 
 been made a gradual one; that her father and mother, too 
 engrossed in each other to take any definite course j'egarding 
 her, had unwittingly done the wisest thing by leaving nothing 
 to surprise her. Having known all her life that her parents 
 stood to each other in unusual relation, but soothed always 
 by the spectacle of their perfect happiness, the young girl now 
 found herself looking at life from the one view-point whence 
 it could to her look calm and tranquil. 
 
 The big man heaved a sigh of surprised relief. 
 
 Pam's small face was full of a strange dignity 1 , for she 
 faced the world not as a suppliant, nor as an enemy, but 
 rather as a sincere, self-respecting atheist faces those who 
 believe in the God he has forsaken. She and the world 
 disagreed, but politely, without bitterness, for she felt none 
 of that inferiority which engenders hatred. 
 
 Ratty watched her for a moment in dumb indignation.
 
 P A M 111 
 
 " It's a great shame they aren't married, then ! " he burst 
 out at length, setting down his cup and brushing a crumb 
 from his skin-tight waistcoat. 
 
 Burke gave an angry start, but to his surprise Pam burst 
 into a merry laugh. " Just go and bowstring the obstacle, 
 will you, then? Pilly always calls her the Obstacle! "
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THERE is a certain road leading into the mountains from 
 Aix that winds slowly up through very beautiful scenery, 
 clinging to the rocky hill as if shrinking from the steep slope 
 on the other side, until at length it makes a loop through a 
 wall of solid stone and ends in a small round platform from 
 which is to be had the finest view in the country-side, save 
 one to be reached only by a funicular. One afternoon about 
 a week after the conversation recorded in the last chapter, 
 Pam and Charnley Burke were sitting on the stone wall that 
 edges the belvidere, looking down at the purple and golden 
 panorama spread before them. 
 
 " Ripping view, isn't it ? " the girl asked mechanically, 
 taking off her hat and dropping it with safety behind her. 
 
 "Corking! Do you come up here often? It's rather a 
 pull, you know." 
 
 " For fat people, yes, and you are putting on a bit of 
 flesh," she returned, with a critical glance at his admirably 
 got-up figure, " Pilly and I are lean kine, so we don't 
 mind." 
 
 " Pilly! You don't mean to say you drag that unfortu- 
 nate female all these miles, Pam? I call that brutal." 
 
 " It is rather, but I have to walk, you see, and I've got no 
 one else. When we get here, she sits down on the bench 
 with her back to all this," jerking her head towards the 
 view, " and plays patience. It's a sweet sight." 
 
 Burke burst out laughing. " And you, you little devil, 
 sit and laugh at her ! "
 
 P A M 113 
 
 " I don't mind a bit being called a ' little devil ' it's 
 really rather nice, you know, though I'm sure I've no idea 
 why and you do mind being called fat. So try again ! " 
 
 She looked at him solemnly, swinging her feet as she 
 spoke. 
 
 " I could make you angry in a moment if I chose," he 
 answered, wiping the moisture from his rather bare temples 
 with a smart blue and white handkerchief. 
 
 " Then do." 
 
 " Well, do you happen to know that you look a good 
 deal like Caliban at times? " 
 
 She stopped swinging her feet and reflected for a moment. 
 " Yes, I know I do. Cally has very fine eyes, don't you 
 think so?" She raised her own, golden in the strong sun- 
 light, to his as she spoke, sombre and weary in expression. 
 
 "Fine eyes! You are a limb. Well, yes, I must admit 
 that much, I suppose." 
 
 " But you mean we have no colour and no dimples. That's 
 true. Only I don't think Cal would look well with pink 
 cheeks and dimples, do you? " 
 
 Then she burst out laughing. "Aren't I silly? But you 
 know, or rather you don't know, that it is quite impossible 
 to hurt my feelings about my looks. I know I'm plain." 
 
 He rose and came to her, his hands in his pockets. It had 
 suddenly come home to him that she would not only be much 
 less attractive with the pink cheeks and other adornments in 
 question, but also that she was very nearly grown up. 
 
 " Plain, are you? Well, yes, I suppose you are," he said 
 slowly, studying her cool little brown face with his promi- 
 nent eyes. " I don't think, however, that it's going to 
 matter much." 
 
 "Matter! No, of course not." 
 
 She spoke with so much earnestness that, though she was 
 obviously far away from him mentally, he went on with a
 
 114 P A M 
 
 delightful sense of beginning an exploration in a totally un- 
 discovered country. 
 
 " How do you mean ' of course not ' ? " 
 
 " I mean just what you said. Looks don't much' matter. 
 I mean beauty doesn't." 
 
 " Most people think that they matter more than anything 
 else, my dear." 
 
 " Most people are donkeys." 
 
 Burke sat down by her. " You are speaking, I take it, 
 of looks in relation to one's a woman's success in life ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Well, how do you know then that they don't matter? " 
 
 She turned, staring at him as if he had just come. " Oh, 
 dear me, what on earth are you gibbering about? I only 
 meant that will is what does things." 
 
 "Will?" 
 
 " Yes," she hurried on impatiently. " Success is surely 
 having one's own way, isn't it? Well, any one with will 
 enough can do anything if she hasn't white eye-lashes." 
 
 " Eye-lashes! My dear Pam, what a jump from abstract 
 thoughts on will-power! " 
 
 " Well, it does count. You know you like me better, to 
 use the nearest illustration, than if I had watery, greenery, 
 grey eyes and stumpy white eye-lashes. Don't you ? " 
 
 " I do, but 
 
 " There isn't any but. You either do or you don't. And 
 when I look at you hard you forget that I look like a mon- 
 key, don't you ? " 
 
 Before he could answer she went on : " Now, let's talk 
 about something else. I hate long drawn out discus- 
 sions." 
 
 " As your eye-lashes are neither stumpy nor white, I per- 
 force obey. What shall I talk about, She Who Must Be 
 Obeyed?"
 
 P A M 115 
 
 The girl turned and looked at him curiously. He had 
 never before spoken to her as to a grown woman, and she 
 recognised, while she could not explain, the difference. 
 
 " For God's sake! let us sit upon the ground and tell sad 
 stories of the deaths of kings." 
 
 He stared, and she burst out laughing. 
 
 " You are a badly educated person, Mr. Charnley Burke, 
 of our loyal colony, Australia! Thought I was being origi- 
 nal, didn't you? " 
 
 " I did but I suppose it is Shakespeare? As a subject 
 of conversation, how will this do? Your graceful young 
 cousin is in love with you." 
 
 " Oh Ratty and Love ! Such a great fat, tubby boy. 
 Isn't it loathsome of him? Of course he was bound to do 
 it, you know," she went on without the slightest embarrass- 
 ment. " Boys always do with the one person they oughtn't. 
 Imagine Aunt Rosamund's feelings! I saw it coming the 
 nrst day I had tea with them in the Splendide gardens; he 
 was so absurd. Poor Aunt Rosamund was dreadfully upset 
 until I told her that wild horses couldn't drag me to marry 
 a man with hands like bath buns." 
 
 " The deuce ! You didn't say that ? " 
 
 " But I did. And she was so relieved, poor dear, that 
 she quite forgot to be angry. Since I've refused to see him 
 at all, she is consoled and thinks me the nicest person in the 
 world. Which I am," she added blandly, looking up with 
 a smile from her work of scratching some moss off a stone 
 with her hat-pin. " She wrote my grandfather that I was 
 much improved. I wonder what she would have said if I 
 had appreciated Ratty 's charms ! " 
 
 " Probably that you were a designing little wretch. Pam, 
 have they said anything more about Ravaglia? " 
 
 "Said anything? Well, I should rather think they had! 
 I had a long letter from my grandfather the other day,
 
 116 P A M 
 
 urging me to ' drop her.' Imagine me dropping Gemma 
 Ravaglia!" 
 
 " There's something in it, though, my child." 
 
 "Oh, come now; you too! That would be too much. 
 You know that she is the greatest genius of the century, and 
 that I adore her." 
 
 " I know. At the same time, if you were my 
 daughter " 
 
 Pam rose and picked up her hat. " Which, thank 
 Heaven, I am not. Let's go, shall we? We are dining with 
 you, aren't we ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Burke said no more, for he had no wish to make him- 
 self so disagreeable that he would be expelled from the 
 undiscovered country just within whose boundary he had 
 to-day penetrated. They walked home rather silently, and 
 as she gave him her hand at the garden-door the young girl 
 said suddenly : " Thanks for not bothering me about that. 
 It would have been no use, for only one thing would ever 
 make me give her up." 
 
 "And that one thing?" 
 
 " That she should give me up, and she won't give me up, 
 for she is fond of me ; I amuse her." 
 
 " All right, I'll not say any more about it. I suppose you 
 have a right to do as you like," he returned. 
 
 An hour or two later Burke met his guests in the terrace 
 of the Casino, and they walked together towards the table 
 he had engaged. The restaurant was very full, for Ravaglia 
 was playing Pia, and the season was at its height. 
 
 Pam, looking very well in a pink frock, darted away just 
 as she was on the point of sitting down, and went into the 
 corridor, where she stood talking to a tall woman wrapped 
 in a long fur-trimmed mantle. 
 
 " Ravaglia! " observed Sacheverel, rising and bowing t*
 
 P A M 
 
 a passer-by, who had been born in Ratcliff Highway, but was 
 now dressed by Worth. " The child is mad about her." 
 
 " She is a dear, really," Pauline added, " and nearly wild 
 with nerves to-night. Think of being so cold that you have 
 to wear sables in August! " 
 
 Pam came slowly back as she spoke. " Mother, what's 
 the matter with Carissima? She has been crying, and looks 
 like death." 
 
 Pauline shrugged her shoulders. " She is nervous, dear, 
 that's all." 
 
 But the young girl frowned thoughtfully. " No, it isn't 
 that. She is unhappy again, my poor dearest ! " 
 
 " Geniuses are always moody," laughed Burke. " Oool 
 look at those emeralds! That's Fanchon what's her name 
 the little woman in white over there by the pillar. And 
 there by the door, to the left, are San Gesualdo and his 
 wife." They all turned and looked at the two women and 
 the man to whom their juxtaposition was so well known. 
 
 " His wife does look cheery," remarked Pam. " Poor 
 thing, how she must loathe having him with her when she 
 knows he's dying to go off and see Fanchon ! " 
 
 Burke frowned and then laughed. " How do you know 
 he has the honour of Mademoiselle Chose's acquaintance, 
 Miss Pamela? " he asked teasingly. 
 
 " He couldn't very well have given her those emeralds 
 without knowing her, could he ? " 
 
 " Hush, Pam, don't say such things," urged Pauline, per- 
 functorily, and the dinner went on. 
 
 Toward its close a servant brought a note to Pam. " De 
 la part de Madame Ravaglia, Mademoiselle." 
 
 The girl tore it open and read eagerly, her face changing 
 as she finished it. 
 
 "Oh, mother! She doesn't want me to come! To the 
 play, I mean. To Pia! "
 
 118 P A M 
 
 " Not want you to come ! Why? Let me see." 
 
 " Til read it it's badly written in pencil. ' Dearest 
 Pam,' she read, translating the words into English, * if you 
 love me, do me a favour. Do not come to-night to the play. 
 I could not act if you were there G. R.' Oh, what can 
 she mean?" 
 
 To her surprise, and obviously rather to his own as well, 
 her father answered her. 
 
 " I think, my dear, she must mean that the play is not a 
 - a good one for a young girl to see." 
 
 " A good one? But I've seen all her plays, father! " 
 
 " Not this one," insisted Sacheverel quietly, his dark face 
 unusually grave. " And I think that she is very probably 
 right." 
 
 Pam rose. " I must go and see her now don't say no, 
 father, because I must. It is her last night here, too, and 
 she has been crying. Mr. Burke will excuse me." 
 
 No one protested forcibly, and she left the restaurant and 
 going down a narrow corridor soon found herself at the door 
 of the great actress's dressing-room. 
 
 " Son io, Pam." 
 
 Madame Ravaglia sat in front of her mirror, while her 
 maid gave the last touches to her curiously arranged hair. 
 Pam started at the sight of her face, it looked so old and 
 so worn. 
 
 " I won't come, of course, if you don't want me to," she 
 began at once, " but you must tell me why." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 The actress turned to her and answered slowly in Italian, 
 which language her maid did not understand. " Because 
 I could not let my daughter see such a play." 
 
 "Your daughter! But you haven't one! " cried the girl. 
 
 " Ah, yes. And she is only a year younger than you. 
 Wait until Clarisse has gone, and I will tell yo" "
 
 P A M 119 
 
 A moment later they were alone, and sitting down on a 
 chaise-longue Ravaglia drew Pam close to her and began: 
 " My daughter is in Sicily, dear, in a convent. She does 
 not know that I am her mother, and she never shall." 
 
 "But why f 
 
 " Because I knew that the knowledge of her being my child 
 would hurt her. She thinks she is my sister's child. My 
 sister is a good woman." 
 
 Pam flushed, a soft flush of tender distress. " Oh ! but 
 you are great." 
 
 " Mothers need not be great, my dear, but they must 
 be good. When I met you first, years ago, I had just given 
 her up. I have been fonder of you than you know, Pam. 
 I had shut her away from me in a convent, for her good. 
 
 Now ' The actress's hot, dry hand rested on the girl's 
 
 brow as she pushed back her soft hair, and the two pairs of 
 eyes, so unlike and yet so alike, gazed steadily into each other. 
 
 " Now? " asked the girl, her voice shaking. 
 
 " I cannot shut you away from me, but I can go. My 
 engagement ends to-night, and to-morrow I leave Aix. I 
 am going away from you." 
 
 " No, no, no! I won't let you, Carissima! I love you." 
 
 The girl caught at her hands and held them tightly. " I 
 love you, I refuse to be disposed of in this way." 
 
 Ravaglia rose. " Don't make it too hard for me, Pam. 
 You are grown now, and it could hurt you it does hurt 
 you to be known as my friend. The boy, Ratty, who was 
 so rude to me, was right. It is the world's attitude." 
 
 ' ' Je men fiche pas mal ' the world. What is it to me ? 
 I have no place in it. What am I but a bastard ? " 
 
 There was no bitterness in her voice, rather an exultation 
 in the fact of owing nothing to any one. " I don't care 
 a bit for what the world says I owe it nothing ! " 
 
 Ravaglia came to her and laid her hand on the girl's
 
 120 1> A M 
 
 shoulder. " That may be right, Pam, but I will not hurt 
 you, and I shall never see you again. And remember this 
 one thing. You may owe nothing to the world, but you 
 owe much to yourself, and to one other person." 
 
 A travelling clock on the table struck eight, and the woman 
 glanced at it impatiently. 
 
 " To one other person ? To whom ? " 
 
 " To the man you are going to love," returned Ravaglia, 
 with a solemnity in her beautiful deep voice such as Pam 
 had never heard. 
 
 " To the man I am going to love ? " 
 
 " Yes. When he comes, he will have a right not only 
 to your future, but to every moment of your past life. That 
 is the difference." She broke off, her hollow eyes burning 
 with bitter earnestness. " I must send you away now. Some 
 day, some one will tell you my story my real one, not the 
 one fools babble about. Then you will understand. Good- 
 bye, Pam." 
 
 Bending over the girl's slight figure in its simple gown, 
 the woman who has been to this century the incarnation 
 of tragedy, strangely unreal looking in her mediaeval gown 
 of green and gold, did a strange thing. She outlined a little 
 cross on the smooth young brow before she kissed it. 
 
 " Now go home, my child, and to bed. This play is not 
 for you. And I have moved into the hotel, I do not return 
 to the villa. Promise me not to try to see me again." 
 
 " I promise. But, oh " 
 
 " Hush, I must go. Good-bye, Pam. Add'io" 
 
 Pam rushed from the room and out into the garden by 
 a side door. She had forgotten her dinner, the sound of 
 that one word Addio rang in her ears. 
 
 Under the stars she stood still, in a lonely alley of the 
 garden. " 'The man I am going to love,' " she said slowly,, 
 aloud.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 "MY DEAR PAM : I am having a vile bout of gout; your 
 aunt and cousin, my natural solaces, are away; your friend 
 and uncle, Dick Maxse, is shooting in Scotland. I am a 
 lonely aged man. Will you come? We parted somewhat 
 unceremoniously, and some time has elapsed since that, but 
 my anger never had any staying power, and I want you. So 
 come and amuse me. Bring all your belongings, for if you 
 find, as the housemaids, I believe, put it, that the place suits 
 you, I'd like you to stay a few years with me. 
 
 " Your affectionate 
 
 " GRANDFATHER." 
 
 " A very good letter, isn't it ? " asked Sacheverel, as 
 Burke handed it back to him. 
 
 " Very. Rather ungrand fatherly, eh ? " 
 
 " Can you imagine any one being the conventional grand- 
 father to Pam? I am hard put to it, very often, to be 
 simply paternal." The two men, who were sitting in the 
 garden of the villa, laughed over their cigars. 
 
 " Pam certainly is utterly unlike other young girls, 
 Sacheverel." 
 
 " Very. The Yeolands have always been queer, and then 
 of course her environments have helped to make her what 
 she is." 
 
 Burke leaned back in the wicker chair that looked too 
 fragile for his great frame, and stared up into the fresh 
 green of the lime-tree. " I say, Sacheverel, what do you 
 mean to do with her? " 
 
 121
 
 122 P A M 
 
 " Do with her? My dear fellow, I'm sure I haven't 
 the slightest idea! What would you advise? " 
 
 " I mean she is grown up now, and men will soon begin 
 to take their place and a big place, too, unless I am very 
 much mistaken in her life. Do you want her to marry? " 
 
 Sacheverel smiled, his white teeth flashing behind his dark 
 lips. 
 
 " Now, Burke, really! The thermometer must be twenty 
 in the shade, and I had a late luncheon, and you ask me 
 questions like that. Let's discuss some simpler question 
 French politics, for instance ! " 
 
 Burke, watching him, suddenly felt what the man's charm 
 must be to Pauline Yeoland. It lay not in what he said, but 
 in the way he said it. Innate gaiety of heart is such a rare 
 thing, and here it was combined with a buoyant irresponsi- 
 bility, strong passions, and a sort of careless truthfulness 
 that bubbled up of itself in the waters of his nature. 
 
 Pauline, in her unmorality, her graceful frivolity, would 
 have been bored by a man whose qualities were built on 
 principles ; hurt and wounded by one who was false or harsh ; 
 antagonised by one who strived for the virtues he did not 
 possess. 
 
 Sacheverel, as absolutely natural in his good as in his 
 bad qualities, was probably the one man in the world into 
 whose nature her own could have fitted as does a key in 
 a well-oiled lock; and Burke, who was himself a much 
 stronger man, for either good or evil, than his host, and 
 who had sometimes wondered what lay in Sacheverel which 
 so held the beautiful, rather silly woman, suddenly knew 
 by a shock of intuition, as Sacheverel gaily expressed his 
 unconcern respecting the future of his daughter, what it was. 
 
 "You are a careless beggar!" the Australian growled, 
 lighting a fresh cigar at the stump of his old one. " She's 
 your child, after all."
 
 P A M 123 
 
 " Of course she is, bless her ! and an enchanting young 
 person, too. But what's the use, my dear fellow, of laying 
 a lot of plans for her which she'd be sure to demolish, if 
 only out of devilment, the minute she ran up against 
 'em?" 
 
 " I'm not asking you to make plans actively. I merely 
 wondered whether you and Pauline wish her to marry or 
 to go into a convent." 
 
 " Pam in a convent ! Wouldn't she set them all by the 
 ears?" returned Sacheverel, with a chuckle. "And 
 marry? Oh, yes, I daresay she'll marry some day. I wish 
 you were ten years younger, Burke." 
 
 Burke started. " I ! She wouldn't look at me ! " 
 
 " Probably not. I wish she would, though. She is 
 going to need a master, for she is very headstrong. Good 
 Lord! how she went on about Gemma Ravaglia! I swear 
 I thought she'd be ill, poor little monkey ! " 
 
 " It was decent of Ravaglia, though. I wonder why she 
 did it?" 
 
 Sacheverel hesitated. " I don't know, mind you, but I 
 have an idea Lord Yeoland put her up to it." 
 
 " Lord Yeoland ! Does she know him? " 
 
 " Does she ? My respected papa-in-law a la main gauche 
 knows, or has known, every one worth his notice for the 
 last half century. She told me years ago that she used to 
 see a good deal of him at one time. Poor soul, she was very 
 much cut up about giving up Pam. Adoration is very 
 pleasant, and my young lady gives it with both hands." 
 
 The two men smoked in silence for a few minutes, each 
 of them occupied with his own thoughts. 
 
 It was a very warm day in early September, but the little 
 garden was pleasant, and a bird sang in a tree. 
 
 After a while Burke said slowly, " You think she'll go 
 to England ? "
 
 124 P A M 
 
 " Oh, yes, of course she will. The old man is very fonc 
 of her; this is the second letter he has sent since she took 
 French leave. The other one was to Pauline, and we didn't 
 mention it to Pam, as we wanted her to go on with her 
 studies; it was that winter in Rome. I know you think me 
 a heathen Chinee for refusing to map out her future life, but 
 you see for the present she will be at Yeoland and then 
 well, she quite intends doing that mapping herself. She's 
 hard-headed." 
 
 " She's also hot-blooded." 
 
 Sacheverei stared. "You think so? Well, no doubt she 
 is. I hope so, I'm sure. Most people have Mellin's Food in 
 their veins nowadays." 
 
 Burke laughed. " Well, she hasn't. And I hope to God 
 she will fall in love, when the time comes, with some decent 
 fellow, for if she doesn't Here she is," he added hastily. 
 
 Pam, coming out of the dining-room window in a scant 
 white frock, a sun-bonnet on, and Caliban tucked under her 
 arm, looked childish enough to make Burke feel rather 
 sacrilegious. 
 
 " Bon soir, la compagnie! " she cried, as she joined them. 
 " I can't shake hands with you until I've put down the box 
 and Cal. How are you? These chocolates are a good-bye 
 offering from the unfortunate Fat Boy. His mamma allowed 
 him to send them on condition of not coming to say good- 
 bye, I suppose. Won't she shriek with joy when she arrives 
 at Monks' Yeoland and finds me and Pilly nicely installed 
 there?" 
 
 Opening the box she offered of its contents to the two 
 men, and then poked about in it with a pointed fore-finger 
 until she had found exactly what she herself wanted. 
 
 " If I have a weakness, which I trust you are both too 
 polite to admit, it is for pistachio and chocolate. Cal 
 prefers noisette, don't you, you beauty? "
 
 P A M 125 
 
 Since Burke's telling her that Caliban looked like her, 
 she had taken great pleasure in pointing out that small beast's 
 good looks on every occasion. 
 
 " Well," she went on briskly, as the two men did not 
 speak, but watched her with lazy enjoyment, " what do 
 you think of my sun-bonnet? I made it myself. If you 
 look closely you will see that it is adorned with much gore 
 my poor finger is lacerated but I think the bonnet rather 
 charming." 
 
 Taking off the quaint little head-dress she put it on the 
 monkey, and tied the strings in a neat bow under his 
 chin. 
 
 " Observe the sweetness of that! " she exclaimed, turning 
 the little creature around. " Isn't he lovely? Just look 
 how it increases his beauty! " 
 
 But Caliban, springing from her knees, ran to what he 
 considered a safe distance and began clawing frantically 
 at the offending article, and using language in his shrillest 
 voice. Pam flew after him, and when he hurried away 
 from her, still chattering profanely, a mad chase began 
 round and round the little enclosure, in which the girl 
 ran with as much excitement as the monkey, and with as little 
 thought of personal dignity. At length she cornered him 
 behind a thicket of rose-trees, and, calling Burke to block 
 one exit, crept in over the thick grass on all fours. 
 
 After a violent scuffle and burst of breathless laughter 
 she emerged, a long scratch on her cheek, one of her plaits 
 hanging loose, and a green stain on her frock. 
 
 " He's bitten a great hole in it," she said to Burke, as 
 he took the quivering Caliban, and she gathered up her hair ; 
 " and he tried to bite me, the little demon ! There's grati- 
 tude for you ! " 
 
 " He has paloitaticn of the heart, though, poor little 
 beggarl"
 
 126 P A M 
 
 Dropping her hair and the corpus delicti, she ran to him 
 and laid an anxious hand on the monkey's small breast. 
 
 " He has. How it beats! Oh, Mr. Burke, do you think 
 he'll die ? " Her big eyes, positively tragic, were raised 
 to his. 
 
 " No," he returned a little unsteadily, " people that is, 
 monkeys don't die from palpitation of the heart. Mine, 
 for instance, is pumping like the devil, this very moment." 
 
 " Yours? But you didn't run. Oh, I wish I could see 
 whether he is pale or not," she added, turning to the monkey 
 again. 
 
 " Damn the brute! " ejaculated Burke roughly, " you care 
 more for him than you do for me." 
 
 Her hand, still on the monkey's heaving little chest, she 
 turned again to the man, a slight frown drawing her strongly 
 marked brows together. He was breathing hard, and his 
 red-brown eyes looked steadily into hers. 
 
 " You know what I mean ? " he said at length abruptly. 
 
 A little smile stirred her lips and the frown disappeared. 
 
 " Yes, I know," she returned, as frank as he, 
 
 " And it amuses you ! " 
 
 " No. I don't want to give you palpitation of the 
 heart, but do you really mean it ? Because if you do, I must 
 be grown-up ! " 
 
 He burst out laughing, as he had laughed long ago in the 
 Casino garden. 
 
 "Well, am I not?" she persisted. "If I weren't, you 
 wouldn't look at me like that." 
 
 " Got that brute, have you ? " Sacheverel came saunter- 
 ing towards them as he spoke, his hands in his pockets. 
 
 "Yes," called Burke, adding under his breath to Pam, 
 41 Of course you are, and you know it."
 
 PART III 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 lEN days later Pam and Pilgrim were once more driven 
 up the avenue at Monks' Yeoland. The young girl sat very 
 erect, her hands folded in her lap, her quick eyes darting 
 glances on all sides through the trees of the park. 
 
 " Glad to come back, Pilly? " 
 
 Pilgrim sighed. " I'm glad, and yet at the same time 
 I'm sorry, Miss Pam, which takes the satisfaction out of 
 things, somehow. I'd much rather be all glad or all sorry." 
 
 " Life isn't so simple as that," returned Pam sagely ; " and 
 for my part, I am glad it isn't. I rather enjoy small puzzle- 
 ments, you know." 
 
 " Them as 'as small puzzlements doesn't always escape 
 big ones, Miss Pam." 
 
 " Some do. I, for instance. It all depends on whether 
 one really knows what one wants, Pilly, and then forging 
 straight ahead toward that one thing." 
 
 The girl frowned as she spoke, the frown of mental intent- 
 ness. It seemed more a withdrawing of her eyes under her 
 brows than a movement of the brows themselves. 
 
 Pilgrim shook her head. Life was all complications and 
 inner conflict to her, and she had grown much older in the 
 last few years. 
 
 " There is always hobstacles, Miss Pam." 
 
 Pam gave a sudden short laugh of anticipatory triumph. 
 
 " And obstacles are made to be jumped over, or at least 
 climbed over, you dear old croaker ! Sometimes I long for 
 
 127
 
 128 P A M 
 
 great obstacles just for the joy of surmounting them. Oh, 
 here we are! Dear old house. And there is good old Jud- 
 son at the door. I am glad, Pilkins, aren't you? " 
 
 Pilgrim straightened her grim bonnet and sighed. As 
 she had suffered under the troubles Pauline had never even 
 observed, so the poor soul grieved in anticipation of Pam's 
 future ones. 
 
 Lord Yeoland was in his room, the butler told her, so 
 leaving Pilly in the hall Pam ran upstairs. 
 
 " Grandfather, may I come in ? " 
 
 The old man, who was sitting in his roll-chair close to 
 a bright fire, turned delightedly at the sound of her vibrant 
 young voice, and as she kissed him and chattered on he 
 realised how desperately bored he had been during the six 
 years since she had gone. 
 
 " How's your mother? " 
 
 " Very well, thank you ; she sent you her love." 
 
 "H'ml And your father?" 
 
 " Father is well, too. They always are, you know. He's 
 growing a little bald: it is such a joke! " 
 
 The old man, who looked fresh and rosy in spite of his 
 gout, looked at her slily. 
 
 "And we have grown up! Our hair is braided around 
 our head, our skirts are long, and we have a figure! To 
 say nothing of a lover." 
 
 Pam started, a quick blush dying her face. " Oh you 
 mean Ratty! Can you imagine any one being so idiotic? " 
 
 " Also, we laugh at the unfortunate who ventures to 
 love, and not to please us. My dear, you are definitely and 
 irrevocably a woman." 
 
 She laughed. " Yes, I am nearly seventeen, an aged 
 female. Do you think me improved ? I mean in looks ? " 
 
 Lord Yeoland studied her face for a moment with much 
 solemnity. " You are still plain," he said at last, " but not
 
 P A M 129 
 
 quite so plain as formerly. And I am very glad to have 
 you back, my dear." 
 
 " I am glad, too, G. F." 
 
 And indeed the young girl was gladder than she could 
 quite explain, even to herself, to be again with the old man, 
 with whom she felt a strong sense of camaraderie. He, for 
 his part, looked back, as the days flew past, at the last few 
 years with a sort of amused admiration for his own im- 
 patience in enduring their dulness. Rosamund and her 
 children as mets du jour, with Dick Maxse and an occa- 
 sional visit as an entree it was as inexhilarating to look back 
 on as it had been to exist through. 
 
 And Pam, spicy little bonne bouche, he had, curiously 
 enough, asked for but once. Pauline's reasons for preferring 
 not to let the child return to England, on that one occa- 
 sion, had seemed to him too good to be protested against, 
 and too annoying for him to wish a repetition of their 
 expression ! 
 
 Dick Maxse had given him a good deal of trouble, by 
 going in for company-promoting, and one or two of his per- 
 formances in that line had enraged the old man as no one 
 had ever seen him enraged. During a period of eighteen 
 months the culprit had been forbidden to introduce his now 
 reddening nose into the precincts of Monks' Yeoland, and dur- 
 ing that time poor Rosamund's aspect of patient woe had 
 nearly driven her father mad. 
 
 On the whole, as he now enjoyed Pam's presence, Lord 
 Yeoland wondered how the deuce he had been able to exist 
 so long without it. 
 
 " The fun, however," the wicked old man thought, with 
 a merry rub of his small dry hands, " the real fun will begin 
 when Ratty comes down ; and it will go on increasing, unless 
 I am, which would be very singular, quite out of my reckon- 
 ing, every day she grows older. She is going to be a woman
 
 130 P A M 
 
 with whom all sorts of men will fall in loye. And I shall 
 marry her to some one of the singing brigade, by Jove ! " 
 
 This idea gradually took possession of him, as was perhaps 
 not unnatural. 
 
 He was powerful enough socially to be sure that many 
 a man who fell under the charm of Pam's rather unusual 
 personality would not hesitate to marry her, as his grand- 
 daughter. It had amused him, in the old days when Pam 
 had been at Monks' Yeoland as a child, to present her as 
 occasion arose, to his various neighbours, as " Pamela Yeo- 
 land, my grand-daughter." The reception of this bit of 
 information had varied in detail, as when Lady Oxton- 
 Smythe had raised her painted eye-brows, or when a 
 malicious dowager who was visiting in the neighbourhood 
 murmured something about not having known that Lord 
 Yeoland had a son. The only person who had refused to 
 acknowledge Pam was the wife of the old man's heir, and 
 Mrs. Fred Yeoland was unpopular enough to make her 
 act very unfavourably commented on by every one who 
 heard of it. So, on the whole, Pam had been accepted, for 
 her grandfather was emphatically the greatest man of his 
 county, bar the Marquis of Budcombe, a kindly old gentle- 
 man who collected butterflies and beamed like the sun on 
 righteous and unrighteous alike, for the excellent reason that 
 he was too deaf to be able to hear of either virtues or sins. 
 
 And now she had returned, and Lord Yeoland amused 
 himself with making plans for that future to which she 
 felt so strongly her own exclusive right. 
 
 One evening in November Lord Yeoland and Pam sat 
 in the library listening and waiting for the carriage which 
 had gone to the station to fetch Mrs. Maxse and Evelyn, 
 who had been visiting in London, and whom Pam had not 
 yet seen. 
 
 Pam sat on the club fender, in this case a comfortably
 
 P A M 131 
 
 broad and low one covered with red leather, Caliban in her 
 lap, while her grandfather, temporarily pretty well, was near 
 her, leaning back in his arm-chair. 
 
 " This room," the old man began, after a long pause, dur- 
 ing which he had studied her thoughtful face quietly, " is a 
 very good background for you, my dear." 
 
 " Is it, grandfather?" 
 
 " Yes. The books are rather gorgeous, you see, and the 
 crimson of the curtains and the chairs is becoming to you. 
 So is the fire, too." 
 
 " I love a fire. And I verily believe poor old Cally 
 would die without the sight of the flames. He lies and 
 thinks how he wishes he could roll in the nice hot coals 
 don't you, Cal ? " 
 
 Caliban turned his weird little face to her and told her, 
 as plainly as possible, not to be absurd, which observation 
 she translated to that outsider, Lord Yeoland. 
 
 " And what are you thinking about all the time, my dear? 
 You are very thoughtful of late." 
 
 The girl looked up at him. " You noticed ? Well, 
 grandfather, I suppose I might as well tell you. It's a 
 man." 
 
 " A man? Already?" Lord Yeoland sat up and looked 
 at her alertly. " Not that pink and yellow curate, I hope? " 
 
 " Mr. Morecambe ? Oh, no. Some one you never heard 
 of. You see, it's rather queer. He used to be awfully in 
 love with mother." 
 
 "With your mother? I didn't know she ever knew a 
 man before Kennedy." 
 
 "Lie still, Caliban, and stop snoring! Oh, it wasn't that 
 long ago. It was four years ago at Aix. One night at the 
 opera I saw him staring at mother. Pilly and I were in 
 the stalls, and she and father were in a loge, and he saw me 
 watching:, and I smiled at him."
 
 132 P A M 
 
 " That was kind of you, my dear." 
 
 " And then he followed me out into the garden and asked 
 me all about her." 
 
 " Good heavens, my dear, did they let you roam about 
 talking to strange men ? Pauline ought to know better ! " 
 commented the old man irascibly. 
 
 " Asked all about her," went on the girl, without noticing 
 the interruption. " I told him who she was, and who father 
 was, and then the next day father found that he was an old 
 friend ; they used to live in the same house in London, years 
 ago. So, of course, he the man, I mean used to come a 
 lot to see us. He was very much in love with mother." 
 
 She paused, and sat thoughtfully staring at the carpet 
 until he recalled her with a curt " Go on ! " 
 
 " Oh, yes. Well, he's always been a great friend of 
 ours, ever since, and I had a letter from him yesterday." 
 
 " Still in love with your mother? " 
 
 " Oh, no! That's just it; the poor thing is in love with 
 me now." 
 
 " Is he, indeed? Has he told you so? " 
 
 She looked up at him, a sudden laugh flickering on her 
 lips. 
 
 " No, he hasn't told me in so many words, and so he 
 thinks I don't know. It's so utterly silly ! " 
 
 " You may be mistaken, my dear." 
 
 " No, I'm not. The goose told me that he had palpi- 
 tation of the heart, one day, and I told him I knew why. 
 Then I suppose he thought it would be a mistake to startle 
 me, for he began trying to be friendly and turning all the 
 colours of the rainbow every time I looked at him ! And he 
 came as far as Paris with Pilly and me, and bought me 
 things to read and things to eat, and said he was going to 
 write to me. I was sorry for him. Pilly thought he had 
 a headache."
 
 P A M 133 
 
 " Well and now he writes to you." 
 
 " Yes. I didn't mind, you know, for he really is a nice 
 old thing, only to-day well, G. F., I really can't help it, 
 and I don't like it a bit, but he's taken ' Birchmere,' and 
 is coming down in a day or two for the winter." 
 
 She rose in the dramatic moment of the announcement, 
 holding the rudely awakened Caliban close to her breast, 
 regardless of his feelings. 
 
 1 ' Birchmere ' ! Well, upon my word ! What's the 
 man's name, my dear ? I hope he is at least a gentleman." 
 
 " Oh, yes, he is; he's queer he doesn't seem quite civilised, 
 somehow. He's a little like a stone-age man, but he's a 
 gentleman. He's an Australian, and his name is Charnley 
 Burke." 
 
 "Burke? I never heard of him. Well, are you going 
 to marry him ? " 
 
 As he spoke the sound of wheels on wet gravel turned 
 the current of their thoughts. " Here they are! No, grand- 
 father, I'm not going to marry him, but I'm afraid he'll 
 bother me, so I thought I'd tell you." 
 
 Mrs. Maxse, tired, and plainer than was strictly neces- 
 sary under a green veil, entered the room just then, followed 
 by a tall fair girl whom Pam knew must be Evelyn. 
 
 And behind them, rather mountainous, though anything 
 but craggy, in his tight grey travelling clothes, Ratty 1
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 ** NO, Ratty, neither now, nor to-morrow, nor next month, 
 nor next year, nor next century, nor next eon or paean, or 
 whatever it is." 
 
 " But, Pam I say, you're hard on a fellow. I love 
 you, Pam ! " 
 
 " Ratty, I'll give you everything I own on earth except 
 Caliban, if you'll stop bothering me." 
 
 They stood at the top of the tower to the right of the 
 ruin of the monastery, under wind-swept, leafless boughs, 
 and a dull December sky. 
 
 " Pam, it isn't womanly of you to call it bothering." 
 
 " I know; but I'm not womanly. There isn't a womanly 
 hair in my head. I am a cat, Ratty; I am cold and cruel 
 and hard as as nails. Oh!" she added, breaking into 
 rueful laughter at the sight of his fat forlornity, " go away, 
 or I'll run a hat-pin into you! " 
 
 It was by no means the first interview of the kind since 
 the Maxses had returned. Ratty, who should have been 
 at Balliol, had developed a mysterious ailment which he 
 had persuaded the doctor, a new man still carefully build- 
 ing up his popularity, to declare to need home care, and Pam 
 had been vexed almost to tears by the persistence of her 
 unwieldy suitor. 
 
 On that particular afternoon she had escaped under the 
 pretext of going to see Cazalet, but Ratty had followed her, 
 and in her despair she had run away from him, feigning 
 to go through the ruin towards the walled garden, only to
 
 P A M 135 
 
 find, on arriving at the top of the tower, that he was toiling 
 slowly up behind her. 
 
 Now a man under the influence of the tender passion, 
 while he may be either abnormally impervious or abnor- 
 mally sensitive, is still, under either category, subject to 
 limitations. 
 
 Ratty's limitation was the hint of a hat-pin. 
 
 " Very well, Pam," he said, blowing his nose with dignity. 
 " I'll go away. I'm going back to Oxford in a few days, 
 and until I do go I'll not bother you, as you call it, but the 
 time may come, my dear girl, when you will realise that 
 the offer of marriage from a a man of my position is not to 
 be scorned by a girl in yours." 
 
 Then he went, leaving her to pull out his arrow and look 
 at it. 
 
 " Horrid little brute," she exclaimed aloud, as she leaned 
 over the parapet and watched his retreating figure through 
 the trees. " A man in his position, indeed ! Thank good- 
 ness, he's going away. And what a fuss they all do make- 
 about marriage. Even dear old G. F. thinks he's going 
 to cook up a nice little matrimonial scheme for me. If 
 they only knew ! " 
 
 She leaned against the rough grey stone parapet, over 
 which she could just see, a slim little figure in a red jersey 
 and Tarn looking thoughtfully down into the wintry leaves 
 of the oak in the Refectory, her head making a pretty enough 
 picture to a man who had just entered the ruin and stood 
 looking up at her. 
 
 "Pam!" 
 
 "Mr. Burke!" 
 
 Burke, looking bigger than ever in his long rough great 
 coat, took off his hat and stood bareheaded as they talked. 
 
 " Why didn't you answer my letter? " 
 
 " 1 had nothing to say to it."
 
 136 P A M 
 
 " I told you I was coming." 
 
 " And you have come. How do you like Birchmere ? I 
 hear the last man left because the chimneys all smoked so." 
 
 " Hang the chimneys. Pam, I'm coming up." 
 
 "All right, only go slow: the stairs are old, and Ratty 
 has already been up and down them once." 
 
 Burke, as he emerged on the platform, answered her 
 observation with a great nervous laugh, adding, " You are 
 the rudest little beggar ! " 
 
 " Yes, am I not ? How are you ? " 
 
 She gave him her hand in its shabby dogskin glove with 
 careless good nature, and then went on conversationally, 
 " Sorry I can't offer you a chair and some tea." 
 
 " I don't want tea. But are you going to stay here 
 long?" 
 
 "I don't know. Why do you ask?" 
 
 " Because if you are, I am going to offer you a seat." 
 
 She stared. 
 
 " What do you mean? " 
 
 " I know what I mean," he returned with an air of 
 mystery, and an effort to overcome his visible nervousness. 
 
 " Then suppose you tell me, my good man, for I have 
 even' intention of staying here for several hours." 
 
 " You have! You don't find it rather chilly? " 
 
 " Balmy. I spend all my evenings here for preference." 
 She laughed, enjoying teasing him, as she spoke, but her 
 laughter ceased suddenly as, without a word, he stooped, 
 caught her up, and with great gentleness set her down on 
 the parapet over which she had just been able to see when 
 standing. 
 
 " Oh! How strong you are! " 
 
 He stood with his arms still around her, his face close to 
 her clasped hands. " Yes, I am strong. How do you like 
 your perch, you little titmouse, you? "
 
 P A M 137 
 
 " I'm not a titmouse, you old mastodon ! You needn't 
 hold me, I'll not fall off." 
 
 He did not move. 
 
 " What if I should hold you out there, over the edge, and 
 then drop you ? " 
 
 " If you did, I should fall. And then how sorry you'd 
 be when you heard me squashing on the stones! " 
 
 He started back, still holding her, and the colour left 
 his face. " You little ghoul ! Don't say such things. Tell 
 me, Pam, are you glad to see me? " 
 
 Pam was small, but she had never in her life realised 
 that she was so until this great rough man had swung her 
 up to her perch there on the tower and stood before her. 
 Suddenly she said, " Take me down, please." 
 
 He obeyed, holding her for a moment in the air, and 
 then very tenderly setting her down on the rough stone 
 platform. 
 
 " How big you are ! " she said slowly, looking up at him, 
 " and how little I am. I am glad I am little." 
 
 "Why?" he asked with curiosity. 
 
 " Because, some day, when I love some man, I want him 
 to be able to carry me as you did." 
 
 Burke drew a deep breath and walked abruptly to the 
 other side of the platform. He knew that she was too 
 young to be made love to, but she was making things 
 hard for him. 
 
 And as he went, she remembered what she had herself 
 forgotten for the moment, in the thought that had come 
 to her of the man whose existence Madame Ravaglia's 
 words had made her aware, the man she was some day 
 to love. 
 
 She remembered that Burke loved her, and thought that 
 she had hurt him. It was an episode that had no pre- 
 cedent; she enjoyed hurting the obnoxious Ratty, but she
 
 138 P A M 
 
 liked Burke, and as yet no curiosity had come to her about 
 the depth and exact nature of his feelings. 
 
 " Shall we go in and get some tea?" she began a little 
 uncertainly. " It must be time." 
 
 " A most excellent idea. I was, as a matter of fact, on my 
 way to call on your grandfather. I have something for him." 
 
 "For my grandfather? What, I wonder?" 
 
 " A photograph of your mother," he returned as they 
 went down the winding stair. " It was taken just before 
 I left Paris, and she sent a copy to him." 
 
 " Oh ! What gown did she have on ? And who did her 
 hair? I do hope not that horrid ' Charles.' He makes all 
 the heads on earth look identically alike ! " 
 
 " All those things you'll have to decide for yourself, my 
 dear child. It's a low gown, and her hair looks much as 
 usual, that's all I know." 
 
 Lord Yeoland, whom they found alone in the library, 
 was very gracious to Burke, and accepted the photograph 
 with great pleasure. 
 
 " An excellent picture remarkably like her. She has 
 changed very little since since I saw her," he said putting 
 his pince-nez back into its case. " What are you looking 
 for, Pam?" 
 
 Pam, who was down on her hands and knees peering 
 under a great arm-chair beyond the radius of the lamplight, 
 turned her face over her shoulder. " I'm looking for poor 
 old Cally, grandfather. You swore you'd look after him 
 he's so homesick to-day, poor dear. I suppose it's his 
 birthday or some other anniversary." 
 
 " Meaning that the little brute is in even a viler temper 
 than usual. Mr. Burke, you probably have the honour 
 of the creature's acquaintance, and will understand when 
 I tell you and his irate mistress that after he had twice 
 tried to bite me I had to send him up to Pilgrim."
 
 P A M 
 
 Pam, who had risen, went to the door and rang. 
 
 " You must have got on his nerves, then," she retorted 
 rather ungraciously, " for he almost never bites. James, 
 fetch my monkey, will you?" 
 
 When tea and the banished Caliban had appeared, and 
 Pam had dispensed the former in her usual somewhat hap- 
 hazard way, she sat down by the fire and listened gravely 
 while her grandfather and his new neighbour made con- 
 versation. 
 
 When at last Burke had gone, she did not speak until the 
 old man exclaimed suddenly, " And you think he is in love 
 with you ? " 
 
 "Yes. Don't you?" 
 
 " I don't know. I saw nothing particularly decisive, I 
 must say." 
 
 " Oh, he's not an idiot, you know. But isn't it a pity he 
 should waste his time on me ? " 
 
 "Why must it necessarily be waste of time? He seems 
 a very good sort of man, my dear." 
 
 Pam nodded absently. " Oh yes, only he isn't I mean, 
 wouldn't it be excellent, grandfather, if he should fall in 
 love with Evy ? " 
 
 " Why in the name of goodness should he do that? " 
 
 " I don't say that he should, only that I wish he would. 
 She is really grown up, you know, nearly nineteen. And he 
 is frightfully rich. I do like him so much." 
 
 Lord Yeoland smiled. " Then why don't you consider 
 him yourself ? " 
 
 " Oh, no! I can't exactly explain," she returned, rising 
 and taking up her hat and jacket ; " but he isn't the man 
 for me at all." 
 
 " I see. It may be a little awkward then, his settling 
 down here." 
 
 " No. I was afraid of that too, until I had seen him, but
 
 140 P AM 
 
 now I know better. He won't bother me yet; he's waiting 
 until I'm older." . 
 
 "By Jove! Now, how in the world did you get hold 
 of that idea? " said the old man, highly amused and de- 
 lighted. 
 
 " I don't know, but I'm sure it's right, G. F., dear."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 AND she was right, as Lord Yeoland, from his vantage 
 ground of neutral observation, soon admitted to himself. 
 
 Burke was not a particularly clever man, but he had 
 t certain strength of his own, and he was, as the old 
 onlooker called it, a stayer. Once over his first nervous- 
 ness, the big Australian settled down into a calm that would 
 have disarmed any one not so keen-sighted as the two Yeo- 
 lands. He did not promenade his hopes or his occasional 
 woes for the benefit of his small public, nor did he bore the 
 Monks' Yeoland household by over-frequent visits. There 
 was a simple dignity about his whole attitude which pleased 
 Lord Yeoland, as did also the line he took towards the 
 county. 
 
 In spite of his great size Burke rode well, and all that 
 winter he followed the hounds regularly. Then, for he 
 was generous, he subscribed largely to the church building 
 fund, and did, in a frank though unobtrusive way, a great 
 deal of good to the poor in his neighbourhood. 
 
 " A very nice fellow, Cunningham, isn't he? " Lord Yeo- 
 land once remarked to the Rector, and that good man was 
 all enthusiasm. 
 
 Cazalet, on the other hand, did not take to the new- 
 comer, and it gave his employer much mild pleasure to 
 confide in the old steward his hopes that Pam might one 
 day become Mrs. Burke. 
 
 " Indeed, my lord. H'm! " Cazalet, who had less hair 
 and more wrinkles than of old, but whom Pam had found 
 
 141
 
 142 P A M 
 
 otherwise delightfully unchanged rubbed his hand across 
 the back of his head, a trick he had in moments of slight 
 embarrassment. 
 
 " Yes. I am not a matchmaker, as you know, but 
 well, Cazalet, you are an old friend, and I am sure your 
 interest in Pamela is almost as great as my own. You 
 discovered her, you know ! " 
 
 " Yes, my lord. I am h'm! very fond of Miss 
 Pamela." 
 
 " But I understand from your manner that you do not 
 approve of this Mr. Burke as a possible husband for her? 
 Mind you, it is all, of course, merely conjecture on my 
 part." 
 
 " It is not for me to approve or to disapprove, your 
 lordship, but as you ask me, I don't mind saying that I do 
 think your grand-daughter might look higher." 
 
 Lord Yeoland nodded, suddenly thoughtful. " No doubt, 
 no doubt. When all is said and done, we of course know 
 nothing of the man, except that he seems a good sort of 
 fellow, and is generous with his money." 
 
 " She is so unlike most young ladies," went on the 
 steward hesitatingly ; " she seems to me to be so much 
 more original-minded. I don't think money could make her 
 happy." 
 
 " Neither do I, Cazalet, neither do I. But well, I 
 confess it has looked to me a good way out of what, after 
 all, is bound to be more or less of a difficulty. What if she 
 should fall in love with some one who couldn't marry 
 her? I mean, because of his rank?" 
 
 " I know. But she certainly doesn't care a pin for this 
 Mr. Burke, your lordship." 
 
 " Right again. And she is ' ower young to marry,' as yet." 
 
 The steward rose. " I have promised to be at Orchard 
 Farm at noon, my lord, h'm! I should like to ask, if I
 
 P A M 143 
 
 may, whether P Miss Pamela has ever mentioned to 
 you her views on on marriage ? " 
 
 " On marriage? No, not of late. She once told me years 
 ago, poor little thing " He broke off and was silent. 
 
 " If I might make a suggestion, my lord, it might, I 
 think, be well for you to h'm! ascertain her present 
 opinion on the subject. I fear, indeed, I am sure, that you 
 will find it unchanged." 
 
 Lord Yeoland laughed. He anticipated a merry half 
 hour with Pam on that great question, and was not in the 
 least disposed to take her views seriously. 
 
 " No use in talking about it, grandfather, is there ? I 
 am, as you say, too young really to have any views at all 
 on such matters." 
 
 " But you happen, at the same time, to have such views ; 
 and, unless I am very much mistaken, you fundamentally 
 disapprove of marriage as an institution ? " 
 
 She hesitated, resting both hands lightly on the vase she 
 was filling with flowers, and looking at him with thoughtful 
 brows across the shining oak table. 
 
 " As an institution ? That sounds rather political, and 
 I shy at politics, G. F., dear. No, I don't mean anything 
 about institutions. My point of view looks towards con- 
 stitutions ; and as you insist on my telling you, I don't mind 
 stating that my own constitution is too delicate to stand such 
 solid diet as matrimony. It is to some people, and I am 
 one of them, as indigestible as cold plum pudding." 
 
 Encouraged by his look of polite interest she went on 
 slowly, but with a flash of delight in her eyes: " I may even 
 say, that to my ignorance that most holy state seems like 
 a plum pudding. On the day when it is served up hot, burn- 
 ing merrily and decked with holly, it seems harmless 
 enough, and even to be recommended. But alas the next 
 day! you yourself will admit that the flame and the heat
 
 144 P AM 
 
 are gone, and only the soggy indigestibility remains. That 
 I find rather a knock-down argument," she added with a 
 brilliant smile; "don't you?" 
 
 " Excellent. Most florid and effective, my dear, but 
 However, as we agree, you are rather young yet, so we 
 will wait for a few years before your opinion is considered 
 final. Also," he added slily, " until the right man happens 
 
 to be waiting for your answer to his " 
 
 ' Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you 
 join the dance?'" she quoted. "Very well, let's wait, by 
 all means. Only don't think me such an idiot as not to 
 want Evy, for instance, to enter into those sacred bonds." 
 
 " Ah! You think Evy adapted to chains? " 
 
 Pan laughed. " Imagine the joy of the chains on sinking 
 comfortably for life on her nice smooth wrists ! " 
 
 Lord Yeoland did not pursue the subject any further. 
 
 One morning in late February, while the ladies of the 
 household sat grouped about one of those splendid fires 
 which are the Briton's natural defence against the unkind- 
 ness of his native climate, Lord Yeoland came suddenly 
 into the room, propelling his chair with a grand indifference 
 to furniture that bespoke great excitement. " The Duchess 
 is coming, Pam! " he cried, waving a scrap of orange paper 
 towards her. " Bless her heart, she's actually coming! " 
 
 Mrs. Maxse looked up in mild wonder. " Dear me, 
 father! You mean Cousin Eliza Wight? What can be 
 bringing her down here now?" 
 
 " The joys of my society, Rosamund ; isn't that 
 enough ? " 
 
 He steered himself skilfully into the nook by the fire 
 made for him by Evelyn, and read the telegram aloud: 
 
 " ' If convenient Henrietta I to-day Monday Eliza 
 Wight.' Really I am delighted." 
 
 " Eliza Wight appears to be of an economical turn of
 
 F A M 
 
 oiind," observed Pam, doing something very insinuating 
 to the fire with the poker. " I suppose she means that she 
 will stay until Monday?" 
 
 " Yes. She is rather economical an unfortunate virtue 
 in an otherwise charmingly faulty nature. Evy, my dear, 
 just go and tell Mrs. Bean, will you? The blue room for 
 Eliza, I think, eh, Rosamund ? " 
 
 Evelyn, who was used to having the errands fall to her 
 share, rose obediently and left the room. She was a 
 tall, rather solidly built girl, just turned eighteen, with a 
 sweet, somewhat stupid face, and beautiful soft hair the 
 colour of fresh country butter. 
 
 "Who is Henrietta, grandfather?" Pam asked, turning 
 her back to the fire and indulgently scratching Caliban's 
 drowsy head. 
 
 "The Lady Henrietta Shanklin, my dear; her daughter, 
 my god-daughter, and one of the handsomest women in 
 England, which is saying a great deal." 
 
 " Oh, yes; enough for any one, I should say." 
 
 "H'm!" 
 
 A silence fell on the little group, as each member of it 
 comfortably pursued his or her own thoughts. 
 
 Rosamund Maxse, as usual, was thinking of her trouble- 
 some husband, of whom she had heard nothing for nearly a 
 month. He was supposed to be on the Riviera getting rid 
 of a cough he had contracted in the autumn, but she was 
 worried about him, and her plain, kindly face looked worn 
 and anxious. 
 
 Pam was thinking about Burke, who had been away for 
 a month on the Continent and in London, and wishing that 
 he would come back. He had not said a word to her of 
 his love, but its presence lent an agreeable excitement to 
 the comfortable dulness of her life, and she had begun to 
 experience an uneasy delight in tormenting him. It would,
 
 146 P A M 
 
 she felt, be very good, that drowsy day, to have some one 
 to torment. 
 
 And Lord Yeoland, his smooth-shaven little countenance 
 full of the pleasant light of pleasant thought, was as silent 
 as either of the two women. All sorts of vague possibilities 
 began to form themselves in his mind, in connection with 
 the Duchess's visit. Pam had long since become the very- 
 centre of his life; with every hour of the last months the 
 two had grown closer to each other. It was a curious 
 alliance; there were no demonstrations on either side; she 
 had not kissed him since the day of her arrival, she had 
 never once stroked his hair as Evelyn sometimes did ; they 
 disagreed, argued, laughed at each other. But they were 
 friends with a friendship which had nothing to do with 
 relationship or duty; with a friendship which sprang straight 
 from the two souls in some ways so curiously alike, though 
 the one was so old and the other so young. 
 
 And gradually in Lord Yeoland's mind the thought of 
 the girl's future grew to be the paramount one. He had 
 long since decided to leave her a comfortable fortune; now 
 he began to chafe at the social limitations that confronted 
 him in his dreams for her. But for that little ceremony 
 which had not taken place between her mother and her 
 father she would shortly have been a match for the best 
 in the land. Now, even with his great influence to back 
 her, she would have to put up with something less than 
 the best. Unless and his old head reared itself at the 
 thought one of the best should so love her that he should 
 not care about that neglected ceremony. He himself, surely 
 of the best, would not have hesitated one second, and 
 surely there must still be men of the same metal! He had 
 thought so long on the subject that he had become confused 
 and involved, and the knowledge that the Duchess of Wight 
 was coming was like a ray of light in a black night.
 
 P A M 14? 
 
 Eliza, if she could be induced to take an interest in 
 Parn, would be the most convincing sponsor in the world 
 for the girl. Her Grace, who in spite of several ancient 
 peccadilloes, had somehow managed to keep well on the 
 sunny side of Royal favour, had indeed been one of the very 
 hardest on Pauline, and once he knew had, on meeting the 
 blissful sinner in the Vatican Gallery, given her the most 
 pronounced snub possible. 
 
 " And she had the face to pretend," her Grace had told 
 Lord Yeoland, " not to see me! " 
 
 " Nonsense. You know as well as I that none of us ever 
 pretend." 
 
 " The rest of you, I admit ; it is the one good quality 
 of your race." 
 
 " It isn't a virtue, Eliza ; it's indolence, or indifference. 
 Few things seem to us worth while doing at all, and none 
 worth pretending." 
 
 " But if something does present itself to you in the light 
 of worth-whileness," retorted the old woman, grimly humor- 
 ous, " nothing on this side the grave can stop you." 
 
 She herself not being famed for possessing the most 
 tractable of dispositions, Lord Yeoland, sitting now by the 
 fire, against which Pam's regular young profile stood out 
 in strong relief, pondered all these things. The great lady 
 who might, if she chose, smooth his darling's path to great- 
 ness, might, provided the two strong natures clashed, block 
 that same way with the greatest ease. The essential thing, 
 therefore, was to avoid a clash, and then to coax into 
 existence a mutual liking that had no particular reason for 
 being, and against which so much militated. 
 
 As he was in his way a wise old man, he decided to let 
 matters take their course.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE Duchess of Wight and the Lady Henrietta Shanklin 
 arrived at six that afternoon, and when they came down- 
 stairs found their host, his daughter, and Evelyn sitting 
 together around the freshly supplied tea-table. 
 
 Lord Yeoland had often chafed under the conviction tha 
 he did not bore his daughter and his elder grand-daughter 
 They bored him so inexpressibly that he would have takeu 
 a wicked satisfaction in the knowledge that they found him 
 as irksome as he found them; but, as a matter of fact, the/ 
 both enjoyed his society, and it being their well-meant 
 habit to tell him so, he chafed helplessly. So, as he waited 
 for his guests to repair the damages of their journey, time 
 had dragged, and when the Duchess came down his joy had 
 an extra keenness. 
 
 "Well, Oswald, how are you? It's very good of you 
 to let us blow in in this casual way! How do you do, 
 Rosamund; ah, Evelyn, how pretty you have grown, my 
 dear." 
 
 Her Grace, a tall old woman with palpably dyed red hair 
 and a made-up complexion, sat down by the fire and held 
 up to it a remarkably small foot in a red slipper. 
 
 " Warmer here than in Derbyshire ; we've been freezing 
 at the Danchesters' this past week. Cora Danchester pre- 
 tends to think a decently warm house unhealthful, so we 
 wore fur capes to dinner. How's your gout ? " 
 
 " Infernal. I'm getting an old man now," returned Lord 
 Yeoland, handing her the muffins. 
 
 148
 
 P A M i*9 
 
 " You are seventy ; I am sixty-four. How do you like 
 my hair?" 
 
 " Pretty red, isn't it? However, I like it better than the 
 canary-colour it was the last time I saw you." 
 
 " Oh, yes, that was rather bad. Funny of us all to dye 
 our hair, isn't it? We all do, however." 
 
 Evelyn listened with wonder written all over her face, a 
 fact which neither escaped nor restrained the Duchess, who 
 was going on to describe the wonders worked by a new 
 American dentist in Bryanston Square, in the artificial 
 teeth line, when the door opened again and her daughter 
 came in. 
 
 Lady Henrietta was one of those few dazzling blonde 
 English beauties who take the colour out of all other 
 women, and reduce most people, on first sight, to rapturous 
 silence. 
 
 " My dear," her host exclaimed with the enthusiasm so 
 charming in a man of his age, " you are lovelier than ever! " 
 
 " I am very glad you think so, Cousin Oswald," she 
 returned, greeting Mrs. Maxse and Evelyn; "you are cer- 
 tainly a good judge." 
 
 She sat down and drank her tea with slightly bored 
 composure while her mother gave vent to a little burst of 
 woe on the trials of being the parent hen of such a brilliant 
 duckling. 
 
 "Heaven knows I never was vain, was I, Oswald?" 
 her Grace said plaintively ; " and I would never have dreamed 
 of dyeing my hair or doing messy things to my plain old 
 face. Only one can't go about looking an absolute fright, 
 can one? And I, in my natural mouse and yellow tints 
 am, beside that wretch, ugly enough to stop a motorcar. My 
 only consolation is that, when she does fade, it'll all go 
 quickly, for her features are not much, as you see for 
 yourself!"
 
 iso P A M 
 
 Evelyn's horror at this unmotherly speech was almost 
 too much for her grandfather, who, after a few words of 
 sympathy, changed the subject. " Who else was at Danches- 
 ter? " he asked. 
 
 " Oh, a lot of bores and some political men. Cora is 
 growing very keen on politics as her precious Billy grows 
 up! Sir John Barry was there, and Lewisham." 
 
 " Nasty little Jew, Lewisham Levisohn." 
 
 " He will get this Bill through, just the same; and then 
 there was the new man, the Member for Radbroke 
 Peele." 
 
 Lord Yeoland straightened up suddenly. " The fellow 
 who was fined after that speech in the House? Was he, 
 indeed?" 
 
 " He was. Wasn't he, Henny? " 
 
 " Yes, mamma." Lady Henrietta set down her cup as 
 she answered. " He is coming down here," her Grace 
 went on, a note of malicious amusement in her voice. " He 
 is here this minute as far as that is concerned at the 
 Pockingtons'. Came down in the train with us. It may 
 interest you to know," she added, with something nearly 
 approaching a wink, " that he is very much attracted 
 by me." 
 
 Lady Henrietta rose and going closer to the fire stood 
 with her back to it, fingering a fine jewelled chain she 
 wore and smiling tranquilly. " Which means, Cousin Os- 
 wald, that Mr. Peele is a friend of mine" 
 
 " You may be congratulated then, my dear, for I gather 
 that he is a very clever young man. I always read his 
 speeches." 
 
 "Yes, he is clever. But he is not so very young; he is 
 thirty-five." 
 
 "When is his birthday, dear?" asked her mother sweetly. 
 
 " December 21, mamma darling," was the tranquil reply,.
 
 P A M isi 
 
 and then, quite naturally, the beauty begged Evelyn to go 
 and have a game of billiards with her. A few moments 
 later Rosamund, too, left the room, and the old friends were 
 alone. 
 
 "Quaint, isn't it?" the Duchess began promptly, with 
 a sigh of relief. 
 
 "What is quaint?" 
 
 " You know. I wasn't baiting her for nothing, was I ? " 
 
 "You mean that Peele and she " 
 
 " I mean nothing whatever about Peele. I don't pretend 
 to understand the workings of his mind, but I know my 
 Henny! She is in love with the man, Oswald." 
 
 Lord Yeoland rubbed his chin. " Dear me, is she in- 
 deed? He's not a person she could possibly marry, is he? " 
 
 " There's only one obstacle so far as I can see he may 
 not ask her." 
 
 "Good heaven, Eliza!" 
 
 " Exactly. He's no more in love with her than he is 
 with me. On the other hand, she would be very useful to 
 him." 
 
 " But who is he? I know, of course, that he is a brilliant 
 speaker, and that they say he's to have an Under-Secretary- 
 ship, but " 
 
 " Oh, he's not such a worm socially as you imagine, my 
 dear friend! As to that, he goes everywhere. Cora Dan- 
 chester was as pleased as Punch to have him, and he is going 
 on to Levallion ! " 
 
 " I see." The old man gazed reflectively into the fire. 
 "And she likes him!" 
 
 " Madly in love with him, Oswald ! Between you and 
 me, she has been, for over a year. She met him on the 
 Umfreville's yacht. He, however, appears to have seized 
 the idea of the possibility of marrying her only quite lately, 
 Jueer, isn't it, the whole thing? "
 
 152 P A M 
 
 " I shall be interested in seeing the man. Where is he 
 stopping, did you say?" 
 
 As he spoke a servant brought in a note. " For Mrs. 
 Maxse, my lord, from Wanby Hall." 
 
 "Oh, Oswald, read it! It's to ask leave to bring him 
 to-night," cried the Duchess. " I saw Sir Henry at the 
 station, and he said he was dining here." 
 
 " Take it to Mrs. Maxse, James. She is in the drawing- 
 room, I believe. Poor Rosamund will be in despair," he 
 added, as the footman left the room ; " she bustled about 
 this morning to get a couple of men for you and Henrietta, 
 and this chap upsets the table again! However, one of the 
 girls can come down." 
 
 "One of the girls?" 
 
 " Yes, Pauline's daughter is living with me now." 
 
 The Duchess's face hardened. " I didn't know she had 
 a daughter." 
 
 " Yes, you did ; I wrote you all about it years ago." 
 
 " Oh, did you? Well, I had forgotten." 
 
 " Don't be nasty to her, Eliza." 
 
 " Of course I shan't be nasty to her, but I greatly doubt 
 the wisdom of having her here." 
 
 Lord Yeoland sighed. " My dear girl, is wisdom to be 
 expected from me? And when I tell you that I love her? 
 That she is the one thing on earth that amuses me? " 
 
 " I am glad of that, Oswald," returned the old woman 
 obstinately, " but I cannot forgive Pauline." 
 
 " No one expects that, but Pam needs no forgiveness, does 
 she? Mind you," he added, " I'm not asking you to like 
 her; I may be an old fool, but I know that that would 
 be demanding too much of any woman in your position. 
 You two will be antagonistic in the very nature of things ; I 
 only want you not to be snifty with her." 
 
 "Snifty! A charming word!"
 
 P A M isi 
 
 "' Well, high-nosed, if you prefer it." 
 
 Her Grace burst out laughing. " Very well, I'll promise 
 to do my best, which is as much as any woman can answer 
 for!" 
 
 When he was alone, Lord Yeoland grinned to himself. 
 
 " Rather cunningly managed," he said aloud. 
 
 If the Duchess should take a liking to Pam it would 
 not only be the child's social salvation, but a particularly 
 bitter pill to Fred Yeoland's horrid little wife. " Good old 
 Elizl " the old man added with another grin.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 A FEW minutes later Pam came bursting into her grand- 
 father's room, wet and muddy, but glowing with excite- 
 ment. 
 
 "Grandfather, is it true? Is Peele really dining here?" 
 
 " Yes, my dear. Is the news too much for you ? " 
 
 "James Peele! Oh, G. F., if I can't see him I shall 
 simply die ! " 
 
 The old man laughed. " Allow me then to save your 
 life by suggesting that you come down after dinner ! " 
 
 "After dinner! I want " 
 
 Lord Yeoland looked up sharply towards the door. " Who 
 is it? Who is there?" he called; "do come in and stop 
 fiddling with the knob!" 
 
 It was Mrs. Maxse, her face wearing the look of one in 
 great affliction. " Oh, father! " she began at once, twisting 
 her hands together nervously, "where am I to get another 
 woman? Sir Henry might have known his extra man 
 would upset us! " 
 
 The old man rubbed his ear thoughtfully. " I don't 
 much mind having a man on the other side of me," he 
 answered ; " it's a small dinner only I won't have any one 
 who is deaf, and I won't have Cunningham." 
 
 " Dear papa, you know we can't do that ! Oh, it is sc 
 awkward." 
 
 " Well oh, yes, of course, as I told Eliza, one of the 
 girls can come down ! " 
 
 "I'll come, grandfather!" Pam had risen and stood 
 
 154
 
 P A M 155 
 
 looking up with gleaming eyes. "I'm seventeen plenty 
 old enough, and you know how I want to see him! " 
 
 " Good ! Then, Rosamund, that's settled ! " 
 
 Mrs. Maxse flushed. " You know you said that other 
 time when Evelyn came down that you wouldn't have either 
 of the girls until they were older." 
 
 " That was because Evy sat like an image and bored 
 poor Garstang to death. And then Mrs. Bentley-Cooke 
 was there," he added, with the tribute of a chuckle to the 
 memory of one of that lively lady's little stories. " Pam 
 will talk, won't you, Pam ? " 
 
 " I do think it ought to be Evy," persisted his daughter 
 with gentle obstinacy. 
 
 Pam turned, her eyes very monkey-like and full of the 
 wisdom of the ages, to her aunt. " Grandfather wants 
 me, Aunt Rosamund ! " 
 
 " Very well, papa, as long as you really do want her." 
 
 The old man nodded. 
 
 " Cut along, my dear, and make yourself lovely. Yes, 
 Rosamund, I do in this particular instance prefer to have 
 Pam. Thanks; now I must go and dress. Jenkins is 
 waiting for me." 
 
 Pam flew to her room and was soon deep in the mysteries 
 of choice between a pale blue crepe frock that had lost 
 a little of its freshness but was of Parisian make, and a 
 white silk, new, but obviously made in the country. 
 
 No one was ever more surprised than she when, just as 
 she had wisely decided in favour of the blue crepe, Evelyn 
 came in and declared that she wished to go to the dinner 
 instead of her cousin. 
 
 If the proverbial worm had not only turned, but risen 
 on its tail-tip and proceeded to strike at her with venomous 
 fury, Pam could not have been more taken aback. 
 
 " But you know you hated that one dinner when Aunt
 
 156 P AM 
 
 Rosamund was ill," she returned, dropping the scissors with 
 which she was at work on her blue corsage. 
 
 " I know I did. But I like this one, and I'm going 
 down." 
 
 "What will grandfather say?" 
 
 This was a subterfuge, for Pam had not the slightest 
 intention of giving way. 
 
 But Evelyn stood her ground stolidly. " Grandfather 
 won't care; he only wanted you rather than me because 
 you wanted to come." 
 
 "Well? I rftf/want to!" 
 
 " But if you let me come instead, he won't care. Pam, 
 you don't mind ? " 
 
 Pam clashed the scissors mockingly. " But I do. Now 
 don't bother me, my child; my great mind is sternly bent 
 on how to make a high-necked frock into a low one, in half 
 an hour's time." 
 
 " But oh, Pam, please let me ! You don't know how 
 I want to come. I'll do anything on earth for you, if you 
 will. It is a very serious matter with me, and it is only 
 curiosity on your part." 
 
 Pam rose suddenly and came close to her, looking in her 
 white underwaist and short red silk petticoat very child- 
 ish, but at the same time strangely distinct as an individ- 
 uality. 
 
 " Evelyn Maxse," she said sternly, " it's a man ! " 
 
 Evelyn blushed with helpless embarrassment. 
 
 "Who is he?" 
 
 " Oh, Pam! how can you think such things? " 
 
 " How can you do such things?" 
 
 " But I haven't done one thing, Pam. Really and truly 
 I haven't." 
 
 " Then what has he done ? " 
 
 Evelyn broke down and wept on her judge's still thin
 
 P A M is? 
 
 young shoulder. " He has done nothing ; he doesn't even 
 know. And I do so want to see him ! " she sobbed. 
 
 " Well, tell me who it is and I'll see what I can do," 
 urged Pam with calm confidence. 
 
 " It's Mr. Morecambe." 
 
 At first Pam could not believe her ears, and then, with 
 a sudden laugh that affection for her cousin rendered silent, 
 she patted that weeping maiden gently on her back and bade 
 her wipe her eyes. 
 
 " Dearly Beloved ! ' So it's him he, I mean. And do 
 you adore him ? " 
 
 " I don't adore him, but I wish you wouldn't call him 
 ' Dearly Beloved,' Pam." 
 
 " Don't be crusty; you named him yourself, and you 
 know he does say it a hundred times in every sermon. 
 Well, you may go to dinner, so stop howling; let me look 
 at your nose." 
 
 " Oh, Pam, I may go? And you don't mind? " 
 
 Pam gave a grim smile. " Not a bit ; far be it from me 
 to interfere with Love's young dream. What are you going 
 to wear? " 
 
 The grateful Evelyn departed to make herself beautiful 
 for the delectation of her soul's Lord, and Pam sat down 
 and reviewed the situation. Of course she had had no pos- 
 sible alternative. Evelyn's claim obliterated her own, but 
 at the same time she did not mean to miss all the fun. 
 
 A few minutes later, after a talk with Pilgrim, she left 
 her room with a smile of triumph, and went to see that 
 Evelyn was not ruining herself by an ill-judged necklace 
 or the wrong kind of flowers. 
 
 The only thing for which she had particularly cared, in 
 connection with the dinner, was the opportunity of seeing 
 James Peele. All the autumn and winter she had read of 
 the man and his doings, and there was something in his
 
 158 P A M 
 
 speeches, even on dry political subjects, picturesque enough 
 to touch her imagination. 
 
 A picture of him, cut from some paper, and showing him 
 in the act of speaking in public, the forefinger of his right 
 hand lightly laid on the palm of his left in a way evidently 
 characteristic, was pinned over her dressing-table, and as she 
 sat pondering she raised her eyes to it. 
 
 " To think that you should be dining here," she exclaimed 
 aloud, " and I not see you ! " 
 
 The story of his outburst of speech in the House, in 
 which, in a towering indignation, he had so bluntly arraigned 
 a certain great political light that the papers had been full 
 of the scene and his purse shortly the lighter by several 
 thousand pounds the fine he declared himself glad to pay 
 for the pleasure of having spoken his mind this and other 
 things about the man came back into the young worshipper's 
 mind. 
 
 Suddenly she sprang up and rang for Pilgrim. 
 
 " Pilly, take this and cut a big square out of the top, 
 will you?" she cried, as the faithful martyr entered, and 
 throwing the blue corsage at her. " I've got to go down 
 after dinner, or I'll burst, and I wish a low gown." 
 
 " But, Miss Pam, what will 'is lordship say? " 
 
 " Oh, bother I mean, never mind that. Get to work, 
 there's a dear, and I'll go and borrow a pair of long gloves 
 from Evelyn." 
 
 The dinner went off rather better than most small 
 dinners in the country, for most of these necessary evils are 
 not leavened by the presence of a duchess, a beauty, and 
 a much talked of y<-. ig politician, and its end was not so 
 rapturously welcomed as usual. 
 
 The men had no sooner rejoined the longing women (and 
 the women do long for the men, even if the men be an 
 unserried rank of hop3less bores, after dinner!) than Lord
 
 P A M 159 
 
 Yeoland asked Lady Henrietta to play, and she took her 
 place at the piano. She was splendid that night in a close- 
 fitting, glittering black gown, her only jewel a big diamond 
 on her right hand. And she played wonderfully well for a 
 woman who was not a musician. 
 
 Pam, coming through the outer room, paused and swept 
 a comprehensive glance across the group of presumably 
 listening men and women. 
 
 Her grandfather stood by the fire near the Duchess, 
 whose rather shabby velvet gown was ablaze with jewels; 
 opposite them the Rector smiled amiably into space, while 
 the waves of sound passed over his head without touching 
 him. Miss Veronica Marsh, who really loved music and 
 could not play a note, listened with grieved surprise to the 
 meaningless gush of uninterrupted melody. 
 
 Pam saw them all. She also could see the back of Sir 
 Henry's head. Coming a step further she stopped suddenly. 
 The man in the corner, standing with folded arms, his head 
 sunk on his chest, was James Peele; she knew him at once. 
 And for several minutes she studied him, the lithe lines of 
 his long figure, the breadth of shoulder, the slimness of his 
 well-shod feet, the close-cropped dark head. It was as if 
 he had put himself just there, with nothing between him 
 and her, that she might inspect him. 
 
 And then, as the music ceased, he looked up and she 
 saw his face; the thin, keen face with the deep-set grey 
 eyes, the big bony nose and the close-lipped, rather large 
 mouth. Not a brilliant face; rather a thoughtful one, 
 above all a hard one, in the sense of determination. 
 
 Pam did not know why her breath caught in her throat 
 as she started forward, but it was that unconsciously she 
 recognised, in its perfected prime, the first will she had ever 
 met that was stronger than her own childish one could ever 
 become.
 
 160 F A M 
 
 Her welcome by her amused grandfather was warm, and 
 when he introduced her to the Duchess that great lady, 
 who was growing sleepy, was glad of something to study. 
 
 " So you are Lord Yeoland's famous Pam ? " she asked. 
 
 "Yes, I am Pam. Am I famous?" 
 
 " Very. Why were you not at dinner? " 
 
 " There was no room. Oh, I wonder where Evelyn is? " 
 
 The Duchess laughed. " She went to look at the orchids 
 or the moon, with the blonde curate." 
 
 Pam's eyes danced, but she answered gravely, "There is 
 no moon." 
 
 Somehow the Duchess felt herself full of the milk of 
 human kindness, and she saw the injustice of blaming Pam 
 for that without which she could not have been there, with 
 her charming dark eyes full of mischief, to amuse a sleepy 
 old woman. 
 
 " My dear, when you are older," her Grace answered, 
 touching the child's hand lightly, " you will know that 
 there are circumstances on which a full moon always shines." 
 
 And Pam nodded, quivering with sympathetic under- 
 standing. 
 
 " They will be, I think, engaged within a week," con- 
 tinued the Duchess. " How old is she ? " 
 
 " Eighteen. Fearfully young, don't you think?" 
 
 Her Grace laughed. " Young/ How old are you, may 
 I ask?" 
 
 " I meant young to be engaged. I am only seventeen." 
 
 She had said nothing worth saying, but somehow she 
 had won the old woman's liking, as Lord Yeoland saw with 
 much satisfaction. 
 
 A few minutes later Sir Henry Pockington asked her to 
 show him the orchids, and they went into the sweet warmth 
 f the great conservatory. On the way they passed close 
 to Peele, who was now talking to Lady Henrietta, and who
 
 P A M lei 
 
 at their approach looked up without ceasing to speak. It 
 thus happened that Pam, whose ears were almost uncannily 
 sharp where she was interested, first met Peele's eyes to the 
 sound of his quiet voice saying deliberately, " Love to me 
 can never be more than that." 
 
 Without the slightest change of expression he watched 
 the girl's face until she had passed, and her eyes were as 
 dogged as his. 
 
 " Did you hear him? " she asked Sir Henry. 
 
 "No. Who? Peele?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "What did he say?" 
 
 " He was making love rather loud, that's all,*' returned 
 the girl drily.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 IT was curious that the next time Pam saw Peele it was 
 in a position in which not one woman in a million ever sees 
 a man that of asking another woman to marry him. 
 
 Two or three days after the dinner the young girl came 
 home through the dusk, watching the glories of a really 
 beautiful late winter sunset. The sky, as she cast a last 
 glance at it on the outskirts of the park before plunging 
 into the obscurity of an evergreen plantation, on her way 
 to the house, was a blaze of gold and purple clouds; and on 
 coming again into the open as she approached the monastery 
 ruins it occurred to her that from the top of the tower 
 she would have a very good view of the western sky before 
 going into the house. 
 
 Turning to the right she entered the Refectory and ran 
 quickly up the old stairs, whose inequalities she knew now 
 by heart, the place being a great favourite of hers, and came 
 out on to the platform. A cutting had been made through 
 the trees to the west of the house, for the sake of a wild 
 bit of upland view, and the opening, framed in by bare 
 beeches and scant-leaved oaks, was a splendour of light 
 streaked with bright colour. 
 
 " Like those little Turners to the left of the door in the 
 National Gallery," the girl murmured to herself, climbing 
 to the parapet by the help of a block of wood she had once 
 brought up for the purpose, and sitting down. 
 
 She had been there only a few minutes when she heard 
 
 162
 
 P A M 163 
 
 voices to her left, down below, and turning, saw Lady 
 Henrietta wrapped in glossy dark furs, entering the Refec- 
 tory with a man whom she at once knew, in spite of the 
 disguising properties of a rough greatcoat and a bowler, 
 to be Peele. 
 
 The beautiful woman carried her muff to her cheek 
 as if in some confusion, and for a moment they were 
 silent. Then the man went on in a curiously low, measured 
 voice. 
 
 " So you see, Lady Henrietta, my ambition is practically 
 boundless." 
 
 " I see. And I believe in you, Mr. Peele." 
 
 Pam, whose early indifference to the heinousness of listen- 
 ing to conversations not intended for her ears had given way 
 under instruction to the usual conventional dislike of so 
 doing, drew back cautiously with the intention of descend- 
 ing from her precarious perch; but the light block of wood, 
 wet with recent rain, slipped from under her searching foot, 
 and bounced out of reach. So, as she could not get down 
 without a considerable jump, and being afraid of risking it 
 with damp boots on the wet stones, she sat still. 
 
 The two people below had strolled across the great hall 
 and stood under the big oak. Peele, who was facing the 
 unseen spectator, took off his hat and looked round with 
 a slight frown on his white brow. 
 
 "I am glad that you do believe in me; I wonder how 
 far that belief would go." 
 
 His delicate face, with the great strength that was so 
 unlike the animal and vital strength of Burke's, interested 
 Pam keenly. The power of restraint that was in it she 
 saw and appreciated, and as she watched suddenly the idea 
 came to her that that famous burst of anger in the House 
 had not taken him, as every one had supposed, by storm. 
 " He let himself go," she said to herself, with a thrill at
 
 164 P AM 
 
 feeling herself clever enough to guess such a secret. " He 
 did it on purpose." 
 
 Lady Henrietta was looking away, and Pam had not 
 heard her reply to his question, but he was speaking again. 
 
 " May I put it to a test ? " he asked quietly, his deep-set 
 eyes fixed on his companion's face. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Something in the breathlessness of her answer made the 
 listener's heart give a great throb, as it had long ago in the 
 presence of Charnley Burke 's passion for her mother. 
 
 Quite forgetful of the exposure of her posit-on and that 
 she had no right to hear, Pam leaned over listening with 
 all her ears. 
 
 " Henrietta, will you marry me? " 
 
 She did not answer at once, and he went on rapidly but 
 not hurriedly: " Of course, many people would think me 
 very audacious to ask you, but I am an audacious man, and 
 I want you. You know everything there is to know about 
 me that my father was merely a poor country gentleman, 
 whereas yours was the Duke of Wight; that I am poor 
 myself, whereas you are rich. Will you marry me ? " 
 
 Pam had listened to all this with no conscious qualms 
 at all, but when Lady Henrietta raised her proud head from 
 her muff and looked up at him without a word, the young 
 girl suddenly shut her eyes so tight that they hurt, and 
 stuffed the tips of her dogskin fingers into her ears. 
 
 She had no right to see and hear that. 
 
 " That's like mother and father," she thought, in an agony 
 of sympathy. " She really does! " 
 
 After a moment that seemed an eternity, she opened her 
 eyes, and when she could see beheld Peele raising his head 
 from his fiancee's. He had kissed her, but she looked, Pam 
 thought, as though she had been in heaven. 
 
 Peele's subsequent remarks were uninteresting, and
 
 P A M 165 
 
 began to cast about in her mind as to how she should 
 manage to get away, provided Lady Henrietta continued 
 to stand there with her hand on his arm indefinitely. 
 
 It was, however, the fiancee herself who solved the 
 question. 
 
 " Let me go on ahead, please," she said rather tremu- 
 lously. " Mamma will tease me come in about half an 
 hour." 
 
 " Very well. Good-bye until then." He kissed her 
 gently, and she went out. 
 
 Pam, waiting for him to take himself off, likewise forgot 
 that, there now being nothing to keep his eyes busy below, 
 they might turn towards her, but so it happened. After 
 standing perfectly still for a few minutes, a slight frown on 
 his immobile face, he suddenly looked up. 
 
 "Hello!" 
 
 " Hello ! " answered the girl faintly. 
 
 " What are you doing here? " 
 
 "Sitting down. Did you think I was flying?" She 
 laughed as she answered. 
 
 " I saw you the other evening at Lord Yeoland's," he 
 went on, still frowning. 
 
 " You did. I am Pam Yeoland Pamela." 
 
 "And how long, may I ask, have you been perched up 
 there?" 
 
 "About half an hour." 
 
 His frown deepened, which somehow had the effect of 
 putting her at her ease. 
 
 " I can't help it, I can't get down. Perhaps you wouldn't 
 mind helping me? " she went on. 
 
 " Not at all, how can I get up? " 
 
 " The stairs are there to your left." 
 
 A few seconds later he stood beside her. " How did you 
 get up?"
 
 166 PAM 
 
 " By the block over there ; when I tried to get down, when 
 you came, it squeezed from under my foot, and and there 
 I was!" 
 
 " I see." 
 
 He looked sternly at her, and she could see the firm lines 
 about his mouth and eyes, and distinguish more clearly than 
 ever the strength of his mouth and chin. Evidently he 
 regarded her as a naughty child, who had been eaves- 
 dropping. 
 
 And, indeed, in her red jersey and Tarn, she looked like 
 a child. 
 
 " When we came," he went on at length in a cold voice, 
 "why didn't you call to us?" 
 
 " I had nothing to say to you." 
 
 " Has no one ever taught you that " And then he re- 
 membered that, however childish she might look, she 
 had certainly had on a low gown the other evening, and 
 therefore must have some claims to being treated as a grown 
 person. 
 
 Pam looked at him. " I did shut my eyes when when 
 you kissed her," she said slowly, " and I stuffed up my ears, 
 too." 
 
 The frown that seemed to do duty as a signal of both 
 embarrassment and thoughtfulness, as well as for the emo- 
 tions frowns ordinarily bespeak, darkened again. " How- 
 old are you? " he asked. 
 
 " I'm seventeen." 
 
 " Well, I'll help you down now, Miss Yeoland." 
 
 He put the block under her feet, and steadied it while 
 she descended. Then he said, taking off his hat, " Good 
 afternoon." 
 
 "You've no right to be so so disgusting to me! You 
 might have known some one would hear you! And I didti'r 
 want to! I was here first, too."
 
 P A M 167 
 
 " That is true. You might have warned me." 
 
 " Oh, yes, sneezed, I suppose ! I tell you I tried to get 
 down. And, anyhow, it didn't seem to matter," she added, 
 relapsing into sudden thoughtfulness. 
 
 " Didn't seem to matter? What do you mean? " 
 
 " I mean you'll glare at me if I tell you." 
 
 " No, I won't. Go on." 
 
 " Well, it all seemed pretty matter of fact at first." 
 
 Peele gave a short laugh, the first she had ever heard 
 from him. 
 
 " Matter of fact ! You seem to have had a wide experi- 
 ence in such matters." 
 
 His laughter cost him his position, for it put her at her 
 ease, and she went on gaily as to heart, though solemn of 
 face: 
 
 " Not very wide, but still a little. And I must say, you 
 are a better hand at a speech or a parliamentary row than 
 you are at a proposal." 
 
 James Peele was used to a good deal of deference, and 
 this remark from a slip of a girl who had every reason to be 
 thoroughly ashamed of herself surprised him intensely. 
 
 " What do you know about speeches and parliamentary 
 rows?" he retorted, looking at her with a new interest in 
 his cold eyes. 
 
 " I read them all to my G. F. my grandfather, you 
 know. And that's why I came down the other night, 
 because I did so want to see you." 
 
 " I am flattered." 
 
 " You needn't be ; I am as curious as a magpie. Well, 
 as I was saying, we loved your speeches! " 
 
 " And you didn't care for My dear child, you had no 
 
 business to be there at all, but some day you may see for 
 yourself that a man is always at a great disadvantage on 
 these occasions." After a pause he added, with a half smile,
 
 168 P AM 
 
 " It is lucky that Lady Henrietta is not so hard to please as 
 you." 
 
 Pam tore off her right glove and held out her hand. 
 
 " It iV nice of you not to give me a wigging," she cried 
 impulsively, " and I am sorry, though I really couldn't 
 help it." 
 
 He took her hand and looked seriously at her as she 
 spoke. "All right. What were you going to say?" For 
 she had begun to speak and then relapsed into silence. 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " You were." 
 
 " Well, I've changed my mind." 
 
 " Come tell me, there's a nice child. It was about me, I 
 know." 
 
 " I won't tell you ; please don't bother." 
 
 "You won't? I am as obstinate as you! You mean 
 that you won't tell ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Tell me. I really wish to know," he urged with amused 
 curiosity. But she shook her head. 
 
 " I'm not going to tell; now, at least; some day I may." 
 
 " Very well. Only, we'll probably never meet again, in 
 which case " 
 
 Pam put on her glove. " Let's go, it's late, and," she 
 turned as she started down the chilly stairway, " we shall 
 surely meet again." 
 
 She was most monkey-like at that moment, and something 
 in her voice startled him. 
 
 " I hope so, I am sure, but how do you know ? " 
 
 " Because I know. We shan't like each other particu- 
 larly, for we are both too obstinate, but we shall see a good 
 deal of each other. I am a boojum, and I know! " 
 
 Peele laughed, and as they separated, she going on to 
 the house, he turning to the left for a turn under the trees,
 
 P A M 169 
 
 he looked after the slim little figure, speeding through the 
 dusk, with another laugh of amusement. Then his thoughts 
 returned to his own affairs. 
 
 Two days later the Duchess and her daughter, with Peele 
 in their train, left Monks' Yeoland.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 LORD YEOLAND was not a proud man as proud men 
 go, and he was certainly no stickler for title. He had, how- 
 ever, certain standards which he had inherited ready-made 
 from his father, and up to one of these the Reverend Cecil 
 Morecambe did not come, so that when that gentle cleric 
 asked Richard Maxse for his daughter's hand, a month 
 later, and Dick, who had just returned very seedy and quite 
 penniless from his mysterious travels on the Continent, saun- 
 tered into his father-in-law's sanctum for advice, the old 
 man's language was, Maxse afterwards told his wife, any- 
 thing but academic. 
 
 " I've nothing against the parson, you see," the light- 
 hearted father went on to his weeping daughter, " but we 
 are all in the hands of the Lord, so to say, and his lordship 
 does not appreciate your suitor." 
 
 Poor Rosamund wept at her father, Evelyn stopped eat- 
 ing in public, and even Pam tried to influence her friend and 
 ancestor in vain. 
 
 " No," shouted the old man, tormented out of his usual 
 good humour, " I won't have it, and that is enough said. I 
 suppose I need not give my reasons to you, Pamela? " 
 
 " Oh, if you're going to call me Pamela! However, 
 before I am thrown downstairs, let me ask whether it has 
 occurred to you that if (and he doesn't} Mr. Maxse doesn't 
 object to Mr. Morecambe, you have no right to? " 
 
 It was thoroughly characteristic of the relations of the 
 two speakers that as the one finished her question the other 
 
 70
 
 P A M 171 
 
 suddenly burst into a delighted laugh. " You little wretch ! 
 How dare you? I have no right to object to that pink- 
 haired curate as an addition to my household? Be off, or 
 I will ' kick you downstairs ' ! " And Pam rushed away to 
 tell the despondent Evy that she had at least broken the back 
 of her grandfather's evil temper. 
 
 " I made him laugh, and that is a lot gained," she asserted 
 with a confidence by no means shared by her tearful cousin. 
 
 " He'll never consent, never in this world." 
 
 "Rubbish! Besides, what if he doesn't? You're not 
 his daughter. I'd go out some fine morning and be quietly 
 married and then come in and tell him. It would be fun 
 to watch his face," she added reflectively. 
 
 " That's all very well, Pam, but you don't know w r hat 
 it is to have grown up under his thumb. And he always 
 frightened me out of my wits." 
 
 "Rot!" Pam's vivid little face glowed with vicarious 
 courage and romance. " Either you love Cecil enough not 
 to mind a little raging on grandfather's part, or grand- 
 father's cowed you so that you are afraid to love ! " Evelyn 
 wept. 
 
 After a moment her cousin observed with some scorn: 
 " Well, you'll have to do one thing or the other ; if you 
 are going to obey G. F., for Heaven's sake blow your nose 
 and obey him cheerfully. And if you're going to marry 
 Cecil Morecambe marry him! In the meantime I'm going 
 for a walk, and if there are any messages you'd like me to 
 give him, I'll go over to the rectory and look him up." 
 
 "Oh, Pam ! " Evelyn rose and wiped her eyes. "If 
 you aren't afraid, and really don't mind " 
 
 " I'm not, and I don't mind ; only hurry, for it's going 
 to pour." 
 
 " Then tell him that I am dreadfully unhappy, and have 
 cried my eyes out."
 
 172 P A M 
 
 " Indeed, I won't tell him anything so idiotic. Don't 
 you want to see him ? " 
 
 "See him? How could I?" 
 
 " By looking at him," answered Pam impatiently. " Oh, 
 if it was me, I'd show you! You have no more pluck than 
 a white mouse; I'm ashamed of you! " 
 
 It was a curious scene; the big strongly built Evelyn 
 reduced by her inherent weakness of will to a soft mass of 
 blue serge huddled in a chair; opposite her, small, slight, 
 a child still in many ways, Pam, with the lust of battle 
 in her dark eyes, conscious strength maturing her little 
 face. 
 
 "You can't keep the man hanging on, you know; it 
 would be loathsome of you; you've either got to accept him 
 and face grandfather (or else have the courage to turn tail 
 and flee with Cecil!), or tell him definitely that he isn't 
 worth the row, and let him go away somewhere. Decide, 
 and I'll tell him what he is to prepare for." 
 
 But Evelyn, unable to make up her mind, took refuge in 
 her damp handkerchief, and Pam rushed downstairs in a 
 rage of impatience. 
 
 An hour later she rushed into the rectory and asked for 
 Mr. Cunningham. 
 
 " Mr. Cunningham is not at 'ome, miss," the maid told 
 her. 
 
 " H'ml Is Mr. Morecambe in?" 
 
 Mary believed that he was; would Miss Yeoland step 
 into the drawing-room. 
 
 Pam stepped in, and to pass the time walked up and down 
 from window to window, her hands elapsed behind her as 
 was her habit still. 
 
 Morecambe came in, pinker and yellower than ever, it 
 struck the self-appointed ambassador. 
 
 " I have a lot of things to tell you," she began abruptly,
 
 P A M 173 
 
 " and as Mrs. Cunningham might interrupt, suppose we 
 take a walk." 
 
 The Reverend Cecil, who was very young and so mud 
 like Evelyn in character as well as in colouring that a wiser 
 woman than Pam would have hesitated before helping him 
 towards the winning of the object of his affections, obediently 
 fetched his very correct clerical head-covering, and the two 
 went forth into the windy, cloudy, afternoon. 
 
 Pam told her story briefly, without glossing or blaming 
 the conduct of any one concerned in it. 
 
 " So you see," she finished, " you'll have to persuade her 
 to marry you, or else you'll have to clear out." 
 
 " I don't see how / can persuade her," was the rather 
 forlorn answer, as if he were the last person on earth who 
 might reasonably be supposed to have any influence over 
 Evelyn, " if Lord Yeoland refuses his consent." 
 
 " She isn't my grandfather's child, is she? " 
 
 No, but " 
 
 Pam stood still, holding her face toward the wind as if 
 in need of refreshment. 
 
 " Very well, I shall tell her, then, that you give her up 
 and bow sweetly to my grandfather, who really hasn't the 
 slightest right to dictate to either of you." 
 
 Poor Morecambe frowned with distress. " Oh, no, Pam, 
 not that! I'll never give her up, but '' 
 
 " But you won't fight for her. Oh, la, la this is awful ! " 
 The last phrase she added under her breath. " It's like try- 
 ing to build a fortress out of balls of dough," she said a few 
 minutes later, " and I'm going to stop trying. Good-bye." 
 
 Even the curate objected to being called a ball of dough, 
 and intimated as much. 
 
 Pam laughed. " Well, I beg your pardon, only it does 
 sicken me to see you both so helpless. If it was me, I'd 
 make grandfather give way, or I'd run away with you."
 
 174 P A M 
 
 " You forget my cloth." 
 
 " No, I don't, not a bit. Love is a funny thing," she 
 burst out suddenly, with a childishness that brought back 
 to the rather humiliated young man the realisation of his 
 seven or eight years of seniority. 
 
 "Why?" he asked, with a slightly superior smile. 
 
 " Because it is so absolutely unreasonable." 
 
 This was less childlike, but he answered promptly, " My 
 dear child, pardon my suggesting that you as yet cannot 
 possibly know anything about it." 
 
 She turned, her lips steady, but with something in her eyes 
 that made him uneasy. " Possibly not ; and yet I have 
 lived with it, have seen it every day of my life (except when 
 
 I'm here), and " She broke off, for she could not well 
 
 tell this proper youth about Charnley Burke and his love for 
 her mother and for herself. 
 
 It was characteristic of her that she never considered poor 
 Ratty's passion for an instant. She herself was not yet ripe, 
 she knew, but she resented any one's suggesting that she did 
 not know much more about love than most of the people who 
 considered themselves to have felt it. Maxse's careless atti- 
 tude of good-natured tolerance towards his wife; her piteous 
 subjection to him, and the nervously irritable juxtaposition 
 of opinions existing between the Rector and Mrs. Cunning- 
 ham, had not shaken her feeling that the love of her father 
 and mother was the only real love she knew. 
 
 Morecambe was embarrassed by her allusion, and after a 
 confused and lengthy message, the component parts of which 
 were, as Pam immediately pointed out, quite irreconcilable 
 with each other, he escaped, and she went on alone. 
 
 "They will dawdle and edge until all the beauty (if 
 there is any) is gone out of it, and then grandfather will 
 give way, and they will marry and just jog along. Ugh ! " 
 
 Disappointed and cast down, she returned home. It had
 
 P A M 175 
 
 begun to rain, and the wind blew cheerlessly. Suddenly 
 she thought of her father and mother. 
 
 They were in Rome. They were fond of her, she knew, 
 but she also knew that she was in no way necessary to 
 them, and she realised that they were probably enjoying 
 their idle tete-a-tete existence as much as if she had never 
 been born. She was not at all bitter in her appreciation 
 of this fact; long ago she had outgrown her childish idea 
 of being missed by her mother, and it seemed to her, if not 
 quite natural, yet eminently fair that she should be unneces- 
 sary to her parents. 
 
 Each human life, she thought, had a rJght to perfect 
 independence of feeling. Parents necessarily provided for 
 the material welfare of their children, and as naturally loved 
 them. But as the child was an individual, entitled to its 
 own life, so was the parent. It seemed to her, and she had 
 reflected much on the subject, that the most important thing 
 in the world is the love of the one man for the one woman, 
 and that nothing, not even the little lives resulting from that 
 love, should be allowed to interfere. It is the woman's 
 right, she told herself, to love the one man best; and some 
 day the child's turn will come if she finds her one man. 
 
 Evelyn's limp refusal to stand up for her man and the 
 man's diplomatic hedging had irritated Pam to an unusual 
 degree, so that she was wound up, so to say, to the exposition 
 in her own person of the great truth that liberty is the high- 
 est good in the world.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 ON going in, she found two letters for herself, lying on 
 the hall table. 
 
 Pulling off her wet gloves, she sat down on the table and 
 opened the first. It was from the Duchess. 
 
 " MY DEAR CHILD: I find that I shall have to go over to 
 Ireland for Christmas, to look after some tiresome business 
 and to see my daughter, Lady Maria O'Reilly, who is not 
 well. It will be rather dull, but then life at Monks' 
 Yeoland is no gayer, and if you will go with me I shall be 
 glad and grateful. Henrietta is to stay at Danchester; 
 she has, frankly, no great liking for Ireland, but then she 
 has no sense of humour and you have, so I think you may, 
 on the whole, rather enjoy it. Tell your grandfather, to 
 whom I am also writing, that I will take good care of you, 
 and meet me in town on the tenth. 
 
 " Affectionately yours, 
 
 " ELIZA WIGHT." 
 
 Pam's legs stopped swinging as she read. She liked the 
 Duchess, and she would go. 
 
 Then she opened the other letter. This was written on 
 cheap, glossy paper in a neat, careful hand, and began: 
 " My Dear Miss Yeoland." 
 
 She did not know the writing and the stamp was English. 
 As she read, the girl's face flushed and then paled. The 
 
 tft
 
 P A M 17? 
 
 letter was not long, and she read it through twice. Then, 
 as she was about to jump down from the table, a door 
 opened, and Lord Yeoland appeared in his self-propelling 
 wheel-chair, his legs covered with a rug. 
 
 " Well, Pam," he called cheerily, for he had just had an 
 interview with Evelyn, " what are you doing perched on the 
 table like a monkey on a bough? " 
 
 " I have been reading my letters, grandfather." 
 
 "Ah! So you know. I am sorry, my dear, I hoped to 
 have the pleasure of telling you. Well, isn't it delightful? 
 Sir John O'Reilly has one of the best houses in Ireland it 
 will be the making of you. I knew Eliza would like you," 
 he added affectionately. 
 
 " It is very kind of the Duchess," returned Pam absently ; 
 " she is a dear." 
 
 " What are you hesitating about ? Clothes ? That is 
 already settled. Your aunt will take you to town to-morrow 
 and get you a suitable outfit. Let me see this is the 
 third?" 
 
 " The fourth. Grandfather, read this, please." 
 
 He had wheeled his chair close to the table, so without 
 gytting down from her seat she handed him her second letter. 
 
 "Who's it from? Dear me, why what the devil has 
 she to say to you ? " 
 
 " Read it through." 
 
 " I can't read it, my dear ; I haven't my glasses." 
 
 Handing it back to her he listened with an amused frown 
 as she read the letter aloud: 
 
 " MY DEAR Miss YEOLAND Alone and sick unto death, 
 there is no one to whom I can address myself but you. I 
 have no relations, and my faithful servant is dead. You 
 know, I make sure, that your father has a living wife, for 
 I have heard that neither of them try to conceal it. I am
 
 178 P A M 
 
 that wife. I am Susan Kennedy, that your father married 
 twenty-four years ago last August, in St. John's Church in 
 Basingbrook, Wilts. 
 
 " I am not asking you for money, for I have plenty of 
 that, but I am old and sad and paralysed in my left side, and 
 I want some one to talk to, and I am not ashamed to own 
 it, some one to tell me about George. His real baptised 
 name is George, as I daresay you know. Will you come and 
 see me? I know that your grandfather has adopted you, 
 but you will get no hurt by coming to me, for I have al- 
 ways been quiet and a lady, and the Rector calls on me 
 regularly. 
 
 " Surely it will not hurt you, whose very existence 
 wrongs me, to come and tell me the things I want to know." 
 
 Then followed a careful direction how to find the remote 
 village in Derbyshire, even the hours of the necessary trains 
 being given, and the writer was Pam's sincerely, Susan 
 Kennedy. 
 
 Lord Yeoland paused a moment before he spoke, on the 
 cessation of Pam's voice. Then he said, " It is very pathetic, 
 my dear." 
 '" Yes, grandfather." 
 
 " I was always extremely sorry for the good lady," he 
 went on, with a little smile. " She was very badly treated, 
 and for no fault of her own. It was foolish of her to write 
 to you, but the poor thing knew no better. You had better 
 write her a kind letter, my dear, and you might send her 
 h'm! some fruit and books from town." 
 
 Pam had got down from the table and folded her let- 
 ter. Then she picked up her gloves and stood pulling the 
 wet leather into shape. When the old man finished, she 
 looked up. 
 
 *' I am going, grandfather."
 
 YOU KNOW THE RESULTS OF DIS- 
 OBEYING THAT COMMAND' "
 
 P A M 
 
 "Going? Where?" he asked, bewildered. 
 
 " To to Torpington." 
 
 " Torpington? " 
 
 " To see my father's wife." 
 
 If it had been Rosamund or Evelyn who spoke, Lord 
 Yeoland would have uttered a short oath. 
 
 But it was Pam, so he only looked at her in silence, and 
 then said quietly, " No, you are not going, Pam." 
 
 " Yes. You see, I must." 
 You are going to Ireland with the Duchess." 
 
 " No. I shall write to the Duchess that I cannot; she 
 will understand." 
 
 Lord Yeoland drew a deep breath. " I think that you 
 will not deliberately disobey me, and I forbid you to go to 
 to see that woman." 
 
 She leaned over and laid her hand on his shoulder. 
 
 " Grandfather," she said slowly, " please don't forbid 
 me." 
 
 He knew what she meant, but could not admit it. 
 
 " I do forbid it." 
 
 " Then I must disobey you." 
 
 " Then you must leave my house." 
 
 Her eyes filled with tears. " Oh, how could you! " Her 
 pain was so sincere that his old heart contracted. 
 
 " Listen, my dear. I am very fond of you, as you know, 
 or I would not, for the sake of my own dignity, argue with 
 a child like you. However, here are my reasons for for- 
 bidding you to follow this kind, though foolish instinct. 
 You are old enough to know that your mother, in going 
 off with your father, committed an act bound to have far- 
 reaching consequences." 
 
 ' The sins of the fathers ' and mothers particularly 
 the mothers," she returned soberly. 
 
 " Yes. She has made herself an outlaw for life. Beside
 
 iso P A M 
 
 that, which does not trouble her apparently, her outlawry 
 rests on you as well." 
 
 "On me?" 
 
 " Yes. To a certain extent. You are not, in the world's 
 powerful eyes, on the same sound basis that Evelyn is, for 
 example." 
 
 " I know; because I am illegitimate." Her white young 
 face, grave with her great decision, did not change as she 
 spoke. " I know; poor Pilly minds, but I don't." 
 
 "As yet you have not come in contact with the world. 
 Now that you are growing up it troubles me. I wish you 
 to be happy; I wish your brain to become what it is capable 
 of; I wish, and I have tried, to exempt you from the almost 
 inevitable consequences of your mother's act." 
 
 " Dear grandfather, I am very happy." 
 
 " The Duchess, because she is of higher rank, and because 
 she is a woman, is much more powerful than I, and her 
 taking you up can mean anything for you. Her letter to 
 me about you has made me happier than I have been for 
 years. And if you refuse to go with her to Ireland, if you 
 let slip this chance, you will have lost more than you can 
 yet realise, for she will not come forward again." 
 
 Pam was silent, her hands thrust into the pockets of hei 
 jacket. 
 
 " Pam, write a kind letter to that poor woman, and tell 
 her that you cannot go to her; the Duchess would never 
 speak to you again if you did, and she would be right; it 
 is not fitting that you should come into contact with 
 
 The girl cut him short peremptorily. " I am sorry, 
 grandfather, but I must go. And that is all rub I mean, 
 you are mistaken about it being fitting. She is all right; 
 / am the the queer person socially. I mean, she may be 
 not a lady, but she is proper, and father and mother and I 
 are the improper ones."
 
 P A M i8i 
 
 He turned his chair with an impatient movement. " I 
 have condescended to explain to you my reasons for the com- 
 mand I have given you. You know the results of disobeying 
 that command." 
 
 " Yes," she returned, her voice as hard as his, " I know."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 DICK MAXSE, lounging downstairs with his hands in 
 his pockets, vaguely looking for something to do, met Pam 
 on her way to her room after leaving her grandfather. 
 
 " Hello, Amelia, where are you off to? " he cried, seizing 
 at the chance of teasing her by way of amusement. 
 
 " Where is Aunt Rosamund ? " she asked, unheeding the 
 nickname she detested, and which seldom failed to rouse her 
 to the anger he delighted in. 
 
 " I'm sure I haven't the remotest idea, my dear! I never 
 do know, as you may have observed. Anything wrong? " 
 
 Pam disliked him, but she recognised in him a certain 
 neglected cleverness which made her unconsciously wish 
 she did not dislike him. " If I could get at your mind 
 without the medium of your own self," she had once told 
 him, " it wouldn't ,be bad fun ;" and now, suddenly sitting 
 down on the stairs, she jerked off her cap and said quietly, 
 " I'm leaving to-morrow; that's all." 
 
 " Hello ! A row with my respected beau-papa? Do tell 
 me all about it, there's a good girl." 
 
 " Well, he wants me to go to Ireland with the Duchess, 
 and I have other plans. I am, as you know, very fond of 
 my grandfather, but he is frightfully h'm! pig-headed." 
 
 "That he is! And you being very firm, you have 
 clashed!" 
 
 In the dim light which came in through the old stained 
 glass window on the landing his weak, good-natured face 
 lost many of the ugly marks his way of living had stamped 
 
 182
 
 P A M 183 
 
 on it, and the young girl felt a thrill of pity for him. " Look 
 here, Mr. Maxse," she said suddenly, " you look awfully 
 bad. You'll be ill if you don't take care." 
 
 " 111 ! I'm nearly dead already, my dear. My liver 
 is hopeless, you know, and as to stomach! Hard luck, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 " It's your own fault. I say, Uncle Dick, if you like, 
 and I never called you that before, why don't you stop 
 drinking? " 
 
 Maxse waved his narrow, white hands dramatically. 
 
 "Stop drinking! My dear Pam, how do you know I 
 do drink except milk?" 
 
 "What rot! I'm not blind or deaf, either, and they 
 very nearly dropped you down the second flight the other 
 morning. I heard them and peeped out. It wasn't nice, 
 I tell you, and you looked exactly like a red-faced pig so 
 idiotic and blurred." 
 
 "I say ! You have a nasty little tongue of your own. 
 Better learn to hold it, my dear." He rose, flushed and 
 sulky. 
 
 " I know ; I oughtn't to have said it, but well, you know 
 I don't like you, and yet I can't help being sorry." 
 
 Any other woman, he reflected, would have expressed 
 pity for his wife; it was wily of her to make no reference 
 to that profoundly uninteresting sufferer. 
 
 " I wonder why you never liked me," he exclaimed sud- 
 denly, sitting down again and turning to her. " I always 
 liked you." 
 
 " No, you didn't. Not really; and I don't see how you 
 could, either," she went on with an outburst of frank 
 laughter. " I mauled you pretty badly on one or two occa- 
 sions, didn't I ? But it was because you tried to kiss me." 
 
 " I wonder," he remarked with a grin, " whether you'd 
 maul me if I tried to kiss you now? "
 
 184 P AM 
 
 " You wouldn't dare to now ; I'm grown-up." 
 
 " Grown-up-ness isn't usually a bar to a young female's 
 being kissed." 
 
 " Grown-up-ness with my grandfather to back it is, 
 though," she returned, adding with sudden gravity, " Oh, 
 dear, I forgot, I am going away! " 
 
 " Nonsense. Go and tell him you're sorry ; you don't 
 want to go away, you know you don't." 
 
 " Of course I don't, but what can't be cured must be 
 enjoyed! " 
 
 She rose and held out her hand. " I am going, you see, 
 and in case I don't see you again alone, Dick, good-bye, 
 and do think of your liver." 
 
 From " Mr. Maxse " to " Uncle Dick " had been a great 
 stride, and now on hearing her call him " Dick " in a tone 
 of perfect equality he felt that life was cruel in taking her 
 away at such a point. Circumstances chaining him to 
 Monks' Yeoland for a couple of months, nothing would 
 have pleased him better than a mild flirtation with this 
 curiously attractive little fledgling, and now, just as she 
 had begun to endure him (Maxse put it in this way, for 
 he was not fatuous) and to take in him that semi-maternal 
 interest that has more than once in this world proved a 
 stepping-stone to more amusing things, she was off! He 
 sighed. 
 
 " I'll try, Pam. My brute of a liver won't stand much 
 more, anyhow, and I'm getting old." 
 
 "Rubbish! You're only fifty; that's young nowadays." 
 
 " Evelyn thinks it's second-childhood." 
 
 " Evelyn's a goose, and besides, you're her father. Well, 
 I'm going for a time, anyhow. If grandfather gets too 
 bored, he'll know where to find me. Poor old G. F." 
 
 "Oh, yes, do come back; I'm sure you and I should be 
 good friends now."
 
 P A M 185 
 
 She laughed and went slowly upstairs. " I'm not so sure 
 of that! However, good-luck to you." 
 
 She went to her room, informed the stricken Pilgrim that 
 the great Progress was to begin a new chapter the next day, 
 and then, looking up her aunt, gave her the same information 
 in a few words. 
 
 Evelyn, who was weeping in the dark school-room, roused 
 suddenly at her cousin's announcement, and blew her nose 
 with more vigour than her forlorn aspect would have led 
 one to give her credit for possessing. " Going away ! Oh, 
 Pam, where? " 
 
 " To a place called Torpington, in Derbyshire." 
 
 " Torpington ? I never heard of it." 
 
 " Do, you dever did ! " mimicked Pam, waking Caliban, 
 who was asleep in his basket near the dying fire, and sitting 
 down on the rug. "Are you going to blub all the rest of 
 your days, Evy? " 
 
 "Yes, I am; I mean no, I'm not! Oh, Pam, do tell me 
 what you are going to do there ? " 
 
 " I'm going to visit a lady who is ill, and who is con- 
 nected with my family." 
 
 "But why does grandpapa object? Why won't he let 
 you come back? " 
 
 Pam hesitated. She had never spoken to Evelyn of her 
 mother and father, and did not care to do so. 
 
 " Grandfather wants me to go to Ireland with the 
 Duchess," she began slowly. 
 
 " Oh ! But how perfect that would be ! Did she want 
 you to?" 
 
 " Of course she did. Did you think grandfather proposed 
 her taking me ? Don't be a silly ! " 
 
 There was a short silence, during which Evelyn felt the 
 end of her fiery nose with a gingerly finger. 
 
 " You're going to have a horrid thing there if you cry any
 
 186 P A M 
 
 more. I've got some Vinolia you can put on," commented 
 Pam absently; '"and look here, Evy, I've had a long talk 
 with Dearly Belov I mean with Cecil Morecambe. He 
 says he'll never give you up. I'm to tell you that. Also, 
 only he didn't say I was to tell you this he is scared pea- 
 green by grandfather, and doesn't dare say so much as ' boo ' 
 to him." 
 
 " It wouldn't do much good his saying ' boo ' to grand- 
 papa, would it, Pam? I understand Cecil, and I know 
 what he means. ' He also serves who only stands and 
 waits!'" 
 
 Pam stared at her cousin, who uttered the words with 
 much woe-begone dignity, and then burst into a peal of 
 laughter. 
 
 " Oh, Cally, my cherished companion, isn't she splendid? 
 Go on, Evy, do some more. I'm sure you think that is in 
 the Bible, don't you?" 
 
 But Evelyn left the room in search of solitude and inci- 
 dentally of Vinolia, and after a few minutes' reflection Pam 
 tucked Cally under her arm and set off to make one or two 
 farewell visits. 
 
 To Cazalet, whom she found nursing a bad cold over a 
 fire, she told the whole story, adding when she had finished 
 it, " Of course you see that I could do nothing else." 
 
 The old steward hesitated. " It is kind and good of you 
 to wish to go, my dear, but, after all, you owe a great deal 
 of consideration to his lordship." 
 
 " I know I do, but I am me, and I have a right to live 
 my life in my own way." 
 
 " You are only seventeen, Pam. Your life doesn't 
 properly begin until you are really grown. As yet you are 
 a child, and you ought to allow your grandfather to decide 
 things for you." 
 
 She shook her head gently. " But I can't do that,
 
 P A M 187 
 
 Cazzy. I always have my own way; I always have. And 
 as to being ' grown/ I fear I'll never be any bigger. I 
 haven't grown a bit for over a year." 
 
 " I didn't mean that. Well," the old man broke off with 
 a sigh, " you know what I mean, and there's no use in my 
 arguing with you." 
 
 " Not a bit, dearest and best of Cazzies. I do want 
 some tea, may I go and wake Mrs. Hamp ? " 
 
 A few minutes later, as she devoured large slices of bread 
 and jam with hearty pleasure, she returned to the subject 
 of her departure. "We go to-morrow morning; poor old 
 Pilly is busy packing now." 
 
 Cazalet had an idea. " Look here, my dear, will you 
 promise me one thing? " 
 
 " Dozens, if you like." 
 
 " Well, promise me that, wherever you go, you'll always 
 take Jane Pilgrim with you." 
 
 Pam looked up from her occupation of giving bits of 
 sugar to the monkey. " Of course I shall. I always do, 
 you know. Imagine me without Pilly! Couldn't pack a 
 trunk to save my life. That's an easy promise ! " 
 
 Solemnly she gave him her hand on it. 
 
 " And to please your grandfather, who is so very fond 
 of you, give in this once. Let me go and look up your Mrs. 
 Kennedy. I'll explain it all to her." 
 
 " You couldn't take care of her, though, could you ? And 
 grandfather might object to your staying away indefinitely, 
 even if you could. No, no, Cazzy, please don't bother any 
 more. I'm going, and there's an end to it. I'll write to 
 you, and mind you write to me, and tell me all about 
 my grandfather, for he's much too angry to answer my 
 letters." 
 
 " You're going to write to him? " 
 
 She laughed, as she rose and buttoned her jacket. " Of
 
 188 P AM 
 
 course; he'll be bored to death without me, and he'll read 
 my letters, though he won't answer them." 
 
 " Well, he ought at least to understand that it is a kind 
 and womanly instinct that urges you to disobey him; a 
 woman is never more a woman than when tending the sick." 
 
 Pam turned quickly to him. " Oh, please don't think it's 
 that. I mean, only that! I'm not a bit womanly, and I've 
 no more idea how to tend the sick than the Thingumbob of 
 Thibet has. I do pity the poor woman, and besides," she 
 hesitated, a faint flush coming to her small face, " it seems to 
 me that she has a sort of right to me but honestly I think 
 it's more a sort of curiosity and and interest in the queer 
 situation that makes me go." 
 
 " Curiosity ! " Cazzy frowned disapprovingly. 
 
 " Yes. Not altogether, you know it's all a jumble of 
 motives, of course, as usual, but I do like change, and the 
 more one sees of the world the more one knows. It is a 
 queer position for me, to be staying with my father's wife. 
 And it seems full of possibilities of interest." 
 
 " I wish you didn't look at it in that way, my dear. It 
 seems to me that your only excuse for deliberately disobey 
 ing your grandfather " 
 
 But she interrupted him by a stormy embrace in which 
 he was afterwards not quite sure that he had not kissed the 
 monkey, and a second later the house-door had slammed, and 
 ^he was gone.
 
 PART IV 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAM leaned back in her corner and looked at Pilgrim's 
 sour visage with an amused smile. The windows were 
 dirty and streaked with rain; she could see nothing of the 
 flying landscape, and though perfectly- satisfied with the 
 step she had taken she was as yet too much agitated to read. 
 
 The evening before had been very quiet, and she had 
 spoken to no one besides Evelyn, who had gone to bed with 
 a headache, except to Burke who, hearing of her projected 
 departure from his housekeeper, who was a sister of Mrs. 
 Hamp, had come to see her after dinner. 
 
 As sometimes happens, even to those women who have 
 great power over men, Burke had turned the tables on her 
 completely the last two or three months. Pam had thought, 
 knowing that he loved her, and was, as she naively put it 
 to her grandfather, only waiting for her to grow older, 
 that the matter stood, in all simplicity, waiting for a touch 
 from her hand to set it going. 
 
 The big man's self-control was an open book to her 
 shrewd eyes; she saw him start at her approach, change 
 colour at her touch. It had interested her, and when the 
 Duchess, the Lady Henrietta, and Peele had appeared, to 
 turn the current of her thoughts from him, she had been 
 on the point of embarking on the alluring waters of experi- 
 ment with him. 
 
 The engagement of Lady Henrietta and Peele had so 
 interested her, however, that Burke was for the time for- 
 
 189
 
 190 P A M 
 
 gotten, and when, in lack of other amusement, she had 
 turned again to him, she found, to her rather indignant 
 surprise, a blank wall, so to speak, presented to her attack. 
 Burke, as a matter of fact, himself aware of the strength of 
 his own passions, and astonished by the hold that he found 
 she had over him, had decided to keep himself in hand 
 until the time should come when he should dare risking a 
 declaration in form. 
 
 He was not a particularly clever man, nor was his mind 
 a well-trained one, but he had learned a certain amount of 
 rough wisdom in his not uneventful life, and one of his 
 precepts, backed by a fairly strong will, was to steer clear of 
 danger until he stood a fair chance of overcoming it. 
 
 So rather to Pam's chagrin her tentative airs and graces 
 had little or no effect on him, and she experienced the 
 humiliation of finding herself suddenly relegated to the posi- 
 tion of little girl, and slightly patronised by her father's 
 friend. 
 
 Burke's strong vitality had always attracted her, and as 
 is often the case with small, delicately built women, his very 
 bulk was hardly less pleasing to her than his great physical 
 force. 
 
 She was too natural and too strongly imbued with the 
 Yeoland characteristic of casualness, as her grandfather put 
 it, to ever become that rare creature, a great coquette (une 
 grande coquette, meaning a flirt possessing the greatness of 
 her faults), but she was full of curiosities, and very naturally 
 was not indisposed to play with and experiment with the big 
 Australian's feelings. 
 
 So when she found herself quietly baulked, she had, after 
 one or two attempts to break down what she perfectly under- 
 stood to be a deliberate barricade, given it up and turned 
 her attention to something else. Riding being the thing on 
 her list that seemed next best to emotional exploring, and
 
 P A M i9i 
 
 her grandfather having given her a horse for Christmas, 
 Burke and his sentiments soon went comparatively out of 
 her mind, and he, unable to stand country life in England 
 for more than a few weeks at a time, had again taken him- 
 self to town, where Dick Maxse had heard of him as doing 
 many pleasant and amusing things. 
 
 Pam laughed to herself as she recalled his face the evening 
 before when she had politely inquired after the health of 
 Totty Barnes and Audrey Lawrence, two aspirants to 
 dramatic fame whom she heard Maxse mention to her 
 grandfather in connection with Burke. It had been great 
 fun; decidedly, playing with fire was a pastime worth culti- 
 vating, and she decided to do more of it. 
 
 For Burke, upset by the news of her leaving Monks' 
 Yeoland and possibly influenced by seeing her alone in the 
 dimly lighted drawing-room, had greatly to her satisfaction 
 lost his head utterly, and stammered out a few words whose 
 tone rather than whose meaning had made her shiver with 
 that most enchanting sensation to every woman ever created, 
 however most of them may protest, of having power. 
 
 He had caught her hand, too, and covered it with kisses, 
 which was less agreeable, but also thrilling. 
 
 " You know what I mean, Pam," he added, wiping his 
 brow with his handkerchief ; " you've known for months, 
 you little demon! " 
 
 " I suppose I do. Why am I a little demon? " 
 
 " Ah, bah ! Well will you marry me ? " 
 
 That queer vibration in his deep voice rang in her ears yet 
 as the train slowed up at a jaded-looking little station. 
 
 She had forgotten exactly how she had refused him, but 
 she remembered that he had not been as cast down as he 
 might have been, a fact which she rightly explained to herself 
 as indicating that he meant to try again some day. 
 
 " It's funny, Pilgrim," she exclaimed abruptly, as the train
 
 192 P A M 
 
 started again, " that as soon as one gets a thing one doesn't 
 want it." 
 
 " It's the way of the world, Miss Pam, and a nasty 
 troublesome way, too." 
 
 " Oh, for Heaven's sake, Pilly, don't gloom. It isn't nasty 
 at all. It's a very clever arrangement for keeping one inter- 
 ested in life." 
 
 Pilgrim did not answer. That excellent woman was busy 
 trying to decide whether she was glad or sorry to be again 
 setting out on the waters of adventure. The quiet harbour 
 had been very pleasant, and no one could tell what kind of 
 an anchorage they should find in Derbyshire, but at the 
 same time Monks' Yeoland had what Pilgrim called, in 
 petto, a sameness. 
 
 A sudden burst of laughter from the young girl put an 
 end to these reflections by at least momentarily settling the 
 question strongly in favour of the haven they had left. 
 
 " I really don't see 'ow you can laugh, Miss Pam, I must 
 say," exclaimed Pilgrim, now fully satisfied that she was 
 an injured woman ; " think of all the beautiful things we 
 have left, and your beautiful bath-room, and your dear 
 grandfather, to say nothing of your aunt and cousin! I 
 can't understand 'ow you can laugh." 
 
 " Can't you, indeed, Pilly? No, I daresay you can't. 
 That's because you never did have any sense of humour! 
 Yet it has it's funny side. Here are you, you see, scamper- 
 ing across England with a person who doesn't even 
 exist " 
 
 "What do you mean a person who doesn't exist? 
 That's silly, Miss Pam." 
 
 The girl laughed again. 
 
 " No, it isn't, it's true. I don't exist in the eyes of the 
 law! And yet, here we are, you and I, rushing off to 
 smooth the pillow of my father's wife ! "
 
 PAM 193 
 
 " You hadn't ought to ; it seems all topsy-turvy somehow. 
 And to think that we might be going to Ireland with a 
 Duchess!" 
 
 " I know. I am sorry to miss that," the girl returned, 
 with natural youthful regret for the joys foregone ; " but 
 you see I had to choose between two things, and of course 
 I chose the one I wanted the most. Which is why I'm 
 not crying this moment at having left my darling, wrong- 
 headed old grandfather." 
 
 " It will be dreadful there in that place," returned the 
 unfortunate Pilgrim, " after Monks' Yoeland." 
 
 " Don't let Monks' Yeoland turn your head, Pilly mine ! 
 Remember, it is not our natural sphere." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Miss Pam, but it is mine. I was 
 born there as much as any of his lordship's own servants." 
 
 Pam laughed. " I beg your pardon. Well, when we've 
 done our duty by poor Mrs. Kennedy we'll rush off to Rome 
 and amuse ourselves. Just think of the Pincio in the 
 evening, just before most people know that spring has 
 come!" 
 
 The train stopped again as she spoke, and, rubbing the 
 moisture from the window with her handkerchief, she 
 looked out into the leisurely confusion of another small 
 country station. 
 
 " Oh, bother, here's some first class creature a servant 
 in livery! They'll be sure to pop him in here! Why, 
 
 Pilly, it's " as the door opened and a man jumped into the 
 
 carriage. She held out her hand to him. "Mr. Peele! 
 How do you do? " 
 
 Peele shook hands with her politely, but evidently, in the 
 dusk of the wintry day, did not recognise her. 
 
 When he had sat down in the place vacated by Pilgrim, 
 he leaned over and looked at her. " You, Miss Yoeland ! 
 how very curious."
 
 194 P A M 
 
 " Yes, it's I. But what is a pillar of the state like you 
 doing here on this obscure line ? " 
 
 " I'm on my way to the end of the world," he answered. 
 " I'm going home for Easter." 
 
 Pam laughed. " Do you know, it never occurred to me 
 that you had a home ? " 
 
 " Didn't it? I have, however, or at least I have a house, 
 and I happen to be fond of it, though I've not been near it 
 for years. How is Lord Yeoland ? " 
 
 " Very well, thanks." 
 
 "You're not alone?" 
 
 " Yes, with my maid." 
 
 He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes as if very 
 tired. Clearly, having done his duty he did not mean to 
 talk any longer. Pam, however, was of another mind. 
 
 "Why aren't you going to Danchester for Easter?" 
 she asked, perfectly aware of the impertinence of her ques- 
 tion. 
 
 " Because I preferred to go to Torpington," he returned 
 coldly. 
 
 " Torpington ! " 
 
 " That is the name of the town near where my house is." 
 
 " But 7 am going to Torpington ! " 
 
 The frank pleasure in her voice roused him, and he sat 
 up, looking at her as the lamp overhead burst into mediocre 
 radiance. 
 
 "You going there? May I ask to whom?" 
 
 Her eyes sparkled. " To Mrs. Kennedy." 
 
 "Kennedy? I don't know them, I think. Are they the 
 people who have taken Rosedale? " 
 
 " No. She lives at No. 4 Wellington Terrace." 
 
 In the pale, unsteady light she saw his face change to a 
 look of the greatest surprise. 
 
 "Wellington Terrace? But "
 
 P A M 195 
 
 " Oh, I know. It is in the town, a hugger-mugger little 
 villa of sorts; but there I am going. Your expression 
 would gratify my grandfather; it's a pity he can't see it! " 
 
 " You're trying to mystify me. Go on." 
 
 He crossed his arms and dropped his head, reminding her 
 of the first time she had seen him. 
 
 " No, I'm not. On the contrary, I am so glad that you 
 are going to be within distance that I could play on cymbals 
 and ortolans or what are the things? if I had any." 
 
 " You are very kind." 
 
 " You don't think so. You are still angry with me. 
 Please forgive me, and we'll begin over again. I am dread- 
 fully young, but I'm really a rather nice person, and I was 
 put into this solemn world for the relaxation and amusement 
 of the heavy-burdened like you." 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 " I am not at all angry, and I am much gratified by your 
 kindness in being glad to see me. Now please tell me what 
 Lord Yeoland's grand-daughter is going to do in Wellington 
 Terrace, Torpington?" 
 
 The fun left her face with the dramatic suddenness 
 peculiar to her changes of mood. " Come and sit by me, 
 and I'll tell you." 
 
 He obeyed, turning his back towards Pilgrim and looking 
 down at Pam, who puzzled him almost as much as she 
 hoped she did. 
 
 "I am not going as Lord Yeoland's grand-daughter; I 
 am going as as Guy Sacheverel's daughter." 
 
 " Well ? What has your father's daughter to do with 
 Mrs. What's-her-name in Torpington?" 
 
 " Mrs. What's-her-name in Torpington is my father's 
 wife." 
 
 Peele started. " Good heavens ! But, my dear child, 
 what have you to do with her? "
 
 196 P A M 
 
 She saw that he was almost embarrassed, and the knowl- 
 edge in some curious way confused her. 
 
 She gave a nervous laugh. " I am going pour epater le 
 bourgeois! " 
 
 " But surely your grandfather " 
 
 " Grandfather, poor dear, being the bourgeois! " 
 
 " But surely you would not put yourself in such a false 
 position out of childish mischief." 
 
 " No, of course I shouldn't," she answered sharply. 
 "And I love my grandfather. I am going because I must." 
 
 Taking Mrs. Kennedy's appeal from her pocket, she 
 handed it to him, and studied his face intently, while he read 
 it. He looked worn and ill. 
 
 At last he looked up. " It is a rather pitiful letter. You 
 think you could not resist it ? " 
 
 " I know I could not," she returned simply. " You see 
 it was my father who hurt her so, or rather he was going to 
 be my father." 
 
 " But, now that I recall it, surely the Duchess told me 
 that you were going to Ireland with her? " 
 
 " The Duchess counted her chickens before they were 
 hatched." 
 
 " And Lord Yeoland ? " 
 
 " Grandfather forbade my coming; we are now no longer 
 on speaking terms." 
 
 Peele frowned. " You mean that you deliberately dis- 
 obeyed him and ran away?" 
 
 " No," she returned, her dark eyes meeting his grey ones 
 with a gaze as steady as their own ; " I mean that I am my 
 own mistress, and that I came away." 
 
 " I beg your pardon. It seems a pity. Your grand 
 father is very fond of you." 
 
 " Yes, and I of him." 
 
 " You will hate Torpington."
 
 P A M 197 
 
 " No, I shan't. I like new places and new people. Then 
 
 you will admit that the situation has dramatic possibilities! " 
 
 " Oh, as to that, of course. But I quite agree with Lord 
 
 Yeoland that you do not belong " 
 
 "In that galley; which happens to be the point! I 
 belong, you see, in no galley I am a privateer." 
 
 " Poor little privateer," he said half unconsciously, and 
 she was silent for a moment; she decided to think about his 
 remark later, for it meant something. 
 
 " You see I love change, and experience of any kind is a 
 boon when you're only seventeen! How I wish I were 
 twenty-five! " 
 
 " An unnatural wish. I say " He broke off sud- 
 denly, and sprang to his feet. " What on earth is that? " 
 
 She laughed, a laugh delightfully childish. " It's my 
 monkey! Poor Cally boy, did he sit on you and squash 
 you?" 
 
 The monkey clung to her whimpering, and she went on 
 making little interrupted, broken, nonsensical speeches to it, 
 as women do to despairing babies. 
 
 He sat down and watched her for a moment. She was 
 so young, and so foolish, that she rested him, tired as he 
 was with over-work and political worry. 
 
 " Look here, Miss Yeoland," he said at length, " if I were 
 you I should go back to Monks' Yeoland upon my word, 
 I should." 
 
 "And if I were you " she began, and then breaking 
 
 off short. 
 
 "Well, what?" 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " You evidently delight in mystery ; the last time I had 
 a talk with you, you began to say something, and then 
 refused to go on." 
 
 "Yes, silence being golden! Now please don't torment
 
 198 P A M 
 
 me. Some day, if you are very good and if I haven't 
 forgotten I'll tell you what I was going to say. It was 
 the same thing each time." 
 
 " Very well," he returned politely, " I shall live in that 
 hope. The next station is Torpington." 
 
 And then, leaning back in his corner, he drew his cap 
 down over his forehead and did not speak again until they 
 had arrived at their destination. 
 
 " Does Mrs. Kennedy know that you are coming? " he 
 asked, as they went through the little waiting-room. 
 
 "Yes; I wired her, but I shall take a cab, as she is 
 paralysed and can't come to meet me." 
 
 " I will take you in my carriage. Come." 
 
 She followed him in silence, and in a few minutes they 
 were ploughing through the mud of the little town, the 
 rain maliciously whipping the windows of the brougham. 
 
 When at length the carriage stopped, Peele got out and 
 helped the two women. " Let me take the bag ; I've no 
 footman. This seems to be the house. Ah, here comes 
 some one." 
 
 He held out his hand and Pam, taking it, clung to it 
 with a sudden clasp. " I thanks for bringing us," she 
 said hastily. She looked rather pitiful, he thought, and 
 very young. 
 
 " I'll come and look you up soon, if I may? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, please do. It will be such a comfort to have 
 you," she answered warmly, and then, with another strong 
 shake of his hand, followed Pilgrim into the little entry.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE maid who opened the door led the way up the narrow 
 stairs with its vivid carpet and bright brass rods, along the 
 corridor to the front of the house, and paused before a door. 
 
 " That's 'er room, miss, and if you'll go on in I'll take 
 the other lidy upstairs to your room." 
 
 " The other lady is my maid, and I'd like to go up myself 
 before I see your mistress. We have had a long journey 
 and I should like some hot water, please." 
 
 " Oh, very good, miss, only she said I was to bring you 
 right away in, an' she's been waiting very impatient." 
 
 Pam shrugged her shoulders. " Very well ; go on upstairs, 
 Pilgrim, I'll come in a few minutes." Then she knocked. 
 
 As the door opened, and a flood of rose-coloured light 
 poured over her, she realised that all unconsciously she 
 had made for herself a picture of Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. 
 Kennedy's room which was almost ludicrously wrong in 
 every detail. 
 
 She had pictured the woman to whom she stood in such 
 curious relation as a small, pale person with the beauty 
 of patiently borne suffering in her thin face; she had ex- 
 pected this woman to be in a humble, scrupulously clean 
 room by a small fire, a table covered with bottles beside her. 
 
 Instead of which she found herself accepting a kiss which 
 smelt strongly of violet soap, from a very fat pink and 
 white person in a carefully curled fringe, and an elaborate 
 pink and white tea-gown, and then sitting down in the 
 pinkest and whitest room the most virginal imagination 
 could possibly conceive. 
 
 199
 
 200 P A M 
 
 " Well, my dear, so you have come ! " 
 
 " Yes, I have come." The girl as yet could find but few 
 words. 
 
 There was a pause, and the " invalid," pointing with her 
 white hand that in its puffy fatness ridiculously reminded 
 Pam of Ratty's, exclaimed, " Oh, my dear, you have your 
 father's feet!" 
 
 Pam drew the foot she had put on the fender back under 
 her skirts with a confused feeling that it ought not to be 
 like her father's; that by having such feet she was in some 
 curious way injuring her hostess, until that lady went on 
 cheerfully, and with a rapid change of subject evidently 
 habitual to her. " He had beautiful feet. I knew you'd 
 come." 
 
 Between the involuntary desire to protest against the past 
 tense used regarding her father and a polite wish to respond 
 to the confidence expressed by Mrs. Kennedy, Pam muttered 
 something quite incoherent, and then, aided by an inspira- 
 tion, added hastily: "What a delightful room this is." 
 
 " Oh, you like it! I am glad. When one is an invalid, 
 one's surroundings are of paramount importance." 
 
 " Yes, indeed. May I look round a little ? " 
 
 She rose and walked about. The room was long and low, 
 and at the far end of it a great embroidered screen, mounted 
 in gilded panels, concealed the bed and the washstand. 
 
 The walls were pink and white, the many cushions and 
 the deep soft arm-chairs white and pink, and the carpet a 
 bowery mass of large substantial roses, on a fawn-coloured 
 ground, of the some cheerful colours. 
 
 " I never leave my room any more," Mrs. Kennedy in- 
 formed her, turning the many valueless rings on her hands 
 as she spoke, her fat face broadened by a good-natured 
 smile, " so I made it as tasty as I could. And it is tasty, 
 isn't it?"
 
 P A M 20$ 
 
 " Extremely ; tasty seems to me to be the exact word,'* 
 returned Pam gravely. 
 
 As she spoke the maid came in, staggering under the 
 weight of a great over-loaded tray. 
 
 " I thought I'd just have a substantial tea to-night, my 
 dear," her hostess explained apologetically. " I suppose you 
 always dine late, but when there's no gentlemen in the 
 house the ladies usually dwindle to supper, you know, and 
 Hannah, my cook, makes very nice dishes of an evening." 
 
 Pam was hungry and the queer little meal was good. 
 
 While she ate, Mrs. Kennedy babbled placidly on, telling 
 her indeed little, but rilling her tired ears with a buzzing 
 of not unpleasant sound. 
 
 She would have, she knew, plenty to think about when 
 she was allowed to go to bed, but in the meantime she was 
 comfortable. 
 
 " You seem to take after the Yeolands, my dear," the 
 invalid observed at length, rousing her guest from a half- 
 reverie, " but you have George's eyes." 
 
 Pam had never heard her father called George, and it 
 sounded strange to her. 
 
 " Have I ? " she asked, setting down her cup ; " no one 
 ever said so before. Every one says mine are like Cal like 
 my monkey's." 
 
 " Well, I declare! You aren't vain, are you? Yes, yours 
 are darker than his, but, then, I've seen his look h'm! 
 tragical, too ! " 
 
 Pam laughed. " Are mine tragical? " 
 
 " They are. Your hair is like his, too, but you look like 
 your mother all the same." 
 
 " My mother is very beautiful and very blonde," shortly. 
 " I don't look in the least like her." The remark had jarred 
 on her, somehow. 
 
 Mrs. Kennedy laid her large head on one shoulder and
 
 202 P A M 
 
 brought forth a deep sigh. " I have seen her your mother," 
 she said in a voice ludicrously like a coo. 
 "Oh!" 
 
 " Yes. I see that they have never told you the truth." 
 " They have never told me anything at all. I'm afraid 
 my appetite will shock you, but as a matter of fact I am 
 ravenous." 
 
 " I am glad. Yes, my dear, I saw her. When you have 
 finished eating I will tell you about it." 
 
 Pam's appetite wilted under this remark, as was perhaps 
 not unnatural, and she suddenly felt an overwhelming de- 
 sire for solitude. 
 
 " May I I am very tired, you will not mind if I go to 
 bed? It is rather late." 
 
 " Oh, certainly ; you must be tired. I have not tried to 
 thank you for coming." Mrs. Kennedy took her hand and 
 looked up at her. " It was good of you. To-morrow we 
 will talk." 
 
 Then the girl, glad to be released, ran upstairs, and a 
 little later lay staring into the darkness, thinking. 
 
 After all, she told herself with youthful severity, Mrs. 
 Kennedy was as old and solitary as she had written; that 
 she was fat and dwelt in a room like a big pink bonbon had 
 no particular bearing on the serious aspects of the case. 
 And Pam herself had come, if half out of delight in the 
 unusual situation, yet quite half out of a feeling that she 
 had no alternative. 
 
 She had not reasoned the case out; she felt, brought in 
 such sharply sudden epistolary contact with the woman her 
 father had deserted, no equally sudden indignation against 
 her father; she had known ever since she could remember 
 that Mrs. Kennedy existed, and the idea contained no horror 
 to her. 
 
 Her father, when she thought of him in connection with
 
 PAM 203 
 
 her visit to his wife, appeared to her inner eye as possibly 
 disapproving, but quite certainly amused by her act. 
 
 There was in her case no conscious bowing to the dictates 
 of Duty a social force that she regarded merely as a tire- 
 some bugbear; she had responded to Mrs. Kennedy's appeal, 
 as she told Christopher Cazalet, partly out of keen interest 
 in the unusual situation, and partly because it seemed to 
 her, in view of her father's position, that she could do 
 nothing else. And now that she had arrived, her own dis- 
 appointment in the general lack of pathos in her surround- 
 ings, and the ludicrous character of that disappointment, 
 was by no means lost on her singularly pellucid mind. 
 
 Her last conscious thought as she dropped to sleep in the 
 room whose blueness could be compared only to the pink- 
 ness of the one under it, was that she was a silly little idiot 
 to be depressed by the cheerfulness of the poor woman she 
 had come to cheer, and that she would feel better in the 
 morning.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 "OH, yes, Miss Pam, the bed is very good, and Maud, as 
 you say, seems a smart young woman enough, but never- 
 theless, this 'ouse is no place for us." 
 
 Pam kicked off her bath slippers and held out one foot 
 for the stocking Pilgrim was preparing to put on it. " There 
 you are again, Pilly, being proud! What right have the 
 likes of us, if you please, to turn up our nomadic noses at 
 a comfortable nest like this?" 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know what a nomadic nose is, Miss 
 Pam, but while mine never set up to be Grecian, I'm sure 
 it's not that. And to the 'ouse, just wait till you've seen 
 the drawing-room." 
 
 With this dark hint the good woman withdrew into the 
 stronghold of what Pam called her monumental silence, and 
 the toilette proceeded leisurely. It was a fine day, and the 
 air coming in at the wide-open window held something of 
 spring-like softness that reminded Pam that it was the last 
 day of March. 
 
 " I say, Pilly," she exclaimed, as her handmaid gave a 
 last touch to her interwoven plaits, " spring is coming ! 
 Aren't you glad ? Violets, and nice smelly spring mud, and 
 new clothes! Hooray!" 
 
 "New clothes! Yes, Miss Pam, you certainly need new 
 clothes; your last summer ones will all be too tight, even 
 if we had 'em here, which it is we 'aven't." 
 
 Pam danced a few steps, snapping her fingers over her 
 head. " We'll go to London some day, and buy much purple 
 
 204
 
 P A M 205 
 
 and fine linen and frankincense and tincture of myrrh! I'll 
 write to father for money this very morning." 
 
 Pilgrim watched her sourly. The good woman had for 
 years honestly believed herself to be not particularly fond 
 of Pam; her love she thought was all given to Pauline. 
 But Pam possessed the great attraction of warm-heartedness; 
 she was capable of more affection in a day than her mother 
 had felt in her whole life, barring her love; and really loving, 
 even while she tormented her old nurse, the girl had, uncon- 
 sciously to them both, called forth something like a passion 
 of devotion in that nurse's grim breast. 
 
 " Now, Pilly," she said, stopping her dancing, " I'm going 
 down to see Mrs. Kennedy, and afterwards for a walk; 
 Caliban must stay with you. Oh and before I go out I 
 must write a few words to grandfather, poor dear; he'll 
 be very lonely. So put the writing things in your myste- 
 rious drawing-room, will you? " 
 
 An hour later she burst into the silent sea of that gor- 
 geous apartment, and, falling on the blotting-book like a 
 hungry dog on a bone, began to write at lightning speed, 
 bursting into soft chuckles as her pen flew over the paper. 
 
 " DEAR GRANDFATHER: Don't drop dead at my cheek 
 in wishing you were here! For even though you rage and 
 wriggle your eyebrows like the devil, I do wish it! It's 
 all too good to be true, and it's horrible having no one 
 to enjoy it with me! 
 
 ' Cousin Susie ' (that's what I have to call her, and 
 doesn't it remind you of ' this man's father is my father's 
 son ! ') is perfect, and the house quite the most delicious 
 thing in the world. But I must begin at the beginning. 
 James Peele was in our compartment yesterday, and scolded 
 me roundly for coming. It must be consoling to you to 
 have every one take your side! It appears that he has a.
 
 206 P A M 
 
 house near here. He sat on Cally (who is very homesick 
 and sends you many kisses) , but otherwise was very agree- 
 able. We reached the house at about eight, and I was con- 
 ducted at once to ' Cousin Susie's room.' 
 
 " It is all pink ; I felt as if I had crawled into a big 
 raspberry fondant, and I must look like a fly in it, I'm so 
 black. And she is as pink as the room, hugely fat, and 
 curiously smooth-looking; a lovely skin gone to waste, and 
 round blue eyes, and a sweetly curled ' front.' I was dis- 
 appointed at first to find her so chirpy and contented, for 
 I had got all nicely screwed up to tend the sick and smooth 
 pillows, as Cazzy says, but since I've seen her this morn- 
 ing I am more than consoled. She is so glad to have me, 
 and to hear all about Monks' Yeoland, and everything. She 
 hasn't said much about father yet, but she thinks I'm like 
 him in some ways. I expected she'd cry a little over me, 
 for I came so near being hers, you know, but she hasn't 
 cried a tear. I think she is perfectly happy in her way, 
 only lonely, and that she thinks of father as being still 
 young. She was quite angry with me this morning for 
 saying that he's getting fat. (He is, you know.) 
 
 "This room in which I'm writing is the drawing-room; 
 all bright gilt and red stuff almost like satin. Father never 
 lived here; she came after her 'misfortune' (that's what 
 she calls father's running off with mother). She's lived 
 all alone ever since the ' misfortune,' and for years she has 
 been perfectly helpless paralysis in the legs. All her rela- 
 tives are dead. Isn't it funny that in spite of all the sad 
 things that have happened to the poor thing, one doesn't 
 pity her? I tried like mad to be sorry for her when she 
 showed me her miniature (she must have been awfully 
 pretty!) and father's, taken just after they were married, 
 and then I looked back at her huge rosy face and couldn't 
 be sorry!
 
 P A M 207 
 
 "Isn't it all topsy-turvy? Now I'll go out and prowl 
 about until I find the post-office and send this off to you. 
 I do hope your gout is better. Don't be too angry with me, 
 dearest G. F. ; I'm not a bit angry with you any more, and 
 I love you very much. "PAM." 
 
 The young girl addressed her letter and then, with a final 
 glance at the splendour of the apartment, went again to 
 her hostess's room. 
 
 Mrs. Kennedy had by this time finished her toilette and 
 wore a rose-coloured tea-gown evidently made in Paris, 
 and as evidently made for quite other uses than being worn 
 by a more than middle-aged paralytic in an English pro- 
 vincial town. 
 
 By her, a sharp contrast, in her ill-made serge coat and 
 skirt and a flat felt hat attached to her head by the unbe- 
 coming means of a narrow elastic band that had drawn the 
 scanty knot of dun-coloured hair into a Grecian prominence 
 eminently disadvantageous to her chinless profile, sat an- 
 other woman whom Mrs. Kennedy introduced to her guest 
 as her dearest friend, Miss Botson. 
 
 Pam gave her hand to this lady, who squeezed without 
 shaking it, saying with a great display of teeth like an old 
 horse's, and a curious tremor in her voice: " I knew you 
 would come ! " 
 
 " Did you, indeed," returned the girl, looking like her 
 grandfather. 
 
 " Yes. Noblesse oblige. I knew you could not refuse 
 dearest Susie's appeal ! " 
 
 " Very kind of you, I'm sure. I was very glad to be able 
 to be useful to to any one." 
 
 Miss Botson's face again underwent the paroxysmal eclipse 
 behind her teeth which ungenerous Nature had given her 
 as a smile.
 
 208 P A M 
 
 " Of course, to any one, and to her, of all people. I said 
 to her, didn't I, Susie, ' Anything she can do will be done, 
 if she has a heart in her bosom.' " 
 
 Pam, rather surprised at the excitement displayed in the 
 stranger's voice, restrained herself with something of an 
 effort from boxing her little twisted ears, and turned to 
 Mrs. Kennedy. 
 
 " I am going for a walk ; is there anything I can do for 
 you?" 
 
 As she spoke, her letter slipped from her hand, face up- 
 wards, and before she could reach it Miss Botson had picked 
 it up and returned it to her. " Your dear grandfather must 
 miss you, I am sure." 
 
 Again Pam longed to injure her, and with a hasty bow 
 left the room and went out into the fresh sunny morning. 
 
 " Loathsome creature ! " she thought, skipping across the 
 muddy street and turning to the left. " How she did stare 
 at me ! I shan't be able to stand much of her! " 
 
 The town, she found, was dismal and ugly; rows and 
 rows of dingy houses, a cheaply-built street of unattractive 
 shops, several churches, in which she took not the slightest 
 interest, and then more houses. When she had found the 
 post-office and dropped her letter into the box she stood 
 for a moment looking up and down the sleepy street won- 
 dering which way to go. 
 
 " I wish I could get out into a country road," she said 
 to herself. It was a day when the most urban mind turns 
 to rural thoughts. 
 
 A rosy-faced country woman entering the post-office with 
 a basket on her arm solved the problem by telling her 
 to cross the street and take the lane to her left. " Grey 
 Mare Lane, Miss ; the grey mare will carry you quick to our 
 side of the town much the finest," her informant told her, 
 and with a laugh at the joke Pam followed her directions.
 
 P A M 209 
 
 In half an hour's time she was rushing full tilt down a 
 deeply sunk country road, splashing through the wet clay 
 with childish pleasure, sniffing the mild, damp air and study- 
 ing the dark buds on the hedgerows with the deep though 
 possibly passing interest of the stranger. 
 
 " Good old sky, how blue you are! " 
 
 She was only seventeen and, possessing more capacity fo 
 both joy and sorrow than nine-tenths of the women in Eng- 
 land that day, sang and talked to herself in her delight that 
 winter was over. 
 
 Mrs. Kennedy was not what she should have been; Lord 
 Yeoland was angry, and it would take more than that saucy 
 letter to soften him; she had only six shillings in her purse; 
 Evelyn was a donkey and Cecil Morecambe a fool; not a 
 soul on earth approved of her behaviour; Pilgrim was 
 grumpy ; and Miss Botson existed. All of these things were 
 both incontrovertible and unpleasant, but what were they 
 weighed against seventeen years and the first mild morning 
 in the spring?
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 TWO or three days later Mrs. Kennedy gave Pam hei 
 version, a carefully detailed version, punctuated by a start- 
 ling variety of emotional smiles and tears, of her "mis- 
 fortune." 
 
 It was a dull, dark day, and the three windows, behind 
 their rosy curtains, were grey with rain. Pam sat in a 
 low chair by the fire, opposite her hostess, who, having run 
 the gamut of her tea-gowns, was again wearing the much- 
 frilled one in which the girl had first seen her. Something 
 of her early surprise at the results of a long life of misfortune 
 and disappointment came over Pam again as she watched the 
 complaisant pink face bending with what was perilously 
 near being a smirk over the open drawer of the table at her 
 elbow. 
 
 If she had ever been disposed to lament over her father's 
 sin, the sight of her victim's comfortable person, perfectly 
 self-satisfied in her preposterously pink setting, would doubt- 
 less have been a certain consolation; as it was, she awaited 
 her companion's first words with a mixture of disdain and 
 amusement. 
 
 " This pocket-book was his, Pamela ; and all his letters 
 to me are in it. Take them and read them. There ain't 
 many." 
 
 Pam felt a pang, as she took the worn old green leather 
 receptacle. No, she could not fancy her handsome, idle 
 father writing many letters to this poor woman. And yet 
 he had married her! 
 
 210
 
 P A M 211 
 
 Half reluctantly the young girl took out the letters, each 
 of which was in its envelope. 
 
 " Read 'em in order, my dear; I've numbered them, you 
 see; they explain themselves." 
 
 Susan Kennedy spoke carefully, slowly, and with a cer- 
 tain pomp of voice. The occasion was a sort of ceremony, 
 Pam realised, as she opened the first letter, which was ad- 
 dressed to Miss Susan Chiddick. 
 
 " My DEAR Miss CHIDDICK: I am sending you to-day 
 the copy of Tennyson's Lyrics which you kindly said you 
 would accept from me. Please read the marked ones. Hop- 
 ing to see you to-morrow at Mrs. Brown's, 
 
 " I am, yours sincerely, 
 
 " G. KENNEDY/' 
 
 The writing was larger than her father's as the girl knew 
 it, and much more distinct. The second and third notes 
 were much like the first, one referring to a promised walk, 
 the other about a song she had sent him. The fourth 
 startled her, for it began abruptly: 
 
 " After the way you treated me last night I cannot venture 
 to think that you would care to see me before I go back to 
 London." 
 
 " How had you treated him ? " she asked, looking up to 
 find Mrs. Kennedy's eyes proudly fixed on her face. 
 
 " 'Orrid, my dear, 'orrid! It was a ball, and I took 
 a fancy not to dance with him; a girl's trick. He stood 
 in a corner and glared at me, poor dear." Her broad 
 flabby face assumed a coquettish smile that struck Pam 
 as very pathetic, though so ludicrous.
 
 212 P A M 
 
 Without answering, the girl went back to the letter: 
 
 " If I have offended you, please let me know how, that I 
 may beg your pardon; if you were only playing with me, 
 there is no object in my staying on here any longer. G. K." 
 
 " Proud as a peacock, wasn't he? " 
 
 " Apparently. What did you answer? " 
 
 " Read the next letter." 
 
 As she read the next one a slow flush crept up under 
 Pam's clear skin. It was a love-letter, full of short quota- 
 tions, but also full of sincerity and happiness. Her father 
 had really loved this woman in the offensively pink gown! 
 
 It gave her pride a shock. Then, looking up, the honest 
 tenderness in Mrs. Kennedy's faded blue eyes touched her 
 again. " You seem to have been very happy then," she 
 faltered. 
 
 " Oh, yes. We were married in August, and went to 
 Scotland on our tour. He was very handsome then." 
 
 " And you were lovely." 
 
 " Yes, I was a pretty girl. He was proud of me. too. 
 Go on, read the rest." 
 
 The next letter, addressed to Mrs. George Kennedy, was 
 written a year and a half later, and was full of great en- 
 thusiasm and hope. It described the writer singing for a 
 great Italian tenor, to whom one of the partners of the 
 broker's firm in which he was a clerk had introduced him. 
 
 " He says my voice is wonderful, Susie dear, and that 
 after a couple of years' study I can command my own price, 
 for opera singing! Isn't it glorious, little woman?" 
 
 "You were very proud, I suppose?" asked Pam, folding 
 the letter and returning it carefully to its yellowing en- 
 velope.
 
 P A M 213 
 
 " Proud ! Wasn't I ? But it was the cause of the whole 
 trouble, my dear, after all. You see, the Platts (that was 
 the firm, Platt & Roberts) took him up and used to invite 
 him to dinner, to have him sing for them and their friends. 
 He had always sung like a bird, any way, and he learned 
 no end of songs in a few months. It turned his head ! " 
 
 Pam flushed again. " And then he sang in opera ? His 
 debut, I know, was in Faust. Mother told me that once." 
 
 " Yes. I was there, but he had got far beyond me by 
 that time. Not that he wasn't kind. He was always kind, 
 but he had got used to being with great ladies, you know, 
 and he felt the difference. And then he went to Monks' 
 Yeoland and met your mother." She paused. It was almost 
 ludicrously evident that all the bitterness of her desertion 
 had long since gone; she was enjoying her own retrospective 
 emotion and her position as heroine of the story she told. 
 Pam listened gravely. 
 
 " Your grandfather had met him somewhere, gone mad 
 over his singing, and at last took him down into the country. 
 I hadn't seen George ('e'd changed his name when he went 
 on the stage, you know, but not legally until I refused to 
 divorce him) for two months, but when he came back home 
 after that visit I knew something had happened. And to 
 do him justice, he didn't deny it. ' George,' I said, ' what 
 is it?' And he said to me, ' Susie, my poor girl, I'm the 
 wretchedest man in the world ! ' And then he told me. 
 He wanted me to divorce 'im, you know, but I did draw 
 the line there. And then he raged and coaxed, and coaxed 
 and raged by turns, for weeks. At last he went down to 
 Monks' Yeoland again, and they had it out. You know 
 the rest. What they did," added the speaker cheerfully, 
 " blighted my life for ever." 
 
 Pam almost burst out laughing. 
 
 "Did you really care very much?" she asked.
 
 214 P A M 
 
 " Did I care? My dear, I loved him." And the girl 
 saw that it was the truth. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, only you seem so so contented 
 now." 
 
 " Time," declared Mrs. Kennedy solemnly, " is a uni- 
 versal panacea." 
 
 After a moment she added : " Read the other letters. 
 There are only two." 
 
 The first of the two was very long, and written by a man 
 nearly out of his mind with passion and pain. It was an 
 appeal, almost magnificent, to a pride that did not exist, 
 to a generosity that few women have owned, and which 
 certainly did not belong to the one to whom it was made. 
 The upshot of her refusing to give him the liberty for which 
 he begged would be, he said, not in his returning to her, 
 but in his shooting himself. It was for her to drive him to 
 his death. 
 
 " Your mother, you know," began Mrs. Kennedy, when 
 Pam had reached this point, " decided that! The day 
 after I got that letter I bought my ticket (second class) 
 and went to Monks' Yeoland. I was on my way to the 
 house when I met her in the avenue. When I told her 
 who I was she turned white, and then took me into a 
 ruin near the house, where a big tree grows, and told me 
 that for her part she did not care one straw about the di- 
 vorce. It was George (' Guy ' she called him) that she 
 wanted, and that now I'd refused the divorce she would 
 telegraph him to come and they'd go off together." 
 
 Pam nodded. " And they went." 
 
 " They did. Once they'd gone, I nearly went off my 
 head. Of course, between she and I there was no com- 
 parison, though I was pretty, and she was ten years younger, 
 too. But I'd loved George for years, and he was mine." 
 
 There is a good deal of truth in that simple argument
 
 P A M 215 
 
 " he is mine," and Pam silently acknowledged it. A minute 
 later she added : " You went to see my grandfather I know." 
 
 " Yes. You see, I'd always heard that repentance isn't 
 long in coming in such cases, and I thought that she was 
 probably sick and tired of being h'm that. George al- 
 ways hated tears and moping, so I thought " 
 
 " You thought that mother would have begun to bore 
 him with remorse! And that he'd be glad of an excuse 
 to leave her! " 
 
 Pam's eyes shone with delighted amusement. 
 
 " Yes. It wouldn't have been the first time that it has 
 happened. But, as you know, it didn't happen this time. 
 His lordship was very pleasant, I must say." 
 
 Pam rose and went to a window to hide her face. How 
 her grandfather would have enjoyed the recital she had 
 just heard! The woman in question, the one who had 
 made all the trouble by stealing the other one's husband, 
 was the daughter of the one, the mother of the other, but 
 they would have equally rejoiced in the unconscious ab- 
 surdities of the half-pathetic victim. 
 
 "And they are still happy?" 
 
 The girl turned. " Absolutely," she returned, with em- 
 phasis. " It does seem absurdly unjust, of course, but they 
 are both as happy as the day is long, and as good as gold." 
 
 " Good ? " Mrs. Kennedy, perhaps naturally, did not 
 understand. 
 
 " I mean kind and cheerful and generous." 
 
 Inwardly she asked herself what would have been the 
 result of a submission on her mother's part to the laws of 
 God and man? She could not imagine her existing with- 
 out her father, nor him without her. Would the glow of 
 conscious virtue have given them as much as had the splendid 
 life they had stolen? 
 
 She doubted it, or rather she was sure in her young mind
 
 2io P A M 
 
 that her mother, without her father, would have been a 
 bitter, unhappy woman, a joy neither to herself nor to others. 
 
 Being herself much cleverer than Pauline could under 
 any possible circumstances have become, the young girl 
 wasted no thoughts on the intellectual development which 
 might have consoled some women, nor on comfort of piety 
 and good works. 
 
 She believed, without reasoning on the subject, that her 
 mother, in developing her powers for happiness, had de- 
 veloped the best that was in her; and this seemed to her to 
 be enough. 
 
 And this was what she had meant in saying that they 
 were good. 
 
 Mrs. Kennedy was silent for a few minutes, and then with 
 a loud sigh, took the pocket-book and laid it away in the 
 drawer. When she had done this Pam came back to the 
 chair in which she had been sitting, and leaning with both 
 hands on its back said abruptly: " And when you asked me to 
 come, what did you want me to do? " 
 
 "To do why just what you have done, my dear! " 
 
 " But you don't need me." 
 
 " That's what Anna said you'd say. I don't see why ! " 
 
 "Who's Anna?" 
 
 " Anna Botson." 
 
 " How does Miss Botson know what I'd say? She can't 
 have known what I was going to say, for I didn't know my- 
 self, until a minute ago." 
 
 " Well, she guessed. Anna is very sympathetic." 
 
 " Oh! Well, now that I am here are you glad? " 
 
 Pam herself did not look particularly glad, and Mrs. 
 Kennedy flushed. 
 
 " Of course I'm glad. It was kind of you. No, don't 
 deny it," she added hastily, as the girl was about to speak, 
 " it was very kind."
 
 P A M 217 
 
 " I'm not going to deny it. I meant to be kind. Only I 
 don't seem to be of much use. Maud is so extremely cap- 
 able," she concluded appreciatively. 
 
 " You didn't expect to find me dependent on you for 
 for personal services? I've always lived like a lady, my 
 dear." Mrs. Kennedy was almost offended. 
 
 " Of course not, but I feel useless. Your letter, you 
 see, did not prepare me for such a a charming house, and 
 all that." 
 
 Mrs. Kennedy bridled. "Yes; it is a genteel little place. 
 To-morrow one or two ladies are coming to tea; that will 
 be pleasant for you." 
 
 Pam had a horrible vision of the ladies drinking tea. 
 
 "Mrs. Nickerson is very nice; she has been in Paris 
 twice; her husband is the dentist, and quite the gentleman." 
 
 " Yes, dentists usually have extremely good manners," 
 answered the girl, " they are very amiable." Then she burst 
 out laughing at the absurdity of her own remark. 
 
 " I have a headache," she said, " I think I'll go for a 
 walk." 
 
 Mrs. Kennedy nodded. " Yes, do," she said kindly, " the 
 sun seems to be coming out."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE air was warm and moist, and the lumpy ploughed 
 fields steamed in the pleasant sun. 
 
 Pam tramped along through the heavy clay, glad to be 
 in the air again, glad that the rain had stopped, glad that 
 there was a chance of finding some kind of a small flower 
 cowering under the bank. 
 
 She did not know what flower to expect, but knew that 
 the mild spring with its coaxing rains had waked the red 
 earth earlier than usual, and there was pleasure in not know- 
 ing whether the first flower would be a violet or a prim- 
 rose. 
 
 She was tired of thinking about her father and his erst- 
 while wife; she was a little home-sick for Monks' Yeoland, 
 whence no word had come, and she had begun to think that 
 having one's own way, though charming, can also prove a dis- 
 appointment. So it was pleasant to empty her mind of 
 thought, and hold it up to be filled by the spring day. 
 
 Presently the road took a sharp turn to the right, and 
 crawling up a low hill stretched on again flat and gleaming 
 in the sun towards a small park enclosed by a rough stone 
 wall. 
 
 " I wish that were Mr. Peele's place, and he'd come out 
 of the gate as I pass," she thought, recalling her travelling 
 companion for the first time. " What a brute he is not to 
 come to look me up ! " It was cooler on the upland, and 
 she rebuttoned her jacket. " Pilly and I must go to London 
 and get me some clothes," she went on ; " the seams of this 
 
 218
 
 P A M 219 
 
 old thing are at bursting point, and I couldn't get into the 
 blue one to save my life ! " 
 
 She came to the corner of the old park wall as she spoke 
 aloud to herself, and going to the wall, she drew herself up 
 and peered over it. 
 
 The house she could see but dimly through a plantation 
 of firs planted between it and the north-east, but its chim- 
 neys were all asmoke, and to one side of it a gardener was 
 busy at work on a tulip bed, whistling, " Tell me, pretty 
 maiden," a quarter of a tone flat, but joyously. 
 
 " Oh, dear, there are bound to be nice people in there ; 
 girls and boys, and a jolly old grandfather, perhaps! How 
 disgusting it is to be on the wrong side of the wall ! " 
 
 Quite suddenly the sadness that is in the spring caught 
 her by the throat, and her eyes filled with lonely tears. 
 
 The gardener was still whistling, and as she stepped back 
 from the wall a small dog yapped in the distance. 
 
 The house with its own unknown inmates, the people who 
 owned the dog, who were going to enjoy the tulips, inspired 
 the girl with the greatest interest and curiosity. 
 
 " I suppose I'm home-sick because this place looks like 
 a home," she thought. " Think I'll walk all round the wall, 
 and perhaps I'll see some of them." 
 
 The tangle of dead grass under the wall was soaked and 
 slippery, but she started off, stopping now and then to climb 
 up and peer over into the enchanted unknown, full of plea- 
 sure in her idea. The house, she found, after turning the 
 first angle of the wall, was a small, shabby old place, cov- 
 ered with creepers that hung forlornly even from the grace- 
 ful twisted chimneys. It looked rather deserted, too, in 
 an indefinable way. 
 
 " I believe it is James Peek's place," she decided sud- 
 denly, " it looks like him, somehow. Oh, there's some one 
 in the window! "
 
 220 P A M 
 
 And the man who came to the window, holding a glass 
 of some red liquid to the light, and looking critically at it, 
 was really no other than the Duchess's future son-in- 
 law. 
 
 The house being set so far back from the entrance gates, 
 to which Pam was now nearly opposite, was so near the 
 wall to which the girl clung that she at once recognised him, 
 with a laugh of pleasure and a conscious lack of surprise. 
 
 " Oh, I do hope he will see me! " 
 
 The wall was a little sunken here, and with the aid of a 
 low beech branch she swung herself up, and sat down oppo- 
 site the window. Peele still stood at it, looking at his glass. 
 First he tasted its contents, then he examined it again. A 
 cross-light behind him threw his slight figure into strong 
 relief, and Pam could see even his thoughtful frown as he 
 tasted the wine. 
 
 " Oh, please look at me ! " she said aloud. " What if I 
 waved my cap? Or I suppose I really am too old to do 
 that!" 
 
 Just then Peele raised his eyes and saw her. She sat 
 perfectly still, staring gravely back at him until he called 
 out, " Are you a ghost? " 
 
 " I am! What is that red stuff in the glass? " 
 
 " That red stuff is wine. Will you have some ? " 
 
 " No, thanks. You remind me of Faust, staring so 
 solemnly at it." 
 
 He laughed. " Well, this is a surprise, to find you 
 perched like a monkey on my garden wall! Though," he 
 added, leaning out towards her, " it is not the first time I 
 have seen you perched on a wall ! " 
 
 " May I come in and see your garden ? " 
 
 " May you ! Please do. I'll come out." 
 
 He disappeared, and a moment later met her as siw crossed 
 the springy lawn to a freshly gravelled path.
 
 P A M 221 
 
 " I am very glad to see you," he began cordially. " Did 
 you walk ? " 
 
 " Of course. I've been prowling along your wall imag- 
 ining the family who live here and it's you ! " 
 
 " Oh, you didn't know, then ? " 
 
 She looked at him. " No how should I have known ? 
 Did you think I came on purpose? I probably would have, 
 however," she added carelessly, " if I had known. Oh, 
 what a dear old porch ! " 
 
 " Yes, it's a nice little house. I hadn't been near it for 
 
 nearly ten years, and it's rather run down, but now, I '* 
 
 He hesitated. 
 
 " Having it swept and garnished for Lady Henrietta, 
 are you? When is the wedding to be? " 
 
 " Some time in the autumn ; but I don't imagine Lady 
 Henrietta will care much for the old place." 
 
 The gardener, who was working in the front of the house, 
 looked around curiously at the new-comer, as she sat down 
 on the base of an old sun-dial and took off her hat. " It 
 is warm to-day," she said. 
 
 " Yes, we shall have an early summer." 
 
 Peele looked worse than she had thought in the train, 
 and she saw that his hair had grown much greyer since the 
 winter, and that there were deep lines in his clear, colourless 
 skin. 
 
 " You had better take a good long rest," she said abruptly, 
 after a pause. 
 
 "I? Why? What do you mean?" 
 
 " I mean that you must have been overworking horribly 
 to look like that." 
 
 " You're not complimentary. Do I look badly? " 
 
 " Dreadfully! " with emphasis. " What is it, heart? " 
 
 "What a little wiseacre you are! No; I'm not ill, but 
 politics is a hard trade. I've come here for the rest you
 
 222 P A M 
 
 advise," he went on, smiling at her, " and am taking a tonic 
 Would you like to see the house ? " 
 
 He made the proposal as simply as he would have done 
 to a child of ten, or to a young boy, and she accepted it in 
 the same spirit. 
 
 Together they went into the dark old hall, which was not 
 without charm, though it had no pretensions to splendour, 
 and into the library the room where he had been when he 
 discovered her. 
 
 " The drawing-room is quite dismantled ; my mother died 
 when I was born, and no one has lived in it since; this was 
 my father's room, and I like it, too." 
 
 It was a low room, lined with books and furnished with 
 old-fashioned comfort. Papers and pamphlets lay about 
 on the tables, and even on the chairs. 
 
 " It is comfy; only is this the way you rest? " she asked, 
 waving her hands at the signs of mental work. 
 
 " I can't idle, and to knit I am ashamed," he answered. 
 " You have no idea what a pull it is to me, to have to come 
 here and stagnate ! " She started at the sudden passion in 
 his voice; his face had stiffened into the cold mask it had 
 been that evening when she had first seen him, and she 
 suddenly felt very young, and very insignificant, as she 
 realised the political importance that he evidently felt him- 
 self to be risking by this enforced retirement. 
 
 " Tired people can't do good work," she ventured with a 
 slight hesitation. " You have seen a doctor? " 
 
 " Of course I have! " he cried irritably. " Should I be here 
 unless I had been sent, do you think? " 
 
 Then he went on emptying a chair of its papers. " Do sit 
 down, you have had a long walk." 
 
 She obeyed, sitting quietly, frowning at her clasped hands. 
 She had come in to see the house, but they had both forgotten 
 that. He was again fighting against the despair he had tried
 
 P A M 223 
 
 to forget, and she was thinking what she could say to influ- 
 ence him to take the so imperatively needed rest, and won- 
 dering at the sudden feeling of intimacy with him. 
 
 "What does Lady Henrietta think about it all?" she 
 asked, at length. 
 
 "About what? My health? I'm sure I don't know, or 
 rather she doesn't know that there's anything wrong." 
 
 Pam stared. " You mean that you haven't told her you 
 are ill? For you are ill, and I must have been blind not to 
 see it, even in the dark carriage the other evening." 
 
 "No, I have not told her! What good would it do?" 
 He rose and walked restlessly about the narrow room. " She 
 couldn't help it, could she ? " 
 
 "No. But she oh, I'd hate you for it if it were me! 
 You ought to tell her." 
 
 " Nonsense. Come, I was going to show you the pictures, 
 wasn't I?" 
 
 She rose, frowning. "Bother the pictures! Look here, 
 Mr. Peele, why don't you tell her? You are horribly lonely, 
 and it's frightful to be lonely when one's ill. She and the 
 Duchess have a right to come and look after you." 
 
 She seemed very childish in her vehemence, and his dark 
 face softened to a smile as he watched her. " My dear Miss 
 Pam, please don't scold me. I am tired out, that's all, and 
 I want quiet and the solitude you abhor. That's why I 
 ran away here without telling any one not even Lady Hen- 
 rietta. Now, come; I have a Reynolds I want to show 
 you." 
 
 She followed him slowly up the shallow, uncarpeted stairs, 
 and into a long narrow gallery lined with pictures. 
 
 Peele opened a window, letting in a gush of sweet air and 
 a long streak of sunlight. 
 
 "Oh, there it is!" Pam loved pictures, and the Rey- 
 nolds was a charming one of a charming woman, but her
 
 224 P A M 
 
 brain vras too busy to follow her eyes, and she stood in front 
 of the canvas staring vacantly at it. 
 
 "Well! You like it?" 
 
 " Yes, very much. Oh, dear! " 
 
 "What is it? what is the matter?" he asked, in some 
 alarm, for her face was full of acute distress, and he did not 
 connect it with himself. 
 
 " Nothing. Only I wish you'd tell her! Doesn't she 
 know where you are ? " 
 
 He sighed impatiently. " What a pertinacious person you 
 are! No. As you insist on having information, I will tell 
 you that Lady Henrietta, as well as everyone else who has 
 any interest in me, believes me to be on the Continent." 
 
 " Oh, I see." Her voice had changed from a tone of help- 
 less anxiety to one of complete comprehension. 
 
 " What do you mean? " he asked, wondering. 
 
 " I mean that I understand. You wanted a complete 
 change. Well, I am a change, so I hope you won't mind 
 my coming sometimes to look you up ? " 
 
 " I shall be profoundly grateful," he returned, laughing. 
 " Will you stay and lunch with me to-day? " 
 
 This, however, she refused to do, and soon after took her 
 leave. 
 
 Peele walked with her to the gateway on the high-road, 
 and when she had gone stood looking after her as she sped 
 along in the sun. She had interested him in spite of her 
 persistence; or rather, she had for a time kept his mind from 
 working hopelessly on in its treadmill of thought, and thus 
 had rested him. 
 
 " A funny little creature," he thought, turning back under 
 the trees, " and I quite forgot to ask her how she is getting 
 on with her father's wife! "
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 " VILLA ARCADIE, April 6. 
 
 "MY DEAR PAM : We have just come back from a prowl 
 in Andalusia, and so your letter reached me only yesterday. 
 My dear child, I hardly know what to say to you. Un- 
 doubtedly you should have obeyed your grandfather, and 
 not gone to Torpington; but then, on the other hand, you 
 were in a position to judge for yourself, for all the facts of 
 the case were known to you. Neither your mother nor I 
 feel that we have a right to exact obedience from you. 
 Rightly or wrongly, we have allowed you always to do as 
 you think best, and I am convinced, as a matter of fact, 
 that you possess a greater share of that most uncommon 
 quality called common sense than either she or I. You are 
 in a curious position, of course; but Susan Kennedy, I am 
 sure, is still the excellent woman she always was, and your 
 sojourn with her cannot hurt you in any real sense. That 
 you have quarrelled with your grandfather is a great pity, 
 but on the whole I feel that as the step is now un fait 
 accompli, there remains for me nothing to do, beyond assur- 
 ing you what you always know, that when Mrs. Kennedy 
 has had enough of you, we shall be delighted to see you 
 back here. The garden is already enchanting, and the whole 
 world seems full of the smell of violets! 
 
 " Your affectionate father, 
 
 "G. S. :1 
 
 " P. S. I enclose a cheque for some clothes. Your mother, 
 
 225
 
 226 P AM 
 
 who sends you her love, sends you one or two London ad- 
 dresses, and bids you have new stays made before you look 
 up the dressmakers." 
 
 Pam sat on the end of Peele's library table and swung 
 her feet while he, lying on a couch by the fire, read this 
 letter. It was raining hard, and in place of her boots, which 
 were drying by the fire, she had on a pair of his slippers, 
 and as she studied his incredulous face she amused herself 
 by swinging the things on her toes and catching them at the 
 last moment. 
 
 " Well, upon my word ! " he exclaimed at length, folding 
 it and handing it back to her, " that is certainly the most 
 extraordinary letter I ever read in my life. The man must 
 be crazy! " he added, not quite under his breath. 
 
 Pam laughed. 
 
 " He isn't, though. He is much saner than you, for in- 
 stance ! " 
 
 " Am I not sane? " He looked up at her, an amused light 
 in his keen eyes. " I have always been under the impression 
 that I was particularly terre-a-terre and well balanced ! " 
 
 " Terre-a-terre well, yes, I suppose you are that, but well 
 balanced? Oh, no," she continued gravely, dropping one 
 of the slippers and getting down to pick it up. " If you 
 were, you wouldn't be eating your heart out over a few weeks 
 of enforced rest." 
 
 " Eating my heart out ? Yes, that's about what I am 
 doing. It would be useless to try to explain to you what it 
 means to a man who craves for exactly one thing on God's 
 earth, to have to watch that one thing slip out of his hand 
 because he's too weak physically to hold it ! " 
 
 Neither of them noticed the strangeness of his speaking 
 to her in this way. 
 
 " Political power. Well, when you're rested you will go
 
 P AM 227 
 
 prancing back as fresh as a daisy, find the others all knocked 
 up, and sail in and demolish them! " 
 
 He laughed. " What a mixture of metaphors, my dear 
 Pam ! Imagine a daisy, first prancing, and then sailing, and 
 then demolishing ! " 
 
 " I don't care. Anyhow, it made you laugh! " 
 
 " You are a kind little thing to care whether I laugh or 
 cry!" 
 
 She sat down by the fire and propped her chin in her hands. 
 " I do care ; I care a lot. It makes me ache all over to have 
 you be so mis'able." 
 
 " And so you take the trouble to tramp all the way out 
 here almost every day to cheer me up. I see through you ! " 
 
 There was a short pause, after which she began thought- 
 fully, " I wish you had a mother, you do so need one! " 
 
 " A mother! My dear, I've never had one. She died the 
 day I was born." 
 
 " I know. And perhaps that's why you need her so dread- 
 fully. You see, if you had had her, you could at least re- 
 member. It is very beautiful to have happiness to remember." 
 
 Her small face looked suddenly old and tragic as she 
 spoke. Genius may be said to be the gift of expressing feel- 
 ing even the feelings one has never known one's self, and 
 to a certain extent, the gift, or the curse, whichever it may 
 be, was hers. 
 
 " I hope you have happiness to remember? " he asked, with 
 a thrill of pity for her unknown future. She was so utterly 
 alone on the big water of youth, with her poor little ballast 
 of philosophy. 
 
 " I ? Oh, yes. Only you see, my mother is different. If 
 I could make one for you, I'd have her " 
 
 " Go on. Tell me what kind of a mother you'd make for 
 me," urged the weary man. " I'd like to know." 
 
 Pam went on, her quiet voice speaking in short discon-
 
 228 P A M 
 
 nected sentences, the only break in the quiet of the dusky 
 room. 
 
 " Well, she should be like most women, not very fond of 
 her husband. So she'd have loved you the most always. She 
 would be patient and gentle. And she would take care of 
 you, and fuss a little. And you'd be proud to tell her the 
 good things you do, and ashamed of the bad things. But 
 you'd tell her the bad ones, too, because she'd love you so that 
 she'd understand. And she would not be beautiful, and her 
 hair would be nice and grey, and thin on top, under a little 
 cap. And she'd be a sewing woman, and she'd love going 
 to church. And she'd have dear kind wrinkles, like Cazzy. 
 And she'd never be in a hurry " 
 
 " When did you know her, Pam? " he asked quietly, open- 
 in his eyes. " Because if she lives, I must have her." 
 
 " I never knew her ; I just imagined her." To his sur- 
 prise her voice shook, and she bit her lip fiercely. 
 
 Peele understood. In describing his need, she had come 
 to feel her own. The curious aloofness of the letter she had 
 let him read came back to his mind with a shock. She was 
 as lonely as he, and she was not yet eighteen ! 
 
 " I wish she was my mother, dear, and yours, too," he said 
 kindly, closing his hand over hers. " You need her as much 
 as I." 
 
 For several seconds she battled visibly with what in almost 
 any other girl of her age would have been a flood of tears, and 
 then she conquered, and sat quiet, not even acknowledging 
 the drops on her cheeks by wiping them away. 
 
 " I wish you could see my mother," she said then, very 
 steadily. " She is the most beautiful woman in the 
 world." 
 
 He, the reserved, resented her thus shutting him out. " I 
 have no doubt of it," he answered ; " and she sends you a list 
 of dressmakers in your father's letter! "
 
 P A M 229 
 
 " I asked her for the list. And she does love me in her 
 way." 
 
 " Her way is not the way of the imaginary mother you 
 made for me ! " 
 
 " No. But I don't care. Only once in a while, when 
 when it rains, and I'm hungry " She burst out laugh- 
 ing at this ingenious invention, as he sprang up and gave a 
 hurried jerk to the old-fashioned bell-rope near the door. 
 
 " I am sorry ! You must be starving, and it's past five ! 
 Ah, Pam, my imaginary mother would not have forgotten 
 tea!" 
 
 Pam nodded gaily. 
 
 "No, bless her! Now do lie down again; I should die 
 of fright if you should faint." 
 
 " How do you know I fainted ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Johnson told me. She evidently thinks it very 
 elegant of you; she beamed with pride! " 
 
 " It may be elegant," he returned gloomily, " but it's un- 
 common unpleasant Bring in tea, will you, Mrs. Johnson, 
 and some jam or something, please. Miss Yeoland is 
 starving." 
 
 A moment later he said suddenly: "To go back to the 
 letter ; how long are you going to stay on in Torpington ? " 
 
 " I don't know. She likes me, poor thing. I've been 
 reading aloud to her the last two or three days; I'm reading 
 her ' Molly Bawn,' and she loves it. Grandfather has not 
 written to me. I suppose in a little while I shall just pack 
 up and go back to Arcadia." 
 
 " To Arcadia? Do you come from there, young madam ? " 
 
 They looked gravely at each other. " Yes, I was Born 
 there. My father and mother live there, but I I don't 
 really belong, you see." 
 
 " What do you mean? " 
 
 " I mean Chat I just chanced to stray in, so to speak, and
 
 230 P A M 
 
 to have right, one has to to force the barriers to win one's 
 way in." 
 
 The thoughtful little speech was so utterly at variance with 
 her childlike appearance as she sat huddled close to the fire 
 that he started. From time to time she said something that 
 reminded him that she was on the brink of womanhood, but 
 as a rule she seemed the child she looked. 
 
 " How does one win one's way in, Pam? " he asked, after 
 a pause. " I should like to go." 
 
 She shook her head slowly. " No, you can never go." 
 
 " I? Why not? What have I done? " 
 
 She hesitated. " I am talking nonsense ; hunger is doing 
 its dire work." But she had meant something, and he 
 knew it. 
 
 " Look here, this is the third time you have done that ! I 
 mean, refused to go on with something you had begun to say! 
 It is absurd ! " 
 
 He sat up and faced her, the little intent frown she alway- 
 associated with her first sight of him on his black brows. 
 
 " Why can't I go to Arcadia? " 
 
 Mrs. Johnson, entering laden with a generously provided 
 tea-tray, interrupted him, but when she had gone, and Pam 
 was peering, with that supernatural air of wisdom common 
 to some women at such moments, into the teapot, he returned 
 to the charge. " Well, why can't I ? " 
 
 " Why can't you what ? " she returned provokingly. 
 
 " Why can't I go to Arcadia? " 
 
 She evaded him for a few moments, parrying his patiently 
 repeated question with quick-witted thrusts of irrelevancy, 
 but at last, when he had put it to her too many times, " Why 
 can't I go to Arcadia? " she burst forth, setting her cup 
 down with a little crash, " Because you are going to marry a 
 woman you don't love." 
 
 He was silent for a moment, looking at her, the frown
 
 P A M 231 
 
 deepening. " How do you know I don't love Henrietta 
 Shanklin ? " he asked at length. 
 
 " Because, as I told you, I have lived my childhood in 
 Arcadia, and I have seen love all my life." 
 
 After another pause he said quietly, " I am very fond of 
 her, Pam." 
 
 " I know ! Oh, I am sure you are. She is so beautiful, 
 and so so dear! Of course you are fond of her." 
 
 " But that won't take me to Arcadia? " 
 
 Love had had very little place in his cool brain; he was 
 perfectly satisfied with his proposed marriage, and senti- 
 mental considerations had never preoccupied him. Yet he 
 felt a trifle hurt at being thus shut out. 
 
 " No, not to father's and mother's Arcadia," she 
 answered.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 JAMES PEELE'S sudden departure, ostensibly for the 
 Continent, had caused not a little talk among political 
 people, for with the curious shame sometimes felt by healthy 
 men of a sudden illness which cannot be tabulated by some 
 distinct name, such as typhoid, or pneumonia, he had given 
 no explanation to anyone. 
 
 " I am off to France on business," he had told his political 
 chief. Possibly, for he was not a fool, the true explanation 
 might in this one case have been made, had not something in 
 that great personage's eyes betrayed the understanding which 
 tact forbade his putting into words. " Indeed, Peele. I 
 shall miss you," was all he had said. " But I've no doubt 
 your going is necessary. Take care of yourself." 
 
 Then the two, the man arrived and the man bent in the 
 teeth of ten thousand bristling difficulties on arriving, had 
 shaken hands and separated. 
 
 Peele, shut up in his lonely old house, eating his heart 
 out, as Pam had put it, followed the directions of his doctor 
 with dull accuracy, and counteracted their effects by reading 
 every day in a dozen different papers an account of the crisis 
 which had come just when he could play no part in it. 
 
 The doctor had told him the whole truth about his con- 
 dition. His heart was weak, and he was on the verge of an 
 absolute nervous breakdown which could be avoided only in 
 one way. 
 
 And unwillingly, rebellioasly, he had taken that way, hav- 
 
 232
 
 P A M 233 
 
 ing in it none of the faith which is in itself quite the third of 
 such cures as his doctor was trying to accomplish. 
 
 " I shall go off in a fainting fit some day," he thought ; 
 " and if I don't I shall become a chronic invalid, which is 
 worse." 
 
 And in the meantime the Liberals were going out, and 
 as his party, which he knew he had served not only faith- 
 fully but brilliantly, came in, the plum that should have been 
 his would pop into another mouth. Ambition was the only 
 thing the man had in the world, and as he paced the gardens 
 of his prison by day, and the long narrow room in which he 
 lived at night, he was to be pitied. 
 
 The Lady Henrietta, she who was to keep him out of 
 Arcadia, and who believed him to be in Cannes or Mentone, 
 wrote him regularly through his bankers, and once in a while 
 he wrote her. 
 
 Hers was not intellectually a richly endowed nature, but 
 she was gentle and kind, and she loved him. 
 
 She loved him, and though he had, as much from a fear of 
 having to live up to a once-stated pose as from a sense of 
 honour, made no pretence of loving her, he was man enough 
 to be, somewhere in the rarely stirred depths of his soul, 
 ashamed of himself for having asked to marry him a woman 
 whose letters awoke in him nothing more than a feeling of 
 bored pity. 
 
 He recognised the hardness of his own nature; the cold- 
 ness of what books had taught him to call his heart, and he 
 wondered quite honestly what it was in him that had called 
 forth from the spoiled beauty of many seasons the love which 
 had awakened in him the idea of using her as a help in his 
 career. 
 
 The man felt in himself that quiet strength, that absolute 
 reliance in tried powers, which under certain favourable cir- 
 cumstances can take one to any heights, and those circum-
 
 234 P A M 
 
 stances would to a great extent become his on his marriage 
 with the sister of the Duke of Wight. 
 
 The duke himself, a youth on marrying whom all the 
 ladies of the London variety theatres seemed strangely bent, 
 was as of little importance in any way as a careful course of 
 senseless dissipation could render him, but at the same time 
 to be an English duke is to be a power, and a nephewship 
 by marriage with the man almost bound to be the next Prime 
 Minister is an advantage for which an ambitious, compara- 
 tively obscure man may well give a long price. 
 
 The Lady Henrietta, moreover, with her beauty and her 
 large fortune, would have been a great help even without her 
 title and position, and the fact that she was, at thirty, still 
 considered one of the greatest beauties in England had its 
 place in the lists of advantages Peele had won so easily that 
 day in the old Refectory at Monks' Yeoland. The man 
 knew he was wonderfully lucky, and, as he was a man, it was 
 pleasant to him that his wife was not to be a bony frump or 
 a fat Jewess. He was very content, but at the same time, as 
 the days went on, as the political field became more animated 
 and the inevitable battle drew near, he would have given up 
 his fiancee with all her accruements for a fortnight of the 
 health to which he had, in all the thirty odd years that had 
 been his, not thrown the tribute of a grateful thought. 
 
 For he was a born fighter. The excitement of animated 
 debate thrilled him to his finger-tips, and his nervous mind 
 was never clearer than when the smoke of wordy battle filled 
 the air. 
 
 He was poor, but for the joy of having his own eloquent 
 words rush over and burn the great man whose unguarded 
 phrase had laid him open to Peele's attack, he had cheerfully 
 paid the heavy fine that had been imposed on him. And now, 
 when he was filled to the lips with wisdom, as he thought, and 
 of knowledge, as he knew, on the question that was dividing
 
 P A M 235 
 
 England that spring into two great camps, here he was down 
 in the country, nursing a weak heart and resting an over- 
 worked nervous system ! 
 
 Pam, with her wits and ready sympathy, was the only 
 gleam of sun in his dreary outlook. 
 
 Taking her visits to him as much for granted as those she 
 had made to Christopher Cazalet, enjoying her long talks 
 with him, making him laugh, making him think of something 
 beside his lamed existence, she was the greatest possible boon 
 to him. So old in some ways, her slight figure, not quite long 
 skirts, and the boyish sailor hat she usually wore, made her 
 seem to him a child, as he, with his pre-occupation, the 
 speeches she had read aloud to her grandfather, the fact of 
 his engagement to the ancient Lady Henrietta, and his rap- 
 idly whitening hair, was to her old. 
 
 Once on his remarking incidentally in the course of a 
 conversation that he was five-and-thirty, she had exclaimed 
 bluntly, "Are you really no older than that? Why, I 
 thought you years older than Charnley Burke, and he is 
 forty-three! " 
 
 " Did you indeed? That is a blow! And who is Charn- 
 ley Burke? Not the man who has bought the Rosedale 
 ruby?" 
 
 " Ruby? Has he bought one? Oh! " The colour rushed 
 to her face at the thought, for there was only one person for 
 whom Burke would buy a ruby, and she knew it. " He's 
 an Australian, and a friend of ours. What is the Rosedale 
 ruby?" 
 
 Peele laughed. " Make him show it to you ; it's worth 
 seeing. Belonged to poor little Lady Rosedale, and they 
 sold it after her death, to pay her debts. They say this man 
 Burke gave fifteen thousand pounds for it." 
 
 Pam was silent. It was a pity that she could not fall in 
 love with Burke, he was so nice, and so big, and so strong,
 
 236 P A M 
 
 and so good-tempered, and so rich. With a sigh, she dis- 
 missed the subject from her thoughts as a regrettable but ab- 
 solutely unchangeable fact. 
 
 Two or three days after the talk about Arcadia, feeling a 
 little better and unutterably bored, Peele decided, as Pam did 
 not come to him, to drive into town and look her up. 
 
 A long letter from the Lady Henrietta, reproaching him 
 tenderly for not being in England just when he could be so 
 useful and derive so much benefit, as well, from the break- 
 ing up of the Liberal party, had irritated him unspeakably, 
 and a political blunder had been made that almost brought 
 tears of anger to his eyes. 
 
 Pam would cheer him up. 
 
 When he reached the commonplace little house in Wel- 
 lington Terrace he found the curtains drawn and lights 
 behind them, though it was as yet broad daylight. 
 
 Maud, the maid, in a rather fetching cap and apron, in- 
 formed him, with something of a giggle, that Miss Yeoland 
 was in the drawing-room, and led the way to that triumph 
 of local upholstery, whence a sound of mild revelry came 
 through the door. 
 
 " Mr. Peele." 
 
 There was a sudden hush, and eighteen women and one 
 man turned and paid the very much annoyed newcomer the 
 tribute of a silent stare. " Oh, it's you ! I am glad to see 
 you." Pam came up, her hand held out, her eyes dancing. 
 " We're having a party, you see a most delightful party. 
 Come and let me introduce you to Cousin Susie." 
 
 Conversation had begun again, but the eighteen ladies 
 drew back with eager politeness to make way for the distin- 
 guished guest, and at the end of the vista he found himself 
 bowing before the hostess who, pinker and whiter than ever, 
 in a cap comprised of tiny velvet roses, and a flowing gar- 
 ment of pink silk covered with lace, gave him a most cordial
 
 P A M 237 
 
 welcome. " Delighted to see you, Mr. Peele, I'm sure. It 
 gives me great pleasure. Allow me to introduce you to my 
 dear friend, Miss Botson, whose book on fern-culture you 
 must have read." 
 
 Miss Botson's hand was moist, her teeth were equine ; he 
 did not like her. Neither did he like Mrs. White, a very 
 tall person with a large crumb of cake on her unfashionably 
 high, purple-mohair bosom. 
 
 " Thanks ; I should like a cup of tea, Pam," he said, catch- 
 ing at a chance of a withdrawal from his immediate sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 " My tea-table is in the corner there ; come along." 
 
 He followed her with an absent-minded expression very 
 creditable in a man on whom eighteen pairs of eyes are ten- 
 derly glued. 
 
 " What the deuce are they all staring at me so for? " he 
 asked nervously, sinking into a chair after jerking it around 
 so that his back was to the room. " I never was so uncom- 
 fortable in my life ! " 
 
 " Never mind it is complimentary, you know. Aren't 
 they wonderful? They've all been here for over an hour, 
 and they're going to stay to supper! " 
 
 " To supper? Good Lord ! " 
 
 " Yes. I ache with laughing inside ; they are too funny. 
 Every single one of them has asked for my ' grandfather, Lord 
 Yeoland's ' health. I've had such fun, done all my tricks, 
 recited, showed them Caliban, told them about the Duchess 
 you know! They are having the time of their lives." 
 
 " It's awful !" he groaned. " More cream, please. I say, 
 Pam, why haven't you been to see me? " 
 
 " No time. I've been busy. It takes time to stone enough 
 raisins for a party, I tell you ! " 
 
 ' They aren't going to have raisins for supper, are they? " 
 
 " They are in cakes and in puddings. Then I've done
 
 238 F A M 
 
 almonds, and counted silver. It's really fun, you know, 
 you needn't look so disgusted ! " 
 
 "I was horribly ill yesterday," he said pathetically; "if 
 you desert me, I shall cut my throat. Aha ! another man ! " 
 he broke off, adding with malicious satisfaction, " Now, he'll 
 catch it! " 
 
 " Not he. That's Mr. Nickerson, the dentist. They have 
 all had the privilege of gazing at him by the hour while he 
 does things to their teeth; he isn't a stranger. Oh, Mr. 
 Nickerson, how do you do ? Let me give you a cup of tea ! " 
 
 Peele yielded up his place to the mild-mannered dentist, 
 and wandered back to Mrs. Kennedy. He could not leave 
 until he had had another talk with Pam, whom he saw, to 
 his rather indignant surprise, was really enjoying herself. 
 
 " I am so glad," Mrs. Kennedy began hospitably, " that 
 you happened to drop in to-day, when I had these few friends 
 to meet Pamela. I suppose you are an old friend ? " 
 
 " Hardly that, but a good one, I hope." 
 
 " Met 'er at 'is lordship's, I daresay ? " 
 
 Her h's had been irreproachable the first part of the after- 
 noon, but she was tired. 
 
 " Yes, I was visiting in the neighbourhood." 
 
 Miss Botson, who was sitting by her friend, at this point 
 leaned forward and said with an air of mystery, " Of course 
 you know the story? " 
 
 Peele stared. " What story ? " 
 
 " Oh, hush now, Anna! " put in Mrs. Kennedy. " Mr. 
 Peele can't be expected to take an interest " 
 
 " He can be expected to. Any one with a heart in his 
 bosom must take an interest in it. I was referring," the 
 gaunt woman went on, " to the story of my dear friend's 
 misfortune." 
 
 Peele rose. He knew from Pam that this phrase referred 
 to her father's forcible escape from the bonds which seemed
 
 P A M 239 
 
 to him at that moment to have been quite unbearable, but he 
 did not care to have the story repeated to him by the narrow 
 tongue clicking against the horrible yellow teeth of the confi- 
 dential friend. " I am sorry," he said hastily, " I must go 
 on now. Charmed to have had the pleasure." 
 
 After a hurried word with Pam, who was, as he put it to 
 himself, with unreasonable disgust, making herself agreeable 
 to the dentist, he escaped.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 APRIL passed, and May. Pam had enjoyed the reality 
 of primroses and violets almost as much as she had enjoyed 
 them in imagination. She and Pilgrim had spent a week 
 in London, at a small hotel in Albemarle Street, and occu- 
 pied themselves, while her simple clothes were being made, 
 with a course of picture-galleries and long walks, possibly 
 less amusing to the sourly patient servant than to her 
 mistress. 
 
 Then, somewhat to Pam's surprise, they had come back to 
 Torpington, and stayed on there. 
 
 The amusement inspired in her by Mrs. Kennedy's friends 
 had given way to a mild resignation to their pretentious dul- 
 ness; Miss Botson, who came constantly, was as obnoxious 
 as ever, and Pam still felt quite a superfluous member of the 
 little household ; yet she stayed on. 
 
 " Are we going to live here for the rest of our days ? " 
 Pilgrim asked her once peevishly. " I can't see that we're 
 doing anyone any good, I'm sure! " 
 
 " Nonsense, Pilly. She likes to have us, and I do read 
 aloud to her. Besides, I'm not so proud as you ; I like it." 
 
 Pilgrim sniffed. " And your father and mother in Paris, 
 having a lovely time! " 
 
 " I never liked Paris, you know. Now, for Heaven's 
 sake, don't sulk think what a bad example you're setting 
 Cally." 
 
 Pam asked herself again, when the good woman had left 
 the room, why she did stay on in Torpington, and then de- 
 
 240
 
 P A M 241 
 
 tided suddenly that it must be Peele's presence that made 
 her reluctant to leave." 
 
 " I certainly couldn't stand it if he were not here," she 
 decided frankly. " He is a dear! " 
 
 Peele grew better as time wore on ; he slept more and his 
 fainting fits had ceased. Every two or three days the girl 
 tramped over the now familiar road to his house, and during 
 the long hours which they spent, free from interruption, in 
 the charming old park, or in the library, a curious intimacy 
 had grown up between them. 
 
 " The night I first saw you," she told him once, " you 
 stood leaning against the wall, listening to Lady Henrietta's 
 playing, and I was opposite you, just beyond (he portieres. 
 I had read all your speeches, you know, and heard all about 
 the row in the House, and I was crazy to see you." 
 
 "Well, did I come up to your expectations?" he asked, 
 puffing at his pipe as he lay on his back on the warm grass. 
 
 " Yes. You did, then. You looked so stern, and so 
 strong, and so cold." 
 
 " Dear me ! Why the invidious emphasis on the ' then ' ? 
 Do I disappoint you now? " 
 
 She looked at him thoughtfully. " No-o. But you see, 
 a man who is ill is more or less a child, and makes a girl 
 feel old and motherly." 
 
 " In other words, familiarity breeds contempt ! " 
 
 " No, it doesn't. It kills awe, though." 
 
 " Did I use to inspire awe? " 
 
 " Yes, in me, at least. And now I'm just very fond of 
 you." 
 
 Peele stretched out his hand and stroked hers affection- 
 ately. "Good little Pam!" 
 
 No letter had come from Lord Yeoland, but Evelyn had 
 written, and Cazalet. These letters she read aloud to Peele, 
 who in turn read her bits from the Lady Henrietta's and
 
 242 P A M 
 
 those from various political friends, and the discussion arising 
 from them all helped to draw closer together the strangely 
 assorted friends. 
 
 Evelyn's wails over her grandfather's cruelty regarding 
 her curate led to a conversation that was not without its 
 consequences. 
 
 " He's a sweetly pretty youth," Pam informed her friend, 
 " with a cupid's-bow mouth and pink gums ; he is fond of her, 
 I suppose, but he's afraid to go to my grandfather and put 
 that obstinate old man into his proper place. So, as Evy 
 shakes in her shoes at grandfather's very voice, they both of 
 them mourn in respectful obedience, and old Time is still 
 a-flying!" 
 
 Then she told the story of her attempt to stir the mild 
 curate to rebellion. " I told him that if it was me," she 
 added, with her habitual disregard for grammatical pedantry, 
 " I'd run away with him like a shot." 
 
 "Would you really have been so bold?" Peele asked, 
 laughing. 
 
 " Wouldn't I ? I don't mean with a curate like him, but 
 if I happened to be in love with any one, and some one inter- 
 fered." 
 
 " Your grandfather has a certain right to directing your 
 destinies yours and Miss Maxse's." 
 
 " Rubbish ! Haven't we both our own father and mother ? 
 My grandfather is simply an old tyrant yes, he is an old 
 tyrant! Look at him now, sulking with me because I 
 wouldn't obey him. I've written him three times, charming, 
 chatty letters, and I shan't budge to go to him until he 
 has written me three times." 
 
 " He may never write." 
 
 She laughed. " Oh, yes, he will. Poor dear Aunt Rosa- 
 mund and Evy do bore him so that he almost dies; he's 
 longing for me by this time. I know him."
 
 P A M 243 
 
 " And if he forbade you marrying some chap you wanted 
 to, you'd defy him too? " 
 
 She shook her head slowly. " No," she answered with 
 the air of one about to make a weighty announcement, " not 
 exactly. I don't believe in marriage." 
 
 " By Jove! Not believe in marriage? May I ask why 
 not?" 
 
 She did not answer for a moment, and he went on. " You 
 believe in love, I know, for I remember a wigging you gave 
 me about Arcadia." 
 
 " Yes. I do believe in love of course I do. If you 
 knew my father and mother, Mr. Peele, you would not have 
 had to ask me that." 
 
 " Well, then, why not in marriage? " 
 
 " Because marriage seems to me to be so hampered and 
 narrowed by a thousand humdrum cares and superstitions; 
 because married people squabble, or get over being in love; 
 because the very fact that one has sworn to keep on feeling 
 a certain way is bound to make one change. Imagine vow- 
 ing in church to hate and loathe your bitterest enemy all the 
 rest of your life, and then trying to do it! It stands to reason 
 that you'd begin to like him before you had got out of the 
 church-door! " 
 
 Peele was silent for a few seconds. Her words expressed 
 his own feelings with a clearness he had never dared to use, 
 and his thoughts had flown as the crow flies to the Lady 
 Henrietta and his own future. 
 
 " I think," the girl went on, her hands, full of flowers, 
 clasping her knees, her eyes half closed with intentness, " that 
 people who love each other need no promises." 
 
 "You are not the first, my dear, to advance that theory, 
 but it won't hold water. Laws have to exist, you see. If 
 there were no marriage there could be no social order. The 
 minute two people got tired of each other, off they'd go, each
 
 244 P AM 
 
 would have his or her own way, and the children in the 
 nursery, what would become of them ? " 
 
 " It seems to me that people do about that when they 
 are married. If Lady Lloyd-Venn hadn't been chained down 
 to Sir Dick she would never for a moment have dreamed 
 of falling in love with that nasty Captain Bentinck! Every 
 one knows that a bird in the bush is worth a dozen in the 
 hand!" 
 
 Peele burst out laughing. ' ' ' Out of the mouths of babes ! ' 
 But what about the one of the pair who might happen to 
 be satisfied with his bargain ? " 
 
 " Like poor Mrs. Kennedy. Well, she is perfectly happy 
 now; much happier than if mother had not had the courage 
 to just go off with father. Think how wretched Mrs. 
 Kennedy would have been if he had stayed with her by force, 
 and loathed her as he would have, after knowing mother." 
 
 Peele had not thought of this case, and felt a slight dis- 
 comfort as she enlarged on it. " Your father's and mother's 
 tase is most exceptional," he said, rising. " It is the only 
 one of which I have ever heard that has not turned out badly 
 for every one concerned." 
 
 " Well, if I ever fall in love with any one, you'll hear of 
 another case, for I'm never going to make any idiotic 
 promises." 
 
 " You must feel yourself to be singularly inconstant, 
 then!" 
 
 " I'm not," she flashed back angrily. " But how can I 
 tell how I'll feel in ten years? Just wait, M>. Peele, you 
 and I. You are goig to make a splendid marriage de con- 
 venanet, and I shall never marry at all. Let's see which of 
 is turns out the happiest." 
 
 " And if," he hesitated, " you should have children ? 
 Don't you see? " It seemed to him unutterably pathetic the 
 Way, as he put his question, she opened her eyes in surprise.
 
 P AM 245 
 
 " Well, didn't they father and mother have me? " 
 The only letters Pam did not show to her friend were 
 two which had come from Burke. 
 
 His big, strong, coarse writing was so like himself that 
 the girl seemed to see him, as she read the short sentences be 
 had poured on to the paper hot from his heart. 
 
 " If you knew how I miss you ! The spring air gets into 
 my throat and seems to choke me because you are not here. 
 Let me come to you, Pam ! Marry me, and let me take you 
 off somewhere anywhere you want to go. Cazalet is 
 sending this to you, but he refuses to give me your address. 
 It is cruel. I love you, and I have a right to know where 
 you are. I go often to see your grandfather, but I don't 
 care to ask him where you are. He is very well, but very 
 lonely. We talk about you, for he loves you, too. He told 
 me yesterday that he had hoped to marry you to some man 
 of good blood, that the Duchess would have helped, but that 
 now you have ruined your prospects by this insane folly. 
 Thank God for it! You weren't made to be a fine lady, 
 the wife of some little fashionable whippersnapper. You 
 have too many red corpuscles, my girl. Love me! I'll teach 
 you what life is and can be. Can't you love me? Oh, Pam! 
 doesn't it mean anything to you to make a man like me grow 
 giddy with the very thought of you? '' 
 
 The rest of the letter, and part of the one which came 
 later, was in the same strain. She read them with a curious 
 feeling that they were not meant for her. Her own coldness 
 debarred her from all right to them. Poor Charnley Burke! 
 he was not " the man " of whom Ravaglia had told her. 
 
 The second letter, received early in June together with 
 the second she had had from her mother since she had left 
 home, announced that the writer had been cabled for from
 
 246 P AM 
 
 Australia. " I must go," he wrote in a hand somewhat un- 
 steady, " and God knows when I can get back. Something 
 has gone wrong with my bank. Oh, little Pam, little girl, 
 I am so utterly your slave! Be kind to me and let me see 
 you." 
 
 After a little reflection she wrote him a line giving him 
 her address, and putting on her hat, posted her note. 
 
 Then as was her habit, she went back past the house and 
 out on to the road leading to Peele's. 
 
 " It was very nice of him," she thought, as she flew along 
 in her peculiarly light-footed way over the dusty road, 
 " never to try to eblouir me with the ruby ! Of course he 
 bought it for me, poor thing! It is funny that he should 
 care so much, because I'm really little more than a child. 
 Eighteen in November, and this is June 3 ! " She had 
 several things to tell Peele, and hurried along, wondering 
 what he would say to one of them that she was going to 
 join her parents in Normandy in a fortnight's time. 
 
 The letter from her mother lay in her pocket, and every 
 now and then she touched it, her face flushing with happiness 
 as she did so. Her mother wanted her! Had herself 
 written to say so. " I am not very well," the beautiful 
 woman had said. " Not ill, dear, don't be alarmed ; but the 
 heat has been great, and I feel languid and good-for-nothing. 
 When are you coming? We miss you, and I think I should 
 feel better if you were here to bully me a little." 
 
 Peele could no longer look at her, as he sometimes did, with 
 that annoying cloud of pity in his clever iyes. Her mother 
 wanted needed her, and she was going home! 
 
 Peele was lying on a wicker lounge under a tree when she 
 came into the garden, and as she drew near she saw that 
 he was asleep. 
 
 Sitting quietly down on the grass she studied his uncon- 
 scious face. It was browner than it had been, and the
 
 P A M 247 
 
 cheeks were fuller. His eyes, too, had lost the bluish circles 
 that had so troubled her. "He is almost well," she thought 
 contentedly, " and will soon be able to work again. How 
 glad he'll be!" 
 
 It was very quiet in the old garden ; the warm afternoon 
 sun brooded over the fragrant earth like a great golden bird ; 
 the trees did not stir, and their shadows looked like tangible 
 things. Pam took off her hat and brushed back the little 
 damp tendrils from her low brow. It was delightful to go 
 back to her mother to her mother who wanted her but she 
 would miss Peele, who had been almost a charge to her. She 
 had bullied him about his drops, had fussed about his food, 
 and bought him a pair of hideous overshoes which she insisted 
 on his wearing when it was damp, for he never wore heavy 
 boots as most men do in the country. Her feeling, as she 
 watched him lying in the touching helplessness of sleep, had 
 in it something distinctly maternal. She could hardly realise 
 that he was the same man who had made those splendid, 
 tempestuous speeches of which the papers had had so much 
 to say. It was not the brilliant politician who lay sleeping 
 in the shade by her; it was a being who was a little her child, 
 a little her old hero, and a great deal the friend she loved. 
 
 Suddenly, perhaps disturbed by her magnetic gaze, he 
 opened his eyes. 
 
 "Where is it?" he murmured, still half asleep; "show 
 me the ruby if it's true ! " 
 
 Then he burst out laughing and rose hurriedly. " Good 
 girl, how are you? I am glad! I was just having the 
 most abominable dream about you and that chap Burke who 
 bought the ruby! " 
 
 "The ruby?" It was so curious, the coincidence, that 
 she started. 
 
 " Yes. I dreamed the fellow had picked you up and was 
 winning off with you as if you had been a baby ; and on one of
 
 248 P AM 
 
 your hands, which was hanging limply over his shoulder, 
 shone the ruby, set in a ring. It was a brute of a dream, 
 though it doesn't sound particularly terrifying in the telling." 
 
 " And you," she asked, looking curiously at him, " what 
 were you doing while I was being dragged off? poor me! " 
 
 " I that was the worst of it I seemed to be simply look- 
 ing on. Not a noble role, was it ? Well, what's the news ? " 
 he went on, laughing off his slight discomfort. " How is your 
 esteemed relative ? " 
 
 " Cousin Susie? She is not so well to-day nothing, you 
 know ; she has her ups and downs. But my news is that I'm 
 off home the end of the week." 
 
 " Home ! Where do you mean ? " 
 
 " What could I mean but to my father and mother? My 
 mother wants me." 
 
 " Oh, I say, Pam, this is awful ! What am I to <do with- 
 out you ? " 
 
 His injured expression amused her, but she was greatly 
 flattered at the same time. " Oh, you are nearly well ; you'll 
 be off yourself before long." 
 
 " Yes, that's true. The Duchess has found me out, too. 
 Luckily, she thinks I have just come hert from the Con- 
 tinent. I've got to go down to Wakeborough on the 23d, 
 but that's a long way off. Must you go so soon ? " 
 
 " Of course I must. It is dear of you to care, but mother 
 needs me." She tried to keep the pride out of her voice, and 
 failed. 
 
 " Well, I hope you will patch matters up with Lord Yeo- 
 land, for I should hate to think I'd never see you again." 
 
 " Oh, we'll meet again, no fear, Mr. Peele. Do you re- 
 member that time I said we were bound to meet again, but 
 that we'd not like each other? Isn't it funny? I never 
 liked any one quite as much as I do you." 
 
 " I'm very fond of you, Pam," he returned, his usually
 
 P A M 249 
 
 cold voice warm. " You are a dear little soul." After a 
 minute he added : " Look here, you have queer ideas, and 
 your circumstances are unusual. Will you promise me 
 never to do anything mad run away with some fellow, or 
 anything of that sort without telling me first? I couldn't 
 prevent it, of course; we all dig our own graves in our own 
 way; but I'd like you to promise. Will you? " 
 
 She held out her hand. " Yes, I will," she answered 
 slowly, " and will you now don't be angry, there's a dear 
 promise me to to think well before you marry Lady 
 Henrietta?" 
 
 His face stiffened and he dropped her hand. "You are 
 absurd." 
 
 " No, I'm not. Once Madame Ravaglia told me never 
 to forget that somewhere in the world there was the man 
 I am going to love. I suppose it's the same with every 
 one. There must be somewhere the woman you are going to 
 love. Why don't you," she added, with a sudden change to 
 whimsicality, " give her a chance? " 
 
 He burst out laughing. " How I shall miss you, you 
 monkey! Come, let's have tea; I suppose you'll not be 
 coming again."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 \VHEN Pam came in that evening she was met by Pil- 
 grim, who, with a face full of indignant mystery, followed 
 her up to her room and closed the door. 
 
 " Now I hope you'll believe that this is no place for you, 
 Miss Pam! Now I hope you'll understand that a lady is a 
 lady, and a person a person. Never in my life 'ave I been 
 in a house " 
 
 " Hold your tongue, Pilgrim ! Give me my slippers, and 
 tell me what the matter is without roaring at me like a 
 hyena." 
 
 " I'm not roaring, and I'm not an 'yena. The matter is 
 that she's been drinking" 
 
 Pilgrim, kneeling in front of her mistress, the slippers in 
 her hand, looked anything but humble as she made this state- 
 ment 
 
 " Pooh! is that all? Which one? Maud? " 
 
 Pilgrim set down the slippers and folded her arms dra- 
 matically. "Mrs. Kennedy/" 
 
 " Mrs. Nonsense, Pilly, you must have been drinking 
 
 yourself. What on earth do you mean ? " 
 
 " I mean that Mrs. Kennedy is hintoxicated. You may 
 go and see for yourself ! " 
 
 " But why, it is impossible ! " 
 
 " You may see for yourself." 
 
 " I will see for myself* if you will be good enough to put 
 on my slippers. But, of course ( you are entirely mistaken." 
 
 " Which it is I've begun to pack your things, Miss Pam." 
 
 250
 
 P A M 251 
 
 The faithful creature rose, and Pam, with a hurried pat 
 at her hair, went downstairs. 
 
 As she opened Mrs. Kennedy's door her heart sank. The 
 room certainly smelt of spirits. " May I come in ? " she 
 asked coldly. There was no lamp, but even in the dark 
 she could see that her hostess was huddled queerly in her 
 chair. 
 
 "Is that you?" 
 
 Susan Kennedy could hardly articulate, and as Pam ad- 
 vanced some one rose from a chair near her. It was Miss 
 Botson. 
 
 "Oh, Pamela, she is ill!" 
 
 " So I see, Miss Botson. I am going to ring for a 
 lamp." 
 
 " Don't let Maud come in," went on the indistinct voice. 
 Pam shuddered. 
 
 " I have given her brandy, but it hasn't done any good." 
 Anna Botson wrung her hands as she spoke. 
 
 " Evidently not. Maud, bring a lamp, will you? " 
 
 The girl retreated, and when she came back with the 
 lighted lamp Miss Botson took it and, closing the door, set 
 it down on the table. 
 
 " Do you think she looks badly ? " she whispered to Pam, 
 who stood, very erect, staring at the dull eyes and flushed 
 face opposite her. " There, she's dropping off to sleep again ! 
 I wanted to go, or send for Dr. Terry, but she wouldn't let 
 me leave the room." 
 
 " Hardly necessary to send for a doctor, I should think. 
 I I think I will leave to-night. I have had a letter from 
 my mother, who needs me. You will be kind enough to 
 explain to Mrs. Kennedy, when she is better " 
 
 Her disgust and anger almost choked her ; she hardly knew 
 her own voice. Miss Botson stared. " You wouldn't go 
 now, when she's ill! I know she's going to be ill."
 
 252 P A M 
 
 Pam shrugged her shoulders. " She's asleep now; and 
 please don't lie to me. It really isn't worth while." 
 
 The older woman's face flushed a dull brownish red. 
 
 " I don't know what you mean ; I am not lying ; what have 
 I said ? And why do you look like that ? " 
 
 Her persistence exhausted Pam's small store of patience. 
 
 " I look like that," the girl said indignantly, " because I 
 happen never to have seen a drunken woman before." 
 
 " Oh ! " Anna Botson started back as if she had been 
 struck. 
 
 " Aren't you ashamed ? How can you say such a thing 
 of her. She has been kind to you. Only to-day she has 
 been making " 
 
 Pam looked closely at the speaker. 
 
 " Perhaps," she said, at length, after a pause filled in by 
 the loud snores of the sleeping woman, " perhaps I am mis- 
 taken, and you really didn't know. If that is so I beg your 
 pardon." 
 
 " You thought I knew what ? That she is but she 
 isn't! She is ill, I tell you. Look at her." 
 
 Turning, she pointed to the curiously dark face, the only 
 half-closed eyes, and Pam caught at her hand. 
 
 " Oh, you know? You have been with her long? " 
 
 " I came just after you left. She said she wasn't well, 
 but she had some business to do with her lawyer. He came, 
 and I witnessed a paper for her. Then we had tea, and she 
 kept falling asleep. I am afraid " 
 
 " It's apoplexy," announced Pam shortly. " I'll send 
 Maud for a doctor." 
 
 Before the doctor came, however, Mrs. Kennedy had 
 roused herself from her heavy sleep, and slowly, with a stiff 
 tongue, asked what time it was. 
 
 " Seven ; five minutes past, dear," returned Pam, in an 
 agony of remorse for her cruel suspicion.
 
 P A M 253 
 
 "Is Anna there?" 
 
 " Yes, Susie; yes, my dearest Susie." 
 
 " Glad. Very ill. Fancy, I can hardly speak. Doctor 
 coming ? " 
 
 " Yes, dear cousin Susie. He will give you something to 
 make you better," returned Pam, stroking the great fat hand 
 gently. " He will come soon and cure you." 
 
 " No. Dying. It's paral ysis." 
 
 Anna Botson burst into tears, and kneeling put her arms 
 about her friend. 
 
 Pam could not speak. " Don't cry, Anna," went on the 
 sick woman laboriously, " what time is it? " 
 
 All night she asked at intervals what the time was, harp- 
 ing on the trivial detail with a persistency that almost mad- 
 dened Pam, who, as well as Miss Botson, sat up with her. 
 
 Pam never forgot that night. 
 
 It was very warm, and through the open window came 
 a strong scent of lilies ; the lamp on the floor behind the head 
 of the bed cast a distinct light on the gay carpet, leaving the 
 rest of the room almost in darkness. 
 
 On the table by the bed stood water, two medicine bottles, 
 two spoons, and the clock. Mrs. Kennedy did not move. 
 Flat on her back she lay motionless, the bed-clothes drawn 
 taut over the unwieldly bulk, an ice-bag on her head. 
 
 " What time is it? " It seemed to the watchers that each 
 time she asked the question the words came with more diffi- 
 culty. 
 
 At dawn Pam woke out of a sound sleep on the sofa to 
 find Anna Botson shaking her gently. 
 
 " She wants you, Pamela. Wake up." 
 
 The girl rubbed her eyes and stumbled to the bed, sick 
 with sleep. 
 
 " Pamela listen can't talk much listen " 
 
 Pam leaned over, and in the faint daylight saw that the
 
 254 P A M 
 
 right side of the great face on the pillow was fallen and stiff. 
 "Yes, I hear, dear Cousin Susie," she said distinctly, con- 
 trolling herself with effort. " I hear quite well. Go on." 
 
 Mrs. Kennedy raised her left hand and took the girl's in 
 her own, fingering it restlessly as she spoke. 
 
 " Pamela I'm sorry about the di di vorce. I should 
 have divorced him. Understand ? " 
 
 " Yes, I know ; I'll tell them, but don't you bother about 
 that. They never cared, you know. They are happy." 
 She hardly knew what she was saying. 
 
 " Sorry I didn't di vorce him sin marriage late 
 now." 
 
 Pam could catch only a few words, but she nodded again. 
 " Yes, yes, I understand. I'll tell them." 
 
 "Promise?" 
 
 " What shall I promise ? Oh, yes, I do ! Of course I 
 promise." 
 
 The sick woman frowned despairingly. " Pamela I am 
 dying. Marry now. George and her." 
 
 "Oh! You want them to marry now ? Oh, I see. Yes, 
 yes, Cousin Susie. Don't talk any more ; it tires you so." 
 
 " Promise. Marry now. Sin my fault." 
 
 Then the girl understood, and taking the sick woman's 
 hand firmly in hers made surely the most extraordinary 
 promise made by a girl of eighteen since the world began. 
 
 " I promise, Cousin Susie, dear. I promise to make father 
 and mother marry as soon as I get back to them." 
 
 And Susan Kennedy, her conscience contented, fell asleep. 
 
 She died the next evening, without having fully recovered 
 consciousness, but it seemed to Pam that she liked having 
 her sit by the bed, and the girl never left the room until 
 Hannah, the cook, led her away, murmuring something about 
 its being no longer any use. 
 
 Pam slept without moving until ten o'clock the morning
 
 P A M 255 
 
 after, and when she went downstairs found Anna Botson, 
 repulsive and hideous, even in her grief, filling the pink room 
 with white and pink roses. " She always used to say that 
 pink was her colour," she said, as the young girl entered 
 quietly, " and it was. You may have thought her too fat, 
 but that was only since she was so ill. She was perfectly 
 beautiful when she was a girl; much handsomer than some 
 fine ladies I've 'card of! " 
 
 Pam stared. "You mean my mother? I didn't know 
 you had known Mrs. Kennedy so long." 
 
 " Well, I have, and what's more," she came slowly towards 
 the bed and looked at the two women, the dead and the living 
 one, neither of whom had ever suspected what she was about 
 to say " I knew your father before she did. Did you think 
 she, Susie, thought of having you come? She didn't even 
 know there was any you. It was all me. I 'card, and I 
 wanted to see you. I wanted to see you, because I love 
 George Kennedy. That's why. And I wrote the letter. 
 Did you think she could have written it ? " 
 
 Pam stared at her. Was it possible that this ugly woman, 
 with her great pale mouth and her grotesque figure, had 
 loved her father? 
 
 " Surprised, are you? Well, when you go back and tell 
 him all about it, tell him that Anna Botson did it. 'E'll 
 remember me." 
 
 " You say you loved him ? " stammered Pam. It seemed 
 to her that all women in the world had loved him. 
 
 Miss Botson selected an exquisite pink rose and laid it 
 tenderly in the cold hand on the bed. 
 
 " No. I said I love 'im. / don't chop and change. He'll 
 tell you about it. It used to amuse him. I always looked 
 like a a crocodile." 
 
 After a moment she added : " She was godmother to one 
 of the curate's daughters, and would 'ave left the money to
 
 256 P A M 
 
 her if I 'adn't had you come. Tell George your father 
 that, please." 
 
 " But, I don't " 
 
 Miss Botson turned, her swollen eyes glassy in the sun- 
 light. " She's left you ten thousand pounds. Tell George t 
 please." Then kneeling by the dead woman, she buried her 
 face in her hands. She was praying.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 "PlLLY, would it be very dreadful if I went for a 
 walk? It is four days since I've been out, and I'm almost 
 dead!" 
 
 Pam came into Pilgrim's room under the eaves, a forlorn 
 little figure in a somewhat scant black skirt and jacket, which 
 she had outgrown the year before, and a white shirt. 
 
 Pilgrim, busy putting a black ribbon in place of the red one 
 on her mistress's sailor-hat, looked up. 
 
 "Oh, Pam Miss Pam. We were so unjust to her! 
 And now to go out? The funeral is to-morrow, can't you 
 wait?" 
 
 " No one would see me; I'd go out the back door and 
 creep away to the country there isn't a book in the house, 
 and I shall go mad if I have to sit staring at Cally any 
 longer." 
 
 " Very well ; it is hard for you, and 'er being no relation 
 at all to you, when all's said and done. If you wait an hour 
 longer it will be six o'clock and no one will see you; it's a 
 dark day. Drop the scissors, you little brute ! " she added 
 sharply to the monkey, who had seized the opportunity' of 
 making some experiments on the end of his tail with the 
 usually jealously guarded instrument. 
 
 Pam sat down for a few minutes, and then taking her 
 retrimmed hat went downstairs. 
 
 " Is Miss Botson still here? " she asked the maid. 
 
 " Yes, Miss, Miss Botson is in the drawing-room." 
 
 Pam had not seen the strange woman alone since she had 
 
 257
 
 258 P A M 
 
 been told of the legacy. Anna had shown much skill in 
 avoiding her, and on the occasions when meeting was inevita- 
 ble had managed to keep Maud or the cook in the room with 
 them. Pam had not tried to force the meeting the other 
 avoided, for she did not know at first what it was that she 
 wished to say. She had pondered a great deal, however, on 
 the story told her among the roses in the death-chamber, and 
 at last had come to a conclusion. 
 
 Finding Miss Botson in the drawing-room, then, she closed 
 the door, and went swiftly to the window in which the gaunt 
 figure, in its uncouth garb of woe, was standing. 
 
 " Miss Botson," she began at once, holding out her hand, 
 " you have not wanted me to speak to you, but I must. I 
 go away on Monday, and this is Saturday. To-morrow 
 there will be no time." 
 
 " I thought you were asleep." 
 
 " Well, I'm not. Now, listen to me. I have been think- 
 ing of what you told me the other day. It was you who 
 made me come here ; you did it under false pretences, making 
 me quarrel with my grandfather and the Duchess of Wight 
 about it, all because you wanted to see me. You used Mrs. 
 Kennedy as a a means to that end. Naturally, I object to 
 having been fooled, and it wasn't fair to her either." 
 
 " I know it wasn't. But there was no other way. And 
 then there's the money you'd never have had that if I 
 hadn't done it." 
 
 " Yes, the money. You seem to have had a great influ- 
 ence over her." 
 
 Miss Botson's swollen eyes gleamed. " I did. She loved 
 me. ' Anna,' she's said a thousand times, ' you are my dearest 
 friend.' It was me looked after her when George went off 
 and left 'er; it was me nursed her through the illness after 
 her first stroke; she was in bed a whole year. It was me 
 looked after the money matters, she was as 'elpless as a child
 
 P AM 259 
 
 in such things. And if I did make use of her it only made 
 her happier. She liked seeing you as much as I did. And 
 didn't she enjoy hearing all about him every bit as much as 
 me?" 
 
 Pam was silent. Mrs. Kennedy had indeed asked number- 
 less questions about her husband, and listened to the answers 
 with the interest of a child. It came back to the girl now 
 how, always silent, her chair drawn into the shadow, the 
 dearest friend had listened too. 
 
 " It was this way. When she came here about a year after 
 her misfortune (an aunt left her this house) , I came, too, and 
 took the lodgings where I still live. She wanted me to live 
 in the 'ouse ; but I wouldn't do that ; I like my liberty too well. 
 She was a great favourite, of course, and then every one knew 
 the story and wanted to see 'er. No one thought of my mis- 
 fortune," she added with sudden bitterness. 
 
 " Then it didn't spoil her disposition as it did mine. Did 
 I tell you that he laughed at me ? And she wasn't really un- 
 happy for very long. Sometimes she really enjoyed her 
 troubles. It always gave her pleasure to tell about them, 
 and of course every one sympathised with her." 
 
 Pam bit her lips impatiently. " Please don't go on ; I don't 
 like to hea about it." 
 
 " I've aboui: done. I shan't bother you with my part. 
 I lived on and never for one minute forgot the ache of think- 
 ing about him. She didn't know. Then I heard that he 
 had a child, and that she was in England. That was years 
 ago. I went down to Monks' Yeoland, third-class, and saw 
 a young girl riding a pony. I thought she was you, but she 
 wasn't. Ever since then I've wanted to see you again to 
 know you, to touch you. So when you came back this time, 
 and I heard it. 1 told her, and I'm not ashamed. made her 
 think she uanted to see you. She did, too, once I'd put the 
 idea into her head. That's all. I'm glad I did it."
 
 260 PAM 
 
 She was so unlovely in her grim sorrow that Pam felt a 
 pang of pity for her. 
 
 " Well, I wish you had not done it, except that it may 
 have given her some pleasure, but I'm sorry for you, Miss 
 Botson. And you mustn't mind my not taking the money." 
 
 " Not taking the money? Not taking " The woman 
 
 nearly screamed in her excitement. 
 
 " No. You had no right to make her leave it to me, away 
 from her god-child. You must see that I can't touch it ! " 
 
 " Listen, Pamela, you mustn't do that ! It's the only thing 
 I've ever been able to do for him, and you must let me 
 do it." 
 
 " It is quite impossible. Don't you see that we couldn't 
 allow ourselves to be benefited by her money? She was not 
 50 clever as you, but I'm sure she would have understood 
 that." 
 
 " She did, at first," confessed the power behind that humble 
 throne. " I wanted her to leave it to him, and she said no, 
 that he would not accept it. That was years before before 
 I knew you were born." 
 
 "There! You see!" 
 
 " But it's different with you. You never injured Susie." 
 
 Pam drew a long breath. " I am sorry, and I suppose I 
 ought to thank you for it but I will not touch one penny 
 of the money." 
 
 " You'll have to. At least, you will have to dispose of 
 it, even if you give it all away! " was the answer in a strange 
 tone of exultation. " And, though this is all the thanks I get, 
 I shall have benefited him through the thanks you get! 
 That is all I want." 
 
 She stood staring over Pam's head, hei 'oose, pale lips 
 hanging apart in a hideous smile of crookedi> arrived at, 
 but beautiful, sentiment. 
 
 Pam caught her hand suddenly. " Oh, I am so sorry, so
 
 P A M 261 
 
 dreadfully sorry ! " she cried, " and I shall tell him, and he 
 will be sorry, too." 
 
 Then she rushed from the room, through the kitchen, 
 across the little garden, and out into the street. It was a 
 dark afternoon, the low clouds a metallic grey, the air heavy 
 and hot. " I wish it would rain," the girl thought, as she 
 struck out on the country road, her feet sending clouds of 
 yellow dust about her. " My head feels as if it were going 
 to burst. Poor old thing! Poor Miss Botson. And how 
 repulsive she is. God should not give such women any heart 
 at all." 
 
 She went on slowly, now that she had walked off her 
 excitement, her hat in her hand, her head thrown back to 
 meet the little air there seemed to be. It did not occur to 
 her that she should not go to see Peele. No one would 
 know in the house of mourning in which she did not really 
 belong, and she longed for a talk with him. 
 
 It was half -past six when she reached his house, and, going 
 in without a ring, knocked at the library door. 
 
 " It's I, Pam, may I " 
 
 "Come in!" 
 
 He was lying down, a wet cloth on his forehead. " Ex- 
 cuse my not getting up, I've a brute of a headache. I am 
 glad to see you thought you had gone." 
 
 "No. Haven't you heard? Mrs. Kennedy is dead. 
 The funeral is to-morrow. I go Monday." 
 
 "Dead. Good heavens, what killed her?" 
 
 She sat down, and leaning wearily back in her chair, gave 
 him a brief history of the events of the week. 
 
 " But you poor little thing, how dreadful for you! I'm 
 so sorry." 
 
 " It has been pretty bad. I was so dreadfully sorry for 
 her. At first " she hesitated " I thought she had been 
 drinking. It makes me so ashamed! And then poor Miss
 
 262 P A M 
 
 Botson, whom I can't bear I mean, I couldn't is so 
 pathetic." 
 
 " The woman with the teeth? " 
 
 " Yes. And Cally my monkey, you know did such 
 a fearful thing. The cook was sitting in the room one day, 
 yesterday, and suddenly Mrs. Kennedy's hand moved. Came 
 right up in the air. Hannah screamed, and Pilgrim came 
 rushing in, and there, if you please, was Caliban in the 
 coffin, curled up under her poor dead arm. It seemed so 
 disrespectful." 
 
 " Very. Monkeys are not distinguished for great def- 
 erence, are they? Poor old Pam! " 
 
 He looked pale, she saw, and frowned with pain as he 
 spoke. " One of your very worst headaches, isn't it? " 
 
 "Yes. You see, you weren't here to take care of me, 
 and I got into mischief. Took a long walk this morning, 
 and then after luncheon I over-tired myself looking out 
 a lot of old arms in the garret. I'm going to have some 
 of them cleaned and got into shape; a few of them are 
 very good." 
 
 "Oh, over there on the table. May I look?" 
 
 She crossed the room and stood for a few minutes turn- 
 ing over the quaint old swords and rapiers with cautious 
 hands. 
 
 " This inlaid one is beautiful, and, oh, how sharp! " 
 
 "Yes, it's Venetian. Be careful. Isn't the sheath 
 there?" 
 
 She came back to her chair, the long slim rapier in her 
 hand. " I'm going to take fencing lessons some day," she 
 observed carelessly, making a few neat strokes as she spoke. 
 " I am not bad at it, my wrist is flexible ; look at that ! " 
 
 " Good ! Don't run me through, though. Hello- 
 thunder! " 
 
 " Yes, there is going to be a storm, a'iel "
 
 P A M 263 
 
 Laying the rapier on the chimney-piece she ran to the 
 window. "The sky is as black as pitch oh!" 
 
 A vivid flash of lightning, followed by a loud clap of 
 thunder, sent her back to her chair. 
 
 "I'm glad it's going to rain, but I hope it won't be 
 a very bad storm." 
 
 " Not afraid, are you? " 
 
 "Yes, I am. I can't help it oh!" Another zig-zag 
 of angry brilliance cut across the sky, followed by such 
 a crash of unearthly noise that the girl gave a little cry 
 and hid her face in her hands. 
 
 " Don't be a goose, dear ; think how cool it will be for 
 you to walk home! " 
 
 " I oh, Mr. Peele, I I wish it was over." 
 
 But it was not. It was, indeed, to be one of those de- 
 structive storms which come only once in several years. 
 No rain fell as yet, and the darkening room was lit at close 
 intervals by terrifying lightning flashes and shaken by 
 deafening thunder. 
 
 Pam sat, looking in her agony of fear very monkey-like, 
 huddled in her chair, her hands gripping its arms. 
 
 " The rain must come soon, poor child ah ! " 
 
 The flash of lightning that interrupted him was almost on 
 the instant followed by a crashing noise that actually shook 
 the house. 
 
 "Struck!" 
 
 As he spoke, Pam rushed to him and in a paroxysm of 
 terror threw herself into his arms. 
 
 " It struck the big beech, dear we are safe," he mur- 
 mured, stroking her shoulder, and full of pity for her. 
 
 " Hark, there's the rain." 
 
 Without speaking, she continued to cling to him, trem- 
 bling from head to foot. " Poor little girl, dear old Pam," 
 he murmured soothingly.
 
 264 P AM 
 
 "Well, by God!" 
 
 Pam sprang aside at the sound of the new voice, and 
 turning saw Charnley Burke standing in the doorway. 
 
 "Mr. Burke!" 
 
 " I who is this gentleman? Ah! Mr. Peele! " 
 
 The big man's face was purple with fury, his eyes bulging 
 and bloodshot. 
 
 Peeie rose. " Yes. I am the owner of this house. 
 Perhaps you may owe me some explanation," he said quietly. 
 
 " You are right. I came to Torpington, with her per 
 mission, to see Miss Yeoland. Her maid telling me she 
 had gone for a walk, I followed. I saw her come in here, 
 and waited for her to come out. Then the storm. I 
 thought her hostess might give me shelter. Where," he 
 added, when he had with a great effort finished his story, 
 "where is her hostess?" 
 
 Pam had left Peele and stood by her own chair, her 
 hands on its back. 
 
 " Mr. Peele is my host. There is no hostess here," she 
 said quietly. " Who let you in ? " 
 
 " Yes! I should have been announced, eh? " 
 
 " Hold your tongue! " Peele came a step forward. " You 
 have found your way into my house; be kind enough to 
 keep a civil tongue in your head so long as you are in it." 
 
 " I shall not be in it long, Mr. Peele. I sail for Aus- 
 tralia to-morrow. I came to to say good-bye to to a girl 
 I honoured and I find her here. You are young, my 
 dear, to have so early shown your blood." Then he went 
 on, turning again to Peele, " Don't try to fight me, or I'll 
 break your back." 
 
 " I cannot fight you any more than I could fight a mad 
 bull. But I can run this into you," seizing the rapier, " and 
 if you do not at once leave my house, by God, I will." 
 
 ^am held up her hand as he finished. "Mr. Peele,
 
 AND YOU WOULD HAVE TO SAY 
 ABOUT IT EXACTLY NOTHING'"
 
 P A M 265 
 
 listen don't hurt him I'll make him go. And now, Mr. 
 Burke, you listen to me. Mr. Peele is the best friend I 
 have in the world. I love him. Oh, not in the way you 
 mean, but I love him. And if, by chance, I did love him 
 in the way you mean, and he me, I should be here in the 
 way you mean, too. And you would have to say about it 
 exactly nothing. I am my own mistress, and shall always 
 do what I like. What I now like is to say good-bye to you, 
 and to add that I think you a very ridiculous person, and 
 that I shall never willingly speak another word to you." 
 
 Her cool, clear voice, each word enunciated with the 
 greatest distinctness, seemed to fall on the heated mental 
 atmosphere as the rain had fallen on the storm-torn world 
 a few minutes before. 
 
 The colour ebbed out of Burke's face, Peele rested the 
 point of the rapier on the floor, and a short silence fell. 
 
 " Very well, I will go. I believe you that you are 
 straight up to this. You know why I came; I shall never 
 trouble you again. I am a rough man a wild bull, per- 
 haps but my wife must be different. Good-bye." 
 
 Without a word to Peele he turned and left the house. 
 
 After a moment Pam said quietly, " I suppose I really 
 shouldn't have come, should I ? " 
 
 " You know as well as I, that it was as innocent as 
 going to church. Damn it, it insults you even to say that 
 I never had a thought " 
 
 He broke off savagely. 
 
 " Oh, I know. Of course you hadn't. But, do you 
 
 think " hesitating, she took up her hat and pinned it on. 
 
 " You remember what Ravaglia told me ? " 
 
 " Yes. Well, do you think that he, when he comes, will 
 mind ? She said he'll want ' not only my future, but my 
 past as well.' Will he be angry with me for coming?" 
 
 " No," cried Peele vehemently. " You tell him about it
 
 266 P AM 
 
 and he won't be angry with you. I should have known 
 better, but Heaven knows " 
 
 " The rain has stopped ; I must go. I'll go across the 
 fields, so I shan't meet Mr. Burke." 
 
 " Yes. Pam, I can't tell you how sorry I am." 
 
 "You needn't be. It's all right. I don't care a button 
 what Charnley Burke said. And it has been well worth it. 
 I've loved every minute I've been with you." 
 
 " So have I. Write me sometimes, will you ? " 
 
 " Yes. And you don't over work. Remember, you are 
 not strong yet." 
 
 He took her hands in his. " God bless you, dear. And 
 when he comes, I shall tell him that I think him the happiest 
 man in the world." 
 
 Then she left him, disregarding the tempest of rain, and 
 going to an upstairs window he stood and watched her 
 speeding over the fields towards the murky town.
 
 PART V 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ' DEARLY beloved, we are gathered together in the sight 
 of God, and in the face of this company, to join together 
 this man and this woman.' " 
 
 The Reverend Edmund Lee had a very beautiful voice, 
 and his Oxford education had modified the soft slurring of 
 his Virginian accent into something unusually attractive. 
 
 He was a tall, thin man, with a delicate face, above which 
 a mass of rather long, childishly silky hair lay like an untidy 
 halo. 
 
 Behind him, through the open window, a soft sea-breeze 
 blew in, fluttering his surplice, and drawing little gusts of 
 sweetness from the flowers with which the charming, shabby 
 room was filled. 
 
 " ' why they may not be lawfully joined together, 
 
 let him now speak, or else ' " dramatically " ' hereafter 
 forever hold his peace.' " 
 
 There was no reason. No other man ; no other woman ; 
 no hereditary insanity; no hideous disparity of years. There 
 was no impediment. 
 
 1 ' Guy, wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded 
 wife?'" 
 
 " I will." 
 
 Sacheverel answered distinctly, his brown face held bravely 
 to the afternoon sun. His hair had thinned at the temples, 
 his waistcoat was fuller than of old, but he was, more than 
 one of the onlookers thought, rather splendid at that 
 moment. 
 
 267
 
 268 P A M 
 
 " ' Pauline Mary, wilt thou have this man to be thy 
 wedded husband ? ' ' 
 
 The young chaplain, with his thin face, like that of some 
 saint in an old picture, was moved by the scene, and his 
 mellow voice laid a wonderful emphasis on the words, " and 
 forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye 
 both shall live?" 
 
 And the woman who had indeed " forsaken all others and 
 kept her only unto him " for twenty years, answered, her 
 hollow eyes filled with tears, " I will." 
 
 The beautiful service went on, the little congregation 
 listening closely; an over-ripe rose shed its leaves softly 
 over a polished table; a bird sang a few sudden notes in 
 the darkness of the ilex-grove outside; a small lizard flashed 
 past one of the windows; some one at the back of the room 
 gave a muffled sob. 
 
 ' Those whom God has joined together, let no man put 
 asunder.' " 
 
 Guy Sacheverel and Pauline Yeoland were man and 
 wife. 
 
 As the chaplain laid down his book Pam came forward 
 quietly and kissed her mother. " Come, dearest, you must 
 sit down and rest now, and have a glass of wine," she said, 
 seating her in a great chair, against whose dark leather back 
 her delicate blonde beauty stood out in striking relief. " Are 
 you very tired ? " 
 
 " No, dear, I am so much stronger now. Ah, Pilgrim, 
 my good old Jane ! " Pilgrim, in a new silk gown and a 
 much curled front, a vanity to which encroaching baldness 
 had of late constrained her, kissed the hand of the woman 
 she had served so faithfully, her eyes wet and swollen with 
 tears. 
 
 " Thank God ! Mrs. Sacheverel," she said, her voice 
 husky.
 
 P A M 269 
 
 " Go 'way, PUly, you tearful old goose," commanded Pam 
 sternly, " I won't have you upsetting her. Look, mother 
 dear, the Happy Bridegroom ! " 
 
 Sacheverel swung across the room with the jaunty grace 
 he had never lost, and sat down by his wife. " Well, Pam, 
 you little match-maker, are you satisfied at last? " he asked, 
 his eyes rather grave, though he smiled. 
 
 " I am. And did you ever see mother look so lovely? " 
 
 "Never," he returned with conviction. "Ah, Pauline!" 
 
 Pam watched their faces as he took her mother's shadowy 
 hand in his, and they gazed at each other for a moment in 
 silence, and the young clergyman watched her. 
 
 Her face wore a curious expression, half-tender, half 
 amused, which puzzled him. Then suddenly she smiled 
 gaily, as the servant, the youthful Antonio of the old days, 
 grown several pounds heavier with the years, and resplen< 
 dent in a new livery, approached with a small glass of wine 
 on a large silver salver. 
 
 " Ah, signora" the man exclaimed, beaming with true 
 Italian sympathy at the strange little scene, " who would 
 have thought, six months ago, that we should ever see this 
 day ! Dio, quanta abbiamo pregato alia Santissima! " 
 
 " I am sure that your prayers helped my recovery, An^ 
 tonio," answered his mistress gently. " Don't let MarrietU 
 work too hard, and don't forget: I am to be godmother." 
 
 Mr. Lee watched curiously. It was an extraordinary 
 household, and had, from his first knowledge of it, a week 
 before when Sacheverel had come and asked him to per- 
 form the marriage ceremony, interested him keenly. Thor- 
 oughly convinced that the man and woman whom he had 
 in the presence of their daughter just made one had com- 
 mitted one of the worst sins mentioned in the decalogue, the 
 sight of them, evidently perfectly happy and quite un- 
 ashamed, gave the young man a feeling of unreality. He half
 
 270 P A M 
 
 expected to see them all melt away mistily, as people do in 
 dreams. 
 
 Pam, slim and graceful in her yellow crepe gown, was to 
 him that most alluring thing in the world to a young man: 
 a lovely woman whose character is a mystery. It would 
 have been more comprehensible to him if Pam had shown 
 some slight sign of embarrassment at this strange gathering. 
 The man was wise enough to realise that being thoroughly 
 accustomed to any circumstance robs it of the greater part 
 of its awkwardness, but it seemed to him strange that even 
 with himself, in his sacerdotal quality, the girl seemed quite 
 at ease. He knew that her father and mother had lived 
 for years in an unhallowed way, and she knew that he 
 knew it, yet, as the party went into the dining-room for 
 the little wedding-feast, she chatted to him as easily as if 
 her own existence were not a most eloquent witness to that 
 sin. 
 
 She was full of a half-maternal care for the bride, too. 
 that had its absurd side. " You won't let her get too tired, 
 father, will you? " she insisted. " Remember how long she 
 was ill, and how dreadfully!" 
 
 11 No danger of my forgetting that, my dear. Every 
 
 time I look at her Sacheverel broke off. She had 
 
 been so ill ever since October, with the horrible, dragging 
 typhoid, that even now, in April, he could not bear to think 
 of it. 
 
 Mr. Lee looked first at the mother, then at the daughter. 
 
 Mrs. Sacheverel was much the more beautiful, and her 
 short hair, curling in baby-like rings all over her head, made 
 her look, in the shaded light, almost younger than her 
 daughter. 
 
 Pam had stopped growing, and her slim, vigorous young 
 figure had lost its angles. Mr. Lee particularly admired 
 the gleaming net-work of glossy chestnut hair which almost
 
 P A M 271 
 
 covered her head, and the brilliance of which made her 
 small face look, at first sight, paler than it really was. 
 
 " You will be lonely, Pam," remarked her father sud- 
 denly. " Don't put off your going for too long." 
 
 " I shan't be lonely. I never was in my life! And the 
 wedding isn't until the 3Oth, so I can have a rest before 
 undertaking that" 
 
 " Are you going to be married, Miss Yeoland ? " asked 
 Mr. Lee, with a little pang, for he was only twenty-seven, 
 and in spite of the armour of his clerical garments peculiarly 
 susceptible. 
 
 Pam laughed gaily. 
 
 " Not I ! One of my cousins is to be, and I am going to 
 help with the preparations." 
 
 Then she turned again to her mother, watching her with 
 the anxiety she had not yet got over, for the convalescence 
 had been painfully long. Now at last, however, her mother 
 was well. The girl remembered her arrival at Houlgate, 
 her mother's weakness and languor, her father's growing 
 anxiety. She had told the story of poor Mrs. Kennedy, 
 but it met with an indifference which seemed to Pam, in 
 spite of all her philosophy, a little cruel ; while to the history 
 of Anna Botson, related through some unanalysed instinct to 
 her father alone, he made the astounding reply that he 
 couldn't place the woman at all. 
 
 " I can't have laughed at her, you know," he insisted 
 gently, wagging his head in mild amusement, " for I can't 
 even remember her ! Ugly ? They were all ugly, my dear, 
 in that dreadful town, except Susie." 
 
 To-day, sitting at her father's wedding-feast, the thought 
 of that other one returned to her mind again and again. 
 
 Her keen imagination pictured poor, pretty Susie on his 
 other side; she half expected him to turn from her mother 
 and smile down tenderly at her, as he must have done, on
 
 272 P A M 
 
 that other day, her young, handsome father, who was in 
 love with the little ordinary thing! 
 
 " Down frown that way, Pam, you look too like Cally," 
 remarked Sacheverel at this point, and the girl started. 
 " Oh, my poor old boy, I forgot to let him out ; he is still 
 locked in my room ! " Rising, she left the room with 
 the singularly graceful gait she had inherited from her 
 father. 
 
 " Who is Cally? " inquired Mr. Lee. 
 
 " Her monkey, a most unattractive old beast whom she 
 has had for years, and tenderly loves." 
 
 " I should imagine that Miss Yeoland is constant," re- 
 turned the Virginian, with a certain air that highly amused 
 his host. 
 
 It was plainly to be seen that the good-looking parson 
 was falling in love with the girl. She was going, the father 
 told himself with anticipatory amusement, to play the deuce 
 with men. 
 
 " Mother, dear," Pam had returned, " the carriage is 
 at the door, and Claire has brought everything down; you 
 have not too much time." 
 
 " Let me finish my ice, Pam." 
 
 " I can't let you miss the train, can I ? Father, it really 
 is time." 
 
 " Good," he replied gaily, laughing as he rose. " Have 
 you got the old shoe ready ? " 
 
 Pam nodded, the monkey close in her arms. She was not 
 merry. 
 
 A moment later she stood in the door under the little 
 " marquise," watching her father as he and the maid ar- 
 ranged her mother's pillows in the carriage. 
 
 Sacheverel offered the clergyman a seat down to the town, 
 but he refused, and after bowing mutely to every one in 
 turn started on his way through the olives.
 
 P A M 273 
 
 Pilgrim, the cook, Antonio, and Pam were the only 
 ones left. 
 
 " Good-bye, Pam." 
 
 " Good-bye, mother." 
 
 " Good-bye, little girl." The old carriage was off, creak- 
 ing over the gravel. 
 
 " Buon viaggio, signori/ Buonissimo viaggio!" 
 
 Bang! The slipper struck the coachman's broad back, 
 and fell into the carriage. 
 
 " AddiQ, signori! buonissimo viaggio!" 
 
 The little group of servants withdrew slowly into the 
 coolness of the house, leaving Pam and Caliban alone in 
 the sun. 
 
 It was over, then! She had kept her promise to that 
 poor dying woman, and they were married. And now, what 
 should she do? During the long months of her mother's 
 illness the girl had grown to know her father in a new way, 
 while constant nursing had to a certain extent drawn her 
 closer to her mother. 
 
 Half unconsciously she had hoped that the new com- 
 panionship would last, but it had not lasted. With every 
 hour of Pauline's recovery Pam had grown less necessary 
 to both her and Sacheverel; they were kind to the girl, but 
 they did not need her. 
 
 And now even they were gone, and she was alone. 
 
 " Ebbene! Pam Yeoland," she apostrophised herself in 
 angry disdain of the feeling that was hurting her throat, 
 "are you going to howl? You certainly ought to be used 
 to being alone by this time!" 
 
 Walking slowly round the house she sat down on the 
 stone bench near which she had crouched in the darkness 
 that evening years ago when Christopher Cazalet had ex- 
 pounded to Pilgrim his plan for taking the child to 
 England.
 
 274 P A M 
 
 It was a perfect afternoon, as warm as one in a northern 
 June, although it was not yet the middle of April. 
 
 The sea, stretched in bland beauty before her, was no 
 bluer than the sky, and the brilliant colouring of the whole 
 scene was cunningly softened by the masses of silver-grey 
 olives that covered the slope. 
 
 " Cally, dear," Pam said at last absently, " I trust you 
 are fond of nature, for it's all you're likely to have for 
 several days. Just look at that sea and tell me if in your 
 wildest pipe-dreams you ever saw anything lovelier? And 
 it is so warm, too. I wonder," she added with the sudden 
 briskness of the unoccupied to whom a delightful inspiration 
 has come, " why I can't go for a swim! " 
 
 A few minutes later, a big bundle under one arm, the 
 monkey perched on the other shoulder, and regardless of 
 the fact that a yellow crepe gown is not the best garment 
 in the world in which to rush down a rough, dusty path, 
 she was flying through the trees, laughing and talking non- 
 sense to the little beast who alone of all the living crea- 
 tures in the world belonged to her. Caliban, squatting at 
 the edge of the water, watched with grave interest while 
 his mistress splashed about in the sun-warmed water. It 
 was the first swim of the season, and Pam had been unable 
 to find her oil-skin cap. At first she swam carefully, hold- 
 ing her crown of braids cautiously above the waves, but 
 at last she could no longer resist the joy of diving from the 
 little platform, so that, when Caliban had waited impatiently 
 at the door of the cabin for what seemed to him, judging 
 by his chattering protests, an unnecessarily long time, she 
 emerged once more clothed, but with a towel around her 
 neck and her splendid hair, still wet and gleaming, hanging 
 nearly to her feet. 
 
 " Shame on you ! an old monkey like you using such 
 language! "
 
 P A M 275 
 
 Sitting down in the warm sand, with her usual magnifi- 
 cent disregard of clothes, the girl set to work to dry her 
 hair, amusing herself at the same time with the monkey. 
 
 It was delightfully warm, and the swim had done her 
 good; what she had considered her idiotic blues had flown; 
 she was eighteen, and the world lay before her. 
 
 " Caliban Sacheverel," she said at length, with much 
 solemnity, rising and shaking back her fresh-combed hair, 
 " never let yourself get into the way of thinking that you 
 are necessary to your mother and father, for you aren't. 
 They can be fond of you, in a way, and they are very good 
 to you, but they don't need you any more than they need 
 me. Now come along. The sun will set in a minute, and 
 the sky will be glorious from the terrace." 
 
 Taking the little creature in her arms, she ran up the 
 path almost as easily as she had run down. At the top she 
 turned and looked back. 
 
 The sun had dipped into the sea, and the sky was a mass 
 of snowy and rosy clouds flecked and streaked with gold; 
 over the purpling water stretched a track of burnished 
 scales, and yonder, pale in the glow, the moon was rising. 
 
 Pam drew a deep breath of acute joy, and turning found 
 herself face to face with James Peele. 
 
 " You ! " he cried, staring at her in complete surprise. 
 " What are you doing here? " 
 
 " What are you doing here? This is Villa Arcadie! '*
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 "IT is really you, Pam? And this is Arcadia? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " You told me do you remember ? that I could never 
 come to Arcadia." 
 
 " And you have found your way in spite of me ! " 
 
 " No. I was led. I was taking a walk, and some fairy 
 led me here." 
 
 " In other words, you tried to take a short cut down 
 from the top of the hill, and strayed in here." 
 
 " Yes. I have strayed into Arcadia." 
 
 They stood looking at each other, their eyes, as they 
 glibly talked nonsense, full of the evening light. 
 
 " Yes," Peele repeated, " I have certainly strayed into 
 Arcadia. And you, little Pam of a year ago, are you glad 
 to see me? " 
 
 " I should not be," she returned, ignoring his outstretched 
 hand. " I ought to snub you, pretend to have forgotten you, 
 for you forgot me, you never answered my letters; but I 
 am glad, Mr. Peele." 
 
 Taking her hand, he bent and kissed it with an easy 
 grace that was a little unexpected in one of his bearing. 
 
 " Forgive all that: I was busy and troubled. And now 
 we are in Arcadia." 
 
 " Yes. Come, let's sit down on that bench." Leading 
 the way, she sat down, swinging her now nearly dry hair 
 back with an impatient gesture. 
 
 " I have been swimming and had no cap," she explained 
 
 276
 
 P A M 277 
 
 carelessly. " Now tell me what you are doing in this part of 
 the world." 
 
 He watched her, forgetting the sunset, his soft hat 
 crumpled in his hands as he clasped them about his knee. 
 
 " There is a town, a place called Athens," he began 
 slowly, " ruled over by a worthy prince named Theseus, 
 and people with vague personalities it lies down there, 
 at the edge of the sea. 
 
 " Hither, O maiden, have I come, on serious matters 
 bent. Then, this evening no, I do not believe that it was 
 mere chance. I believe that Puck turned my alien footsteps 
 this way! And here is Caliban, too. Caliban, my ancient 
 friend, how are you? Pam, I can hardly believe that it is 
 really you ! " 
 
 " Nor I." They were both silent for a few minutes, 
 their thoughts back in the old days, in the old English house 
 and garden. 
 
 "And so this is your home! This is the place you used 
 to tell me about," he went on. 
 
 "Yes. There are the olives, you remember? It is so 
 strange that you should happen to come to-night. I am all 
 alone; my father and mother have just gone away; they 
 were married this afternoon." 
 
 " Ah ! " It seemed to him quite in keeping with all the 
 rest that she should be announcing the marriage of her 
 parents. 
 
 " You have always been alone, Pam, when I have known 
 you; you were never a permanent person in a permanent 
 setting. You had either just come, or were just going." 
 
 The curious old look of tragedy came to her eyes as he 
 spoke, but as he finished she smiled. 
 
 " Do you remember calling me a privateer?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " That is what you mean. But am I not rather a cheery
 
 278 P A M 
 
 little pleasure yacht that is under no orders, and can land 
 at any port ? " 
 
 " Please don't be a boat of any kind. You are just Pam, 
 if you are not a fairy. Look, there goes my worthy Puck, 
 swinging his lantern ! " 
 
 It was an early fire-fly flitting over the grass. The 
 light in the sky was fading now, and, as the roseate glow 
 paled, the moon gathered gold, and shadows crept over the 
 world. 
 
 " We will have supper there at the end of the terrace," 
 the girl said, rising. " I must go and order it, and do 
 something to my mane." 
 
 " Can't you leave your mane as it is ? " 
 
 He smiled at her lack of vanity as she returned carelessly, 
 " Oh, no, it is an awful bother hanging: it's heavy." 
 
 Then she went back to the house, her long shadow hurry- 
 ing beside her. Peele looked after her, his lips still stirred 
 by a smile. How little she had changed, and how 
 much! 
 
 Half an hour later the two sat together at a small table 
 near a heliotrope-clad stone balustrade, the remains of a 
 chicken pasty, a dish of peaches, and a bottle of Barsac be- 1 
 tween them. 
 
 " I can't eat," the girl exclaimed suddenly, putting down 
 her fork. " I'm too excited." 
 
 " So am I, Pam! Imagine my feelings, if you can! Pro- 
 saic, middle-aged, hardworking old I, finding myself sud- 
 denly with you in Arcadia! " 
 
 "Are you married! " She paused, as she put the abrupt 
 question, in her occupation of filling his glass with the golden 
 wine, her dark eyes fixed on his^ 
 
 "Married? No." 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 Setting down the bottle, she put her elbows on the table
 
 P A M 279 
 
 and, leaning her chin on her clasped hands, looked at him 
 gravely. 
 
 " I have been in South Africa," he answered, " and then 
 you heard of poor Wight's death? He was killed a week 
 after my return." 
 
 " The Duchess's son? Oh, I am sorry." 
 
 " .Yes, it was very sad ; an automobile race, it was. The 
 poor Duchess was awfully cut up about it." 
 
 " Poor thing! What is the new Duke like?" 
 
 Peele smiled. 
 
 " A very good sort ; has gone in for politics, and will, I 
 think, be very useful." 
 
 "Young, isn't he?" 
 
 "Yes. Twenty-four. Why?" 
 
 " I was thinking," she returned shrewdly, " that you will 
 know how to teach him the way he should go." 
 
 " You are a clever little person. Yes, I think we shall be 
 able, in the future, to benefit each other. But this is no 
 talk for such an evening. Tell me about yourself. Where 
 were you all the summer ? " 
 
 " At Houlgate. My mother was not well, and then, as 
 soon as we reached home in October, typhoid developed. 
 She nearly died." 
 
 " I remember: you wrote me that she was ill. I was a 
 brute not to answer your letter." 
 
 " You were. But go on about the politics. I want to 
 hear more." 
 
 He looked up in surprise from his peach. 
 
 " But surely you know you read the papers ? " 
 
 " Yes, but I never read a word about you" Her face 
 looked hard in the soft evening light. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " You cared nothing for me. Why should I care for 
 you?"
 
 280 P A M 
 
 " By Jove, did you care that much ? " 
 
 Reaching across the table he laid his hand for an instant 
 on hers. 
 
 " Of course I cared that much. You knew I did, and 
 you didn't even take the trouble to write me one little 
 letter!" 
 
 " I wonder why it was. It shall never happen again, 
 Pam. You see, I was very busy, and you were such a 
 child." 
 
 " I know. It doesn't matter now, but that's why I 
 never read anything about you in the papers. Go on, and 
 tell me." 
 
 And he told her, in a few well-chosen words which seemed 
 to him as well as to her to be strangely eloquent, the story 
 of his sudden jump into prominence in connection with 
 the great South African problem. 
 
 One day, shortly after she had left Torpington, as he sat 
 in the House frowning and bored by a stupid speech on 
 the subject, something he had seen years before when he 
 was travelling with a friend in South Africa came into his 
 mind, explained and illuminated by a chance phrase of the 
 prosy orator. Too cautious to risk speaking at once, he 
 had, armed with the latest Blue-books on the subject, studied 
 and reflected for several days and nights, shaping his 
 thoughts and his words, learning the statistics, and arranging 
 his speech. 
 
 The speech came off, winning instant attention, and in 
 its success stamping him unmistakably as a man who must 
 devote his talents to that particular branch of that particular 
 subject. 
 
 " I had found my 'clou' " he told Pam simply. 
 
 " Father told me that you had become a ' South Afri- 
 can,' " she returned, " but I wouldn't read about it." 
 
 " Pam ! How you must have cared ! "
 
 P A M 281 
 
 There was no coxcombry in his speech, and she knew it 
 as well as he. 
 
 " I did care," she returned with the same frankness. 
 "And then?" 
 
 " Then I went to see a man in Natal. It went off well. 
 I got back in November." 
 
 " Did they send you? " 
 
 " No. I I was not well, and the doctors advised a sea- 
 voyage, so I went there." 
 
 "To rest yourself with political work! Oh, what an 
 awful person you are! How I used to have to scold you! " 
 
 " Yes. The next time I go to South Africa," he added, 
 staring thoughtfully into his empty wine-glass, " I am going 
 as an envoy from my government. And some day I shall 
 be Colonial Secretary." 
 
 "Going to poison Mr. Chamberlain?" 
 
 " He will be out before long, and I am only thirty-six." 
 
 He looked several years older than his age, she observed. 
 He had grown very grey, and the lines about his eyes and 
 mouth were deep. It seemed to her, too, that when he 
 spoke of his ambition the mask of cold resolution that 
 settled down on his face set her as far from him as she had 
 been the evening when she first saw him. 
 
 The man who had talked of Arcadia had gone; this 
 man was old and cold and hard, and she but a child to him. 
 
 " Brrr! " she exclaimed with the little shiver he remem- 
 bered so well. "Enough of politics! I am glad of your 
 success, but please come down again to my level. My 
 country lies in the lowlands. I cannot breathe in your 
 Olympian air! " 
 
 " Your land this Arcadia lies close under the stars, 
 dear," he answered gently ; " or, better still, close under the 
 moon. Hark! " 
 
 In the ilex-grov ^ nightingale burst out singing, and the
 
 282 P A M 
 
 man and the girl, starting up from their neglected supper, 
 stood dose together, listening to it. 
 
 ' Ut ego in Arcadia sum' " said Peele as the last 
 note died away. " Take me down under the olives. How 
 beautiful their delicate shadows are on the coarse grass! " 
 They went down the mossy steps and leaving the garden 
 passed into the olive-grove. 
 
 " And you said I could not come here! " 
 
 " You have told me that before, Mr. Peele," 
 
 * Then admit that you were wrong." 
 
 " No, for I did not mean this, as you know." 
 
 " In all the world there is but one Arcadia, Pam, and 
 this is it, and you and I are alone in it." 
 
 "Alone in it!" 
 
 "Yes. You and I and the yellow moon and the little 
 dark bird with the golden throat; just us four." 
 
 " Except Pilgrim, and Antonio, and the cook! " 
 
 " Cook me no cook. Just you and I. Pam, it is good 
 to be together? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 They had reached a bench built round the most gnarled 
 and ancient olive in the grove, and as she answered him 
 the young girl sat down. 
 
 "And you forgive me for not having written?" 
 
 " Oh, yes; it doesn't matter now." 
 
 " No, nothing matters now, at this moment but the 
 moonlight on your hair. Tell me all about yourself ex- 
 cept that you have grown to be an adorable woman! " 
 
 "There is little to tell. I have been with father and 
 mother all the time." 
 
 " And now they have married and left you ! " 
 
 " Yes. It is so strange to think of mother as ' Mrs. 
 Sacheverel,' after all these years! " 
 
 " You must be glad."
 
 P A M 283 
 
 " Oh, me! I didn't care." 
 
 " But they must have been glad." She shook her 
 head. 
 
 " No, I don't think they cared one way or the other. 
 They did it to please me." 
 
 " To please you ! " 
 
 " Yes. I promised poor Mrs. Kennedy, you know." 
 
 " But you, the opposer of matrimony, the apostle of 
 freedom! That was a strange whirl of fortune's wheel, 
 little Pam." 
 
 She did not answer as he sat down by her, and after a 
 pause he went on, " Do you remember how we used to talk 
 about your 'him ' ? And how, when he came, you were going 
 to love him for ever and ever ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Has he come?" 
 
 " No," she answered, with an obvious sincerity that gave 
 him a pang. 
 
 " But when he does come you and he will live in Arcadia 
 I mean in the Arcadia of the mind and the heart for 
 ever?" 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. " How can I tell, Mr. 
 Peele? So many things might happen; he might die, or he 
 might not care for me." 
 
 Peele drew a deep breath, and rose, looking at his watch. 
 
 He was irritated with himself for having been weak and 
 inconsiderate enough to question her so closely, and yet he 
 was almost angry with her for her utter unconsciousness. 
 
 They had fallen in love with each other, but only he, 
 who had not the slightest intention of allowing his life to 
 be changed by a sentiment, knew what had happened, and 
 when he had once left her he would, he told himself, have 
 the decency to be glad that she had not understood. 
 
 " I must be off, Pam," he said, a little stiffly.
 
 284 P AM 
 
 " Yes, it is late. You will come to-morrow." 
 
 " No. I cannot come again. I must be getting back 
 to my work." 
 
 She looked up at him inquiringly. " But you will come 
 to say good-bye, and I, too, go to England in a fortnight. 
 Evelyn, my cousin, is to be married." 
 
 " No, I shall not see you again." His voice was harsh, 
 and the faint colour faded from her cheek as he spoke. 
 
 " But why ? " she asked piteously, like a child who does 
 not understand why it is punished. 
 
 " Can't you guess why ? " he answered, catching her wrists 
 and looking into her eyes. " You didn't use to be stupid! " 
 
 Suddenly her white face was flooded with a deep rose- 
 colour, and she gave a short laugh. " Is it that? " 
 
 "Yes; it is that!" 
 
 " And I never guessed ! " 
 
 That was all. Catching her in his arms he kissed her 
 mouth once, and then, a moment later, found himself walk- 
 ing rapidly down the hill.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 "MISS YEOLAND has arrived, your Grace, and she 
 wishes me to ask your Grace if she may bring her her 
 monkey up with her. It seems that the monkey hid in the 
 carriage, and Miss Yeoland discovered it only a moment 
 ago." 
 
 The Duchess turned from her glass, one cheek blushing 
 sweetly with " Rose de Jeunesse," the other as yellow as 
 Nature, abetted by Time, had made it. " Very well, Hen- 
 derson. Ask Miss Yeoland to go into the drawing-room, 
 and tell her I shall be delighted to see the monkey. Has 
 Lady Henrietta gone in yet?" 
 
 " No, your Grace. I believe not, your Grace." 
 
 The major-domo marched solemnly downstairs into the 
 great hall of the hotel, confident that his splendid red silk 
 legs showed to great advantage against the light carpet, 
 and past his humble confrere, the concierge, to the carriage 
 in which Pam still sat. 
 
 " Oh, very well, thank you. No, don't trouble to take 
 him, he sometimes bites," the girl returned, when he had 
 given his message and opened the door of her shabby 
 vehicle. 
 
 The little brute in her arms, her scarlet cloak with its 
 too-warm fur collar caught about her with one hand, she 
 swept into the hotel, her long white skirts dragging dis- 
 regarded. 
 
 " This way, Miss, if you please ; the lift is not working 
 to-night." As she followed the servant upstairs and along 
 
 285
 
 286 P A M 
 
 the corridor Pam's heart beat loudly against Caliban, but 
 that unsympathetic simian chattered with delight at having 
 got his own way, and took no heed. The girl had not seen 
 Peele since the night before the last the night of the 
 wedding. 
 
 All the day before she had waited for him, and he had 
 not come, but the afternoon's post brought her a note 
 from the Duchess asking her, without a word of explana- 
 tion, to come and dine with her the following evening, and 
 that evening was now here, and in a moment they would 
 meet, he and she. 
 
 She shivered slightly as the servant opened the door of 
 the salon and she passed in. 
 
 Peele stood by the fire. "Ah, Miss Yeoland, how do 
 you do? The Duchess and Lady Henrietta are late, as 
 usual." 
 
 They shook hands, and then the major-domo, taking off 
 her cloak, stood waiting. " Give him your scarf," sug- 
 gested Peele, quietly adding, as she obeyed with a quick 
 blush, " Hello, my ancient and honourable Caliban, this is 
 an unexpected pleasure ! " 
 
 " He hid in the cab," explained the girl, angry and 
 surprised at her own confusion. " He he is very lonely." 
 
 As the door closed Peele said quickly, his face changing, 
 " Pam, how is Arcadia? " 
 
 He did not move a step toward her as she stood, the 
 monkey in her arms a curious addition to the picture she 
 made, under a great red lamp. " How is Arcadia?" 
 
 " I don't know. I have not been there since." 
 
 "Is that true?" 
 
 " True. I have been in a place without sunlight, with- 
 out a moon, without blue in the sky or sheen on the sea. 
 There was no bird singing in the trees, no flowers." 
 
 He watched her with a look of dreamy delight in his
 
 "THE MONKEY IN HER ARMS A 
 CURIOUS ADDITION TO THE 
 PICTURE SHE MADE"
 
 PAM 287 
 
 grave face, and then at the last words he frowned, and, 
 drawing himself up stiffly, said as though continuing a 
 subject on which he had been speaking, " Really delighted 
 to see you again. Ah ! " 
 
 The Lady Henrietta came hurrying in, tugging at her 
 gloves and out of breath. " My dear Pam, I do beg your 
 pardon. Agnes was so idiotic to-night everything went 
 wrong. My dear child, how pretty you have grown ! " 
 Kissing the young girl, she looked at her with the frank 
 admiration which is one of the pleasant prerogatives of great 
 beauty. 
 
 " Isn't she charming, Jim ? " 
 
 " Very," responded Peele promptly. " How old are you, 
 Miss Pam?" 
 
 " Eighteen and a half." The young girl's heart sank 
 painfully as the Lady Henrietta's kind kiss rested on her 
 cheek. In Arcadia thoughts of honour and of ownership 
 had not occurred to her, but now she realised with a pang 
 that she had no right to Peele. To add to her pain, she 
 noticed that the Lady Henrietta's face had grown thinner 
 and lost much of its former characteristic repose. There 
 were worried lines about her mouth, and her eyes had grown 
 a little hollow. Not the least unpleasant thought resulting 
 from these observations was that the lines in the beautiful 
 face that smiled on her so kindly were drawn by Peele's 
 hand. " He is not good to her! " the girl thought indig- 
 nantly, with an angry flash of her eyes at the surprised man 
 by the fire. Until that moment, engrossed with the sublime 
 selfishness of a first love, the girl had not given a thought to 
 the woman her lover had promised to marry. There had 
 been in her mind, as in her heart, room but for that man and 
 for herself. 
 
 Now, reluctantly, her mind opened and took in the third 
 person whom her heart could never admit.
 
 288 P A M 
 
 " She has a right, I have none," the girl told herself with 
 dreary justice. " I have none." 
 
 Her face paled as she watched her hostess's daughter, 
 who was now talking to the man who stood between 
 them. 
 
 " And they say," the Lady Henrietta was saying to Peele 
 when the girl again caught the thread of the discourse, 
 " that there will be lots of exquisite rugs and things some 
 china, too put up at the sale. We must go, Jim! One 
 can never have too many really good rugs." 
 
 Peele walked to the balcony and stood looking out. " I 
 loathe auctions," he said impatiently, " and I shan't be able 
 to loiter in Paris, anyway." 
 
 " It's the great sale, you know, Pam," his fiancee went on 
 with a little shrug. " Ravaglia's things." 
 
 " Ravaglia! Is she having a sale? But w hy?" 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know, but she is. The 1st, 2d, and 
 3d of May." 
 
 Pam clasped her hands tightly. 
 
 " But, do tell me: she is surely not poor, or ill? " 
 
 "Why? You can't know her, child! Why are you so 
 interested?" 
 
 " But I do know her I used to, that is. And I was very 
 fond of her. Please tell me, Lady Henrietta." 
 
 Peele turned, drawing a gardenia from one of the vases 
 through his buttonhole. " I believe it is because she has 
 lost her health," he said. " I saw her driving in the Bois 
 a month ago, and hardly recognised her. Poor thing, it is 
 a pity, for she is the best actress in the world, without a 
 doubt." 
 
 As he finished speaking the Duchess came in, knocking 
 over a small table with her train, and filling the room with 
 scent. 
 
 " Sorry to be so late, but then I always am late. Weil,
 
 P A M 289 
 
 you bad little thing ! "- to Pam " how are you ? Aren't 
 you ashamed of leaving me in the lurch like that? " 
 
 Pam stared. "Oh, you mean about going to Ireland?" 
 she asked as the ducal kiss grazed her ear. " I didn't throw 
 you over," she added, with the logic which had so amused 
 Peele at Torpington, " for I never said I'd go ! I was sorry, 
 but I couldn't help it." 
 
 " You are a wretch ! I was furious ! However you 
 have grown; quite grown up, I declare! I hope you're still 
 amusin'? Jim, will you ring, please? these are the most 
 unpunctual people ! " 
 
 " They don't do so badly, mamma, considering that you 
 are always late," suggested her daughter gently. 
 
 " That reminds me of the man who said his brother-in- 
 law had been drunk for some years. How's your grand- 
 father?" 
 
 Pam laughed. " He is well ; I'm going to Monks' 
 Yeoland next week." 
 
 " Are you, indeed ! Well, just tell your grandfather that 
 he's an abominable old creature, never to write to one 
 will you? " 
 
 As they sat down to their rather cold soup her Grace 
 rattled on. "And mind, whatever you do, don't marry 
 your fat cousin." 
 
 " Do you know Ratty? " 
 
 The Duchess chuckled. " I do. I was at Monks' Yeoland 
 in August, and Ratty and I had a tremendous flirtation. 
 He told me all he knew," she added significantly. 
 
 "Did he, indeed?" Pam did not smile. She resented 
 jocular impertinence. 
 
 Caliban, who possessed the social virtue of abhorring a 
 silence, and who, old as he was, appeared to feel it his duty 
 to amuse his hostess, here created a diversion by stealing he* 
 Grace's bread and retiring with it to a distant corner, where
 
 290 P A M 
 
 he tore it to bits with hungry sounds, but instead of eating 
 it stuffed it slily into a vase. 
 
 " Charming, your monkey ; really a dear. And fancy my 
 finding out quite by chance that you lived near here," went 
 on the Duchess, turning again to Pam. " I saw a package 
 of books at the library addressed to you, and asked the man 
 about it. What a small world it is ! " 
 
 " Very." Then Peele was not responsible for her in- 
 vitation ! 
 
 "And then I heard that you were alone, and wrote to you. 
 Delighted to see you again, my dear. And you have grown 
 to be very pretty, too, hasn't she, Henny ? " 
 
 " Charming, mamma." 
 
 " Nothing like youthful freshness, is there, Henny? " 
 
 " Nothing, mamma." 
 
 Pam hated the Duchess at that moment. 
 
 Peele talked little. He had not meant to see Pam again, 
 but in the hurry of a busy day he had not learnt of her 
 invitation to dinner until an hour before her arrival. 
 
 It would have been infinitely better if he had been able 
 to slip quietly away, but the matter had been taken out of 
 his hands, and though against his will, his heart beat strong 
 with happiness as he watched her. The man, at thirty -six, 
 was in love for the first time. 
 
 As to the girl herself, she could not think. It was, as 
 she watched the Lady Henrietta's careworn face, incredible 
 to her that for forty-eight hours she had forgotten the very 
 fact of her existence, yet so it had been. 
 
 And now she could not think ; she was obliged to talk and 
 to listen to the words of the others, but she knew that later, 
 when she was alone, she would have to clear the maze of 
 thought that whirled vaguely through her brain. " I must 
 decide, when I am at home, what I must do," she told her- 
 self over and over.
 
 P AM 291 
 
 " Sir Albert Miller told you, didn't he, Jim? " 
 
 Pam started. That Sir Albert Miller was the greatest 
 authority in England on South African matters even she 
 knew. 
 
 " Yes," returned Peele carelessly. 
 
 "Aren't they going to send him Sir Albert Miller out 
 on a special commission?" Pam asked. "Isn't he the 
 man?" 
 
 Peele's face stiffened into a cold frown. 
 
 " I believe there is some talk about it." 
 
 " Of course there is, Pam ! He is so close-mouthed, he 
 never will tell us anything," added Lady Henrietta, flushing. 
 "And he, Miller, has been here, and that is why Jim came 
 quite as much as to see me! " 
 
 " And if they do send him out " Peele went on slowly. 
 
 " Yes, if they do, what then, Jim ? " 
 
 " I was going to say that they would certainly have sent 
 Dabney with him, if " 
 
 " If Dabney were not dead ! " All the lines in his 
 fiancee's face were suddenly accentuated as she spoke, and 
 Pam's heart gave a great throb. 
 
 "And as he is dead," put in the Duchess, throwing a 
 grape to Caliban, who was sitting up on a chair like a gentle- 
 man, " whom will they send ? " 
 
 " My dear Duchess! If I should tell, even to you, what 
 Sir Albert Miller has said to me it would be more than a 
 crime, it would be a political fault! " 
 
 " Oh, very well. Be mysterious, by all means, my dear 
 boy, if it amuses you. As to your famous Sir Albert, he 
 may be very clever, and all that, but his wife likes cats, 
 which I must say I don't understand, do you, Pam? Persian 
 cats, nasty creatures who swallow their own fur and have 
 horrid indigestions as might be expected." Her Grace 
 babbled on, covering her daughter's nervous silence as well
 
 292 P AM 
 
 as if her method had been more dignified, and a few minutes 
 later they went into the sitting-room for coffee. Pam leaned 
 back in her chair and watched her hostess feed Caliban with 
 bits of coffee-soaked sugar, with a curious feeling that she 
 had taken an opiate, the effects of which were just begin- 
 ning to wear off. 
 
 The Lady Henrietta, on Peek's request, was playing one 
 of Binding's wonderful compositions, and Peele, opposite Pam, 
 sat listening with folded arms and closed eyes. 
 
 When the Duchess had dropped asleep, Caliban, uncom- 
 fortable but polite, on her slippery lap, Peele opened his 
 eyes and looked at Pam. 
 
 He had not meant to see her again, but the gods had 
 foiled his intention, and his gaze now was an embrace. 
 
 To his surprise, however, she rose and went to the piano. 
 " What is that lovely thing ? " she asked gently. 
 
 " It is by a Norwegian a young composer ; do you like 
 it? Oh, Jim, you are really too rude! I believe you are 
 asleep as well as mamma." 
 
 Peele laughed. 
 
 " Not I ! I was listening." 
 
 The Lady Henrietta laid her beautiful bare arm over the 
 young girl's shoulders. " Let us go out into the balcony, 
 dear," she said. " There's a man who comes every night 
 and sings in the street ; he'll be coming soon. A good voice, 
 you know, though, of course, untrained." 
 
 They sat down in the tiny enclosure, and Peele, who had 
 followed them, leaned against the stone balustrade. " May 
 I smoke, Henrietta? Glorious evening," he went on, tak- 
 ing a flat gold box from his pocket, and selecting a cigarette 
 from it. " Look at the moon. A real Arcadian night ! " 
 
 Pam did not move. She was not looking at him. 
 
 "Arcadia?" repeated the elder woman thoughtfully. 
 " Yes, there must always have been a moon there."
 
 P A M 293 
 
 " Except in the daytime," laughed Pam. " And personally 
 I think I like stars better than the moon." 
 
 " Do you? Do you know, Pam, I've never seen the sun 
 rise, and perhaps for that very reason I always have had a 
 feeling that while it lasts it must be the most beautiful thing 
 in the twenty-four hours." 
 
 " Have you really never seen the sun rise, Lady Henrietta? 
 Yes, it is very beautiful." 
 
 Pam gazed dreamily at the sea as she spoke. 
 
 Peele frowned as he watched her. She had not looked 
 at him once. " I should like," he said, his scruples and 
 his wisdom suddenly vanquished by his longing to see her as 
 he had seen her the other evening, " to see the sun rise. I 
 have not done so for years." 
 
 "Should you?" 
 
 " Yes. I should like to see it rise in Arcadia." 
 
 The girl gave a little irritated twist to her bare shoulders. 
 
 "Should you, indeed?" 
 
 " Yes. And how should you, in the wisdom of your 
 great youth, advise me to set about doing so? " 
 
 " Really, Mr. Peele, I haven't the slightest idea. Have 
 you, Lady Henrietta?" 
 
 He bit his lip. He was not a vindictive man, but it 
 annoyed him exceedingly to have her treat him in this 
 way. It had been his duty, to himself in the first place, but 
 also to both his fiancee and to her, to plan leaving her, but 
 he resented her taking this attitude towards him. 
 
 " I fear," he said, tossing away the end of his cigarette, 
 " that I am too old both for Arcadia and for sunrises. At 
 my age one dreams of such things > and then wakes up ! " 
 
 The girl started as if he had struck her, and then, her 
 quick intellect detecting the puerility of his revenge, she 
 laughed. " I daresay," she answered good-humouredly ; 
 " every age has its pleasures." As she spoke the musician
 
 294 P A M 
 
 in the shadowy street below began to tune his guitar, and 
 as the chinking, twanging accompaniment commenced Pam 
 leaned back so that no one could see her face. She could 
 bear no more. 
 
 " ' Lisa, Lisetta, 
 
 O iienti a me! ' ' 
 
 the singer's voice rose through the sweet night air. 
 
 '"Lisa, Lisetf, 
 
 'Se'il cuor 1 di mi cuor 1 1"
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 AS the slow hours passed, the moonlight creeping slowly 
 across the oiled brick floor and moving over the painted 
 walls, Pam lay in her bed righting her fight. 
 
 In her eighteen and a half years of life no one except 
 poor Mr. Cunningham had ever attempted to implant in 
 her mind one seed of conventional honour or unselfishness. 
 She had been taught to say certain prayers, but not to pray ; 
 her mother had occasionally told her that it was wrong and 
 unladylike to lie, but the beauty of abstract truth had never 
 been pointed out to her; she had been told of a God who 
 lived in the sky and who was omnipotent; of His Son, a 
 man named Christ, who was born in a cow-shed and died 
 on a cross, but of their majesty and mercy, nothing. 
 
 That she did not lie was because her nature was not 
 ignoble; she had the habit of telling the truth, without 
 reasoning, without effort; but she had also the habit of 
 always, so far as lay in her power, doing whatever she wished 
 to do, and her belief in her own will came very near to being 
 her religion. 
 
 And now, that summer night, she fought her fight, armed 
 with the insufficient weapons that were in her poor little 
 armoury. There was in her heart no blame for Peele. The 
 memory of the long, warm days when he had been ill and 
 they had been so happy together prevented her from seeing 
 him with all the clearness that was in her eyes for other 
 people. 
 
 If any one had done wrong it had been she herself. 
 
 295
 
 296 P A M 
 
 Even then, at Torpington, when she had rubbed his fore- 
 head with eau de cologne and scolded him for his careless- 
 ness regarding his health even then he had been engaged, 
 and she had known it! 
 
 " I should have kept away from him," she told herself 
 with fierce misery. " How could I go to his house as I 
 did? Oh, I was a fool, a fool!" 
 
 It was a wretched night, and when the clock outside her 
 door struck four her decision was but just made. 
 
 Lighting a candle she pattered over the cold floor to her 
 little secretaire and, after finding a sheet of square note- 
 paper and an oblong envelope, she went back to bed and sat, 
 huddled in the bed-clothes, the candle close at her elbow, 
 scribbling rapidly with a blunt pencil, which required a good 
 deal of licking to make it write, until the clock had struck 
 another quarter. 
 
 She folded her letter, addressed the envelope, and then, 
 blowing out her light, said aloud : " Now, that's done ! 
 And it is day." 
 
 The daylight was coming in at the curtained windows 
 and the one that was open showed a square of almost amber- 
 coloured sky. 
 
 " The sun is going to rise ! " the girl exclaimed aloud, her 
 small face wan in the light. " Sunrise in Arcadia! " 
 
 Rising, she thrust her bare feet into a pair of slippers 
 and, wrapping herself in a dressing-gown, stole quietly down 
 the corridor to Pilgrim's room. 
 
 That excellent woman was snoring as her young mistress 
 entered, but a vigorous shake wakened her. 
 
 " Pilly ! wake up, Pilly, you old sluggard ! " 
 
 " Pam Miss Pam oh, dear me, what is the matter? " 
 
 " Nothing is the matter. Only you and I are going to 
 Paris this morning, so it's time to get up." 
 
 "To Paris!"
 
 P A M 297 
 
 Pilgrim sat up and blinked wildly in her endeavour to 
 seize the situation. 
 
 " Yes, to Paris. And then in a few days we're going on 
 to your beloved Monks' Yeoland. Come, hurry! Put on 
 the garb of sobriety and abstinence, and your hair, and we'll 
 pack." 
 
 " Pack! As if I'd trust you to pack your own boots! I 
 must say, Miss Pam, that I don't see why we can't wait until 
 next week, as we 'ad intended. What will Mrs. Sacheverel 
 say?" 
 
 "Mrs. Sacheverel will say: 'Pam can do no wrong.' 
 So hurry, there's a good old crosspatch ! " 
 
 The young girl went slowly back to her own room and, 
 sitting down on her bed, gave herself up to thought. She 
 was still deep in her reverie when the clock's striking three- 
 quarters aroused her, and, springing up, she went to the first 
 of her darkened windows and, jerking back the curtains, 
 thrust the blinds away. It was a splendid morning, crystal- 
 clear and fresh. The roses that clambered up the side of 
 the house hung sweet and dewy in the early air. As she 
 leaned out, drawing a deep breath, one of the rose-sprays 
 struck her cheek, sprinkling her with dew. 
 
 Smiling, she broke off a great soft bud and sniffed at it. 
 To-morrow she would be in Paris! 
 
 And then suddenly her eyes fell on a man who was coming 
 up the slope towards the house. It was Peele. 
 
 He walked slowly, almost irresolutely, and his shoulders 
 drooped as if with great fatigue. 
 
 Pam watched him with a rush of her old absurdly 
 maternal feeling. He looked ill, and 
 
 She quite forgot that she, in her dressing-gown, was as 
 visible to him as was he to her, and when at length he looked 
 up and called her name she started back as if she had but 
 just perceived him.
 
 298 P A M 
 
 " Pam." 
 
 Tossing the rose down to him as an answer, she retired 
 from the window and, dressing hurriedly, went downstairs 
 and out into the morning. 
 
 She found him sitting on the balustrade near which they 
 had supped a few evenings before, his grey hair, ruffled and 
 untidy, glistening in the light of the rising sun. 
 
 As she approached he rose and came a few steps towards 
 her. 
 
 "Pam!" 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " Little wretch ! little goose ! why did you treat me so 
 abominably last night ? " 
 
 She paused a few paces away from him and, bidding him 
 with a gesture to come no nearer, looked at him. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Peele, you are ill ! Good heavens, how you 
 look!" 
 
 " Nonsense! I am not ill. This this early light is not 
 becoming. Pam, I didn't mean to come, but I couldn't 
 help it." 
 
 " But I know, I understand. Don't try to explain. 
 Listen ! now that you are here, let's go up to the ' Belvedere ' 
 and watch the sunrise." 
 
 He put on his hat and, crossing the lawn, they went in 
 silence up through the trees to the little temple-like building 
 at the top of the hill, and sat down facing the east. 
 
 " It is more beautiful than the sunset," Peele said at 
 last. 
 
 Pam nodded. " Yes, Lady Henrietta was right. Mr. 
 Peele," she went on hurriedly, " here is a letter I have writ- 
 ten to you. Will you read it ? " 
 
 He took the envelope and turned it over in his hands. 
 
 " I have a letter for you too, Pam ; a letter to post which 
 I left the hotel two hours ago. I didn't post i*."
 
 P A M 299 
 
 " Give it to me." 
 
 Crossing to the opposite side of the pavilion, she turned 
 her face away from him and read what he had written. 
 
 " MY DEAR PAM : I think, judging from the way in 
 which you treated me last night, that you understand that 
 there is nothing for us to do but say good-bye. I have 
 walked up and down for hours thinking, but there is no 
 other way. I am engaged, and I have no excuse for breaking 
 my word. 
 
 " So I shall go away to-morrow morning, and we will 
 never meet again. Dear, we had our one evening in Arcadia : 
 many people have less than that. God bless you. " J. P." 
 
 She read this through twice, very slowly, and then, seeing 
 that he had dropped her note and sat staring vacantly before 
 him, she said with a short laugh: " It would have its funny 
 side if we had, each of us fleeing from the other, both taken 
 the 10.30 express! " 
 
 " Oh, very funny, Pam ! Do you know that you are the 
 most absurdly illogical woman in the world ? " 
 
 "No. Why am I?" 
 
 " Because " He picked up the paper he had let fall and, 
 
 turning it over, read slowly aloud : " ' In two words, I have 
 no right to you, and she has.' Now, just for the sake of 
 argument, what difference does that right of hers make to 
 you? You have always insisted that every one has a right 
 to take what he can get that the weaker must go to the 
 wall, that concentration and a strong will are the greatest 
 powers in the world " 
 
 " I know. I always believed it." 
 
 " And your own mother did not hesitate to take anothei 
 woman's husband, yet you have never seemed to blame 
 her."
 
 300 P A M 
 
 " No ; I have never blamed her." 
 
 " Then how," he went on with increasing irritation, 
 rising and coming to where she stood, " how in the name of 
 goodness could you write me such a letter? " 
 
 " It is a good letter." 
 
 " It is a fool of a letter. Either you love me or you 
 don't, and if you do, which I begin to doubt, what do you 
 mean by all this stuff? " 
 
 Her mouth twitched with irrepressible amusement as she 
 reached forward and took the offending missive from his 
 hand. 
 
 " Sit down, then, and let me read it to you. And don't 
 interrupt me, please. 
 
 " ' DEAR MR. PEELE : I cannot imagine how I could 
 have, until last night, utterly forgotten Lady Henrietta. I 
 did forget her, however, I suppose because I have a way 
 of forgetting other people and their rights when I am 
 concerned.' " 
 
 The smile left her lips as she read on, and her voice 
 deepened. 
 
 " ' You said, just before you left me in the olive grove, 
 that you would go away and never see me again, but when 
 I found that we loved each other I forgot that you had 
 said that. Then, when the Duchess's note came, I stupidly 
 thought that it must have been suggested by you. Even 
 then, in thinking of Lady Henrietta, I was only sorry for 
 her. 
 
 " ' But when I saw her, then I felt that perhaps, after all, 
 I should have to be sorry for myself. And I am sorry for 
 myself. I am also sorry for you, for I know that you will 
 care, at least at first ; but, in a word, I have no right to you, 
 and she has. All night I have been thinking and thinking,
 
 P A M 301 
 
 and now I have decided that we must not meet again. To 
 make this easier, I shall go away to-morrow. You yourself 
 will know that this is best for all three of us, and will un- 
 derstand. And now, at first, it is easy to separate, that is, 
 easier. If we go floundering in a morass of woe it would 
 be awfully bad for you, as well as awfully hard for us 
 both. 
 
 " ' Mind, I am not saying that I feel exactly cheery just 
 now, but tout lasse, tout passe! So good-bye, and God 
 bless you. ' PAM/ " 
 
 " Now that," she added gaily as she finished, " is what I 
 call a most admirable epistle! " 
 
 " Do you indeed ! And you would actually have sneaked 
 off without saying good-bye to me? And tout passe, 
 does it?" 
 
 He rose and walked nervously up and down. 
 
 " The truth is, my dear child, that you are no more in 
 love with me than you are with the Cham of Tartary." 
 
 "Am I not? But then you have no means of gauging 
 
 my feelings for that potentate Oh, Mr. Peele, don't 
 
 look at me like that! I can't bear it! " 
 
 Catching his arm in both her hands, she turned to him 
 her eyes full of tragedy. " You have no right to say that I 
 don't care! Isn't it hard enough to bear without that? " 
 
 "Is it hard to bear, Pam?" he asked, suddenly gentle. 
 " Dear, I wonder whether we are going to be able to 
 bear it?" 
 
 " Yes, oh, yes ! Listen ! Admit that it would almost ruin 
 you to break your engagement." 
 
 " In a way it would." 
 
 " And admit that you love your career even more than 
 you do me." 
 
 He was silent. " I love my career very dearly '
 
 302 h A M 
 
 " Hush ! don't weaken. It your career will never get 
 old and wrinkled ; it will never be ill ; it will never contradict 
 and torment you. And I should do all these things. All 
 this, to say nothing of hurting her so terribly." 
 
 " But why should you mind hurting her? As I said 
 a moment ago, you have never blamed your mother for doing 
 what she did and what she did was much more than what 
 you might do." 
 
 There was a long pause, while the girl's eyes, sombre 
 with thought, were turned to the sparkling sea. 
 
 At last she said, with a little frown of concentration, and 
 speaking very slowly: " I'll tell you the honest truth. You 
 are perfectly right in saying that I am illogical. If any one 
 had put the case before me a week ago I should have said 
 without hesitating that I'd let you break your engagement. 
 I'd have said that as long as we wanted each other we ought 
 to have each other. It would have seemed to me perfectly 
 natural. But now, somehow perhaps because I know Lady 
 Henrietta, and because I know that she loves you as much as 
 I do I simply can't do it." 
 
 " You have taken it all in your own hands, I observe ! 
 You leave nothing for me but passive obedience." 
 
 "You have taken your own steps! Here is your letter! 
 Surely you have no right to scold me because we agree so 
 perfectly!" 
 
 Throwing back his head with a little characteristic shake, 
 he held out his hand to her. 
 
 "You are right. I am a fool. But I love you, and 
 men are less patient than women. Tell me once more that 
 you love me, and I will go." 
 
 The colour faded from her face, but she gave him her 
 hand. " I do love you oh, I do!" 
 
 " You said I could never come to Arcadia, but I broke 
 my way through the hedge, and the thorns have hurt me."
 
 P A M 303 
 
 She stood motionless, her face hidden against his breast. 
 
 " Pam, you are a very good woman. I am not a very good 
 man, but I love you better for this." 
 
 She withdrew herself gently from his arms, and, leaving 
 the pavilion, walked to the nearest tree and picked a little 
 purple flower that grew at its roots. 
 
 " There ! " she said with a wan smile as she came back. 
 And, giving him the flower: " Here is the Grand Order of 
 the Knights Commander of Arcadia! Please keep it. And 
 now I will go down by the path. Good-bye." 
 
 " Pam, we have been very honourable, very reasonable. 
 Cannot we have, out of all the days to come, just this one 
 day?" 
 
 " How do you mean? " 
 
 " I mean, let me stay with you until this evening. Then 
 I will go, and never come back. But I don't think the gods 
 could begrudge us just the one day together!" 
 
 " It will be harder then," she protested faintly. 
 
 " No, no ; it will be easier, and we can have it to remember, 
 dear! We both know that it can't last; we are sternly 
 practical as well as rigidly honourable people! We know 
 that it would ruin my career as well as hurt our consciences ! 
 Pam, let us have one day! " 
 
 She burst into a soft, tremulous laugh. 
 
 " Yes, we will have one day ! Come, let's forget every- 
 thing outside of Arcadia, and be happy oh, let's be happy ! " 
 
 Hand in hand they went down the hill.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 AS Pam knocked, Pilgrim opened her door and appeared, 
 an austere vision in a black petticoat and stone-coloured 
 stays. 
 
 " I've got the big black box packed, and will do the 
 other one after breakfast," she began, with an aspect of 
 chastened disapproval. " I suppose you'll wear your grey 
 travelling-gown? " 
 
 " There's no hurry, Pilgrim," returned the girl coolly. 
 " We aren't going until to-morrow ! " 
 
 "Until to-morrow! To-morrow!" Pilgrim almost 
 screamed in her indignant surprise. " If we aren't going 
 until to-morrow I must say that I think it was cruel to get a 
 woman of my age up at such an hour to-day." 
 
 " I haven't the remotest idea how old you are, Pilly dear, 
 but I am sorry. However, I thought that we were going 
 to-day, and have changed my mind. Now just put on your 
 dress, will you, and go and wake such slaves as are necessary 
 for the preparation of a delicious little brekky for two ! " 
 
 "For two? Breakfast for two?" 
 
 " Yes. Mr. Peele has come to spend the day with me. 
 I hope the peaches aren't all gone? And we'll have boiled 
 eggs and a nice rasher. Tell the cook that I want the coffee 
 black, will you? And good cream. Now don't waste time 
 scolding. We are starved as it is." 
 
 " I must say, Miss Pam, as I don't think ' 
 
 But Pam put her hands over her ears and ran downstairs 
 whistling loudly. " Pilly," she announced a moment later 
 
 304
 
 P A M 305 
 
 to her guest, " is meditating poisoning you. She is simply 
 bursting with disapproval." 
 
 "Poor Pilly!" 
 
 " Yes; she believes herself to have been sent into the world 
 for the express purpose of looking after me. She finds me 
 terribly trying at times! " 
 
 " I am sure of it. Do you usually get up at the ungodly 
 hour of 5 A. M., may I ask? " 
 
 " Not I. I am like Dr. Johnson, a late riser, sir. TmY 
 morning, as it happened, I had a visit. Tell me, Mr. Peele, 
 if I had not chanced to see you from the window, what 
 would you have done? " 
 
 Peele shrugged his shoulders. " Sat on the doorstep for a 
 few hours until I could ring, I daresay. I had no intention 
 of seeing you. I I thought I didn't want to see you. I 
 meant to merely look at the house and then go back to town. 
 But, nevertheless, I should have been sitting on the doorstep 
 if you hadn't looked out of the window." 
 
 " You frightened me, you looked so ill. I am afraid you 
 are faint with hunger, too ! " 
 
 "Well, to tell the truth, I am rather hungry! I ate no 
 dinner last night, for obvious reasons." 
 
 Less than an hour later they sat in the dining-room, enjoy- 
 ing the very good breakfast which the unfortunate Pilgrim 
 had ordered for them. 
 
 There were roses in a glass bowl on the round table, the 
 sun shone in at the windows and rested on the homely beauty 
 of the pretty china and silver, and over the partakers of the 
 breakfast hung the charm that lies in a tete-a-tete meal for a 
 man and a woman who love each other. 
 
 "Two lumps of sugar!" laughed Pam. "Oh, what a 
 sweet-tooth ! " 
 
 " I don't take sugar with my peaches, though, and you 
 do."
 
 306 P A M 
 
 " If you don't want all the butter, I'd like some! " 
 
 " I beg your pardon. What a charming person your ser- 
 vant is. He has a smile like Rosini Filippi's ! " 
 
 "Who is Rosini Filippi?" 
 
 " A very clever London actress, with the most delightful 
 smile and laugh in the world." 
 
 " Antonio would be much pleased. Yes, he is really 
 rather a dear. His beam is one of pure joy over my having 
 company," she went on, rising and opening the door to 
 admit Caliban, who came shuffling along after her; " and the 
 knowledge that Pilgrim bitterly disapproves naturally lends 
 an edge to his pleasure ! " 
 
 " I see. How d'ye do, Caliban ? " 
 
 " This is his own particular chair," Pam explained, putting 
 the little beast in an old high-chair to which was fastened a 
 tray, and pushing him to the table. " It used to be mine." 
 
 " Did it really? You mean that you used to sit in it when 
 you were a baby? " 
 
 " Yes. The varnish is all scratched off the tray where 
 I used to pound it with my spoon." 
 
 Peele laid his hand on the tray. " I wish I had known you 
 when you were a baby, Pam." 
 
 " Do you ? I was a funny brown thing with huge eyes 
 and red hair." 
 
 "Red?" 
 
 " Yes. It was really almost red until I was four or five." 
 
 " When you were say, two isn't that the tray-pound- 
 ing period ? I was a grown man ! " 
 
 Pam watched him for a second in sober silence. " Let us, 
 to-day," she began suddenly, " tell each other about our- 
 selves I mean, so that we can think about each other. Tell 
 me about when you were a little boy. I remember the pic- 
 tures you showed me, taken when you were six, and how we 
 shouted over your funny clothes and your roller-curl ! But,
 
 P A M 307 
 
 I mean, let's tell each other about what we did when we were 
 children, and so on." 
 
 " I didn't do anything," he began helplessly. " I had a 
 pony I used to ride and an old tortoise in the garden " 
 
 " What was the pony's name ? " 
 
 " Brown Bob." 
 
 "Well, go on. Did you have a governess? Whom did 
 you play with? " she urged impatiently. 
 
 " I had a million governesses, one after the other. They 
 all hated me I wasn't a pleasant child." 
 
 " But you had no mother! Pigs! what did they expect? 
 And with whom did you play ? " 
 
 Caliban, at this point, very much bored, reached over sud- 
 denly and, plunging his hand into Peele's coffee, climbed out 
 of his chair and flew to Pam, chattering distractedly for 
 sympathy. 
 
 " It isn't burnt a bit, you fraud," she said sternly, exam- 
 ining the little member in question. " Lick it it's nice and 
 sweet. Mr. Peele takes two lumps of sugar ! Another cup, 
 Antonio. I have an idea," she added as the servant with- 
 drew. " I think I'll give you Cally as a souvenir." 
 
 " I'd rather have Pilly." 
 
 " She wouldn't go with you. She disapproves of you, 
 barrel and stock, root and branch." 
 
 They finished their breakfast gaily, comparing notes about 
 each other's childhood, laughing at the monkey's pranks, and 
 studiously ignoring any reference to the future. 
 
 Then they rose from the table and, without any discussion 
 of the subject, went down into the olive grove, 
 
 It was delightfully cool there, as yet, and the glimpses of 
 the bright sea, with its hot glitter, were charming through 
 the trees. 
 
 "What are you making?" Peele asked lazily from the 
 grass on which he had thrown himself at her feet.
 
 308 P AM 
 
 " A garland a wreath," she answered, her small brown 
 fingers busily twisting and turning the leaves she had gath- 
 ered on her way across the terrace. " The peasants here 
 make them. Shall I crown you ? " 
 
 " I am too old, Pam. Green leaves don't suit grey hair," 
 he said a little sadly. 
 
 She laughed. "You old!" 
 
 " Yes, I might have been your father." 
 
 " Do you remember," she asked, her hands quiet for a 
 moment among the glossy leaves, " my inventing a mother 
 for you ? " 
 
 " Yes. I have been lonely ever since." 
 
 " And do you remember making me promise not to ' run 
 away with some fellow or do anything like that ' without 
 first telling you ? " 
 
 " I remember it all, Pam. Every bit of it. I thought I 
 had forgotten, but I see I had not. Your little blue skirt, 
 your sailor hat, your duck shirts with the turquoise 
 buttons " 
 
 " And your yellow slippers ! And the tea-pot with the 
 big nick in it ! And the quince jam ! " 
 
 He nodded. " Do you remember how you used to rub 
 my head with eau de cologne when I had those beastly 
 headaches ? " 
 
 " Yes. I wonder " She broke off short, frowning 
 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 " Go on. What do you wonder? " 
 
 " Whether it didn't all begin then" 
 
 He knew what she meant, and paused for a moment before 
 answering. 
 
 " I hardly think so ; you were a child." 
 
 " I know, and yet it isn't as if I were a beauty you 
 couldn't very well have cared for me at once, the other 
 evening, unless we had known each other before."
 
 P A M 309 
 
 " Perhaps not. Pam, do you wish I had not come ? " 
 
 She raised her eyes and looked full into his. " No," she 
 said slowly. 
 
 " If I hadn't, you would have been happier." 
 
 " I'm glad you came. Are you sorry? " 
 
 " I think that I am. Yes, I wish I had not come." 
 
 " That is, of course, individual. I am glad. Now my 
 garland is done. Come and let me try it on." 
 
 Antonio, who understood a great deal of English, although 
 he could not speak it at all, was disappointed in Peek, as he 
 served luncheon a few hours later. 
 
 " Love," he observed to the inimical Pilgrim, whose un- 
 necessary presence in the kitchen was perhaps not wholly 
 accidental, " is queer ting, isn't it? " 
 
 Pilgrim sniffed indignantly. 
 
 "There is the signore the signore of the signorina! he 
 is not so old, in spite of his hair, and he adores the signorina, 
 yet what do they talk of? Politics! And every one knows 
 how corrupt English politics are, and how dull! I suppose 
 the signore is a senator, Miss Pilgrim ? " 
 
 " We don't 'ave senators in England ! " snapped that 
 excellent creature, with the natural disdain of a British 
 female for a mere Italian. " And why shouldn't they talk 
 politics? Thank God, they do! " she added in an undertone. 
 
 Whereupon Antonio, who had heard her last words, and 
 who was in his way a humorist, winked at the cook.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 **WlLL you go with me to the Villa below, to look for 
 some things that I have to send to Paris ? " 
 
 "Is there any place whither I will not go with you?" 
 returned Peele gravely. 
 
 It was four o'clock, and the two stood by tfie window in 
 the cool drawing-room, looking out into the sunny garden. 
 
 Ever since luncheon they had been in the house, for the 
 day had grown to be very warm, and Pam had, as was her 
 custom, arranged in the myriad vases the flowers brought 
 in to her from the little hothouse in the kitchen-garden. 
 
 They had opened the piano, too, on which Pam knew not 
 one note from another, and Peele had played for her all he 
 could recall of a " piece " called " The Waterfall," taught 
 him years ago by one of his governesses. 
 
 " She had red shiny hands," he said, " with a wart on her 
 left third finger. Her name was Bunce, and her father had 
 been a dean. How I hated her! " 
 
 " You must have been a horrid little boy! " 
 
 " I had no mother," he retorted gravely, using her own 
 words. It had been a charming afternoon altogether. They 
 had asked each other all sorts of questions, the answers to 
 which, Pam said with a little laugh, would make a part of 
 the great memory. 
 
 She learned that he hated poetry, and that when he read 
 for his pleasure it was chiefly historical biography. He 
 cared nothing for science, or for classical music; he loved 
 pictures, however. His favourite picture was Luke Fildes* 
 
 310
 
 P A M 31 
 
 " The Doctor," which she had never seen, and which he de- 
 scribed to her at length. 
 
 " The man's face," he said, " is wonderful ; such a mixture 
 of pity, tenderness, and resignation to the limitations of his 
 own powers. You must go and see it some time." 
 
 " Ah, yes, I shall go." 
 
 He had not kissed her, he had hardly touched her hand, 
 but they had in the concentration of their minds been won- 
 derfully close to each other. 
 
 " Do you recite now? " he asked once. 
 
 " How do you know I ever recited ? " 
 
 " The Duchess told me." 
 
 " Ah, yes, I recite sometimes, but I don't care for it as 
 much as I used to. When I was very little I used to know 
 a lot of Italian poems by heart, but I am too old for them 
 now. And English poetry is not musical except Keats, 
 who is not dramatic and Herrick." 
 
 " Recite something to me now, Pam, one of your favourite 
 things." And when she began, standing with lightly clasped 
 fingers before him, he knew that she had made this choice 
 because it held no emotions: 
 
 " I sing of Brooks, of Blossoms, Birds and Bowers ; 
 Of April, May, of June and July flowers. 
 I sing of May-poles, Hock-carts, Wassails, Wakes, 
 Of Bridegrooms, Birds, and of their Bridall-cakes. 
 
 " Aren't the words all lovely? " she broke off. " It is the 
 liquid 1's that make Italian so musical too. Listen ! 
 
 " I sing of Dewes, of Raines, and piece by piece 
 Of Balme, of Oyle, of Spice and Amber-greece. 
 I sing of Times trans-shifting; and I write 
 How Roses first came red, and Lillies white. 
 I write of Groves, of Twilights, and I sing 
 The Court of Mab and of the Fairie-King. 
 I write of Hell; I sing (and ever shall) 
 Of Heaven, and hope to have it after all ! "
 
 312 P A M 
 
 "The Court of Mab and ot the Fairie King! You are 
 almost small enough to be Queen Mab, but you are too 
 brown ! " 
 
 " Queen Mab was no bigger than my thumb! Do you 
 like the poem? " 
 
 "I do. And I envy the writer because, though he wrote 
 of Hell, he hoped for Heaven after all." 
 
 There was a short pause, and then suddenly she changed 
 the subject by asking him to go to the Villa Vaucourt with 
 her. 
 
 " I had a note from Madame de Vaucourt yesterday, ask- 
 ing me to look up one or two things that she forgot," she 
 continued a few moments later as they went down the path, 
 the sun shining on her hair and making it almost copper- 
 coloured. 
 
 " The farmer's wife airs the villa, and so on, and I've had 
 her open the blinds." She swung the key on one finger as 
 she spoke. 
 
 " Friends of yours, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Obviously ! They used to live here every winter, and 
 we knew them very well, but for the last two or three years 
 they have not stayed long, and now They had turned 
 
 to the right and come into a domain much more pretentious 
 than the one above, Peele noticed ; the well-gravelled paths 
 were broad, and the flower-beds in front of the house laid 
 out with some skill. 
 
 " I feel like Marat or Danton, or some one of those 
 creatures, making a visite domiclliaire" exclaimed the girl, 
 fitting the key into the lock and opening the door. " Brrr! 
 how musty it smells! I must give Margarita a wigging. I 
 don't believe the windows have been open for weeks." 
 
 She opened a door to the right of the black and white 
 marble entrance-hall, and he followed her into what, to his 
 surprise, he perceived to be a furnished drawing-room.
 
 P A M 313 
 
 The sun, streaming in, fell on yellow satin chairs and sofas, 
 on inlaid tables, handsome rugs, and a hundred graceful 
 knickknacks, which gave it a curiously inhabited air. 
 
 " This looks as though the mistress of the house would 
 come down in a moment and ask us what the deuce we are 
 doing here ! " he exclaimed. " Not in the least like an 
 empty house." 
 
 " That's because she left so suddenly, poor dear ; and she 
 had no heart to pack. Ah, no, she'll never come back," 
 returned the girl, with a sigh, sitting down at a small ormolu 
 secretaire and opening it. 
 
 "Why is she a poor dear? And why won't she come 
 back?" 
 
 Peele leaned against the wall and, folding his arms, 
 watched her as, with an obvious reluctance, she opened the 
 little drawers one by one. 
 
 " Because her husband has run away from her, and because 
 she is very unhappy." 
 
 " By Jove! What is their name, did you say? " 
 
 " De Vaucourt. Oh, dear, I hate to look through these 
 papers, but she wants his letters." 
 
 " Vaucourt! I say, Pam, had she been married before? " 
 
 " Yes, the first husband was M. de Boissy, I think." 
 
 Peele frowned. 
 
 " Well, upon my word ! Delphine de Boissy a friend 
 of yours ! " 
 
 The girl turned, the letters in her hand. "Why not?" 
 she asked curiously. 
 
 "Why, because she did your mother know her?" 
 
 " Of course. Father and M. de Vaucourt were great 
 friends." 
 
 Peele said nothing for a moment, while he struggled with 
 his impulse to curse the selfish carelessness of Sacheverel 
 and Pauline.
 
 314 P A M 
 
 " So the fellow married her," he said presently, as Pam 
 closed the secretaire and led the way upstairs, the packet 
 of letters in her hand. 
 
 " Yes. And then about two months ago he left her. 
 Father said he behaved like a brute. She wrote and wrote, 
 but he didn't answer her letters, and at last she went after 
 him and found " 
 
 "Yes, and found?" 
 
 " Found him living very comfortably in the Avenue 
 Kleber with a young person whose whose cheeks didn't 
 bag." 
 
 "Bag?" 
 
 " Yes. Poor Madame de Vaucourt's do bag horribly of 
 late; the skin seems to have got loose in a most unattractive 
 way. She is pretty old, you know, and it seems to be only 
 in books that people enjoy growing old together, like John 
 Anderson and his wife, or Darby and Joan. I am sure," 
 she went on, opening the blinds of the room into which she 
 had led the way, and looking at him with great solemnity, 
 " that Mrs. Anderson's cheeks were baggy, and that Joan 
 wore a snuff-coloured front, and yet, what did John Ander- 
 son and Darby care? Not a pin, the old dears. But, then, 
 they lived in Arcadia! " 
 
 " What an abominable cynic you are ! Do you really 
 mean that you think real people never love each other all 
 their lives? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, sometimes. Father and mother will." Her 
 voice was very gentle, as she knelt by a Venetian wedding- 
 chest and opened it. 
 
 " And you explain their case by the fact that they were 
 not married until the other day! That's like your absurd 
 tout lasse, tout passe" he went on, with a sudden irritation 
 that surprised himself. He had no intention of protecting 
 the institution of matrimony against her, but her attitude
 
 P A M 315 
 
 annoyed him beyond control. " You really ought to stop 
 arguing in this ridiculous way, Pam; it puts you in a very 
 false position." 
 
 She turned, a long strip of yellow lace in her hands, and 
 stared up at him in unfeigned wonder. 
 
 " What on earth have I said ? Why are you so cross? " 
 
 " You haven't exactly said anything, just now, but I 
 remember your old jeremiads against matrimony, and it has 
 occurred to me that you are too old now for that sort of 
 thing. It used to be amusing, but it is both silly and 
 unwise now." 
 
 She frowned, and then as suddenly laughed. 
 
 "Well, of all bears! Haven't I a right to my own 
 opinion? " 
 
 " Yes, to an opinion, but not to a harmful, wrong-headed 
 prejudice. You have no right to rail against something of 
 which you have, unfortunately, seen nothing." 
 
 There was a long pause, during which she folded her lace 
 without turning her eyes from his face. 
 
 " I have seen more than you think," she said quietly. 
 " My grandfather and my grandmother hated each other ; 
 my aunt Rosamund is wretched with Mr. Maxse, and she 
 bores him to death; the Rector at Yeoland and his wife are 
 very polite and ceremonious to each other, but they live in 
 opposite corners of the Rectory; then there was my father 
 and poor Mrs. Kennedy, and now the Vaucourts! " 
 
 In its way her evidence was overwhelming. Her life, he 
 saw, had been such that in naming these few examples of 
 marital misery she had mentioned almost all the married 
 couples she had ever known. For a moment Peele was 
 staggered, and then he recovered himself. " Yours has been 
 an exceptional as well as an unfortunate experience, dear," 
 he said. " But, believe me, in the end law and order must 
 prevail."
 
 316 P A M 
 
 Pam shook her head gently. " Why waste time in 
 quarrelling about the Kaiser's beard ? " 
 
 " But it isn't about the Kaiser's beard ! It is of the 
 utmost importance." 
 
 "Not to me." 
 
 As she spoke she turned and once more bent over the 
 chest in which she was searching. 
 
 " Men will want to marry you," he went on, with a pang 
 of fierce jealousy. 
 
 " But I shall not want to marry them. Ah, here it is 
 the crucifix. Poor thing, it was her mother's." As she 
 spoke, the stable clock struck slowly, and involuntarily, as 
 they both counted the strokes, she turned and looked at 
 him, the ivory crucifix pressed to her breast. 
 
 "Five! Pam, the day will soon be gone our day the 
 end is coming! " 
 
 " No, no, not the end ! I can't bear it ! " 
 
 For a moment they stared at each other in silence. Then 
 Peele said hoarsely: "Nor can I! Pam, we can't do it! 
 God knows we've tried, but we can't, and thank God that 
 we can't come! " 
 
 Almost roughly he drew her to her feet and caught her 
 in his arm. " Pam, we have tried, and failed." 
 
 " Yes, we have failed." 
 
 Neither of them knew how long it had been when he 
 raised his head from hers, and after a moment's further 
 silence she said suddenly in a strange, harsh voice: " You 
 will not ask me to marry you ? " 
 
 "Pam!" 
 
 " Yes. You know I cannot do that." 
 
 "You must!" 
 
 " I cannot. Do not ask me that." 
 
 The turn affairs had taken was bewildering and almost 
 ludicrous. That he, who had never, until five minutes ago,
 
 P A M 317 
 
 dreamed of the folly of marrying her, should be urging her 
 to marry him, and that she should be refusing! 
 
 " Jim, I love you more than anything in the world. I will 
 do anything for you, I will go anywhere with you to-mor- 
 row if you like, but that one thing I cannot do." 
 
 Peele set his teeth and forced her creeping hands from his 
 shoulders. The moment was a crucial one, and he realised 
 it. Not only all his love for the innocent fool in his arms, 
 but all that was best of the manhood in him, rose to combat 
 her folly. 
 
 " Pam, for God's sake listen to me. You are a child, 
 and must trust me. You must marry me, or I shall go 
 away and never see you again." 
 
 She drew away from him, her face cold. " I will not ! " 
 
 " You must. I should be the greatest scoundrel don't 
 make me afraid of myself." 
 
 " I will not marry you," she answered slowly, and very 
 distinctly. He felt that he had lost his cause, and to his 
 bitter shame he realised that in the bottom of his heart there 
 was a throb of gladness. 
 
 Then suddenly a creeping sensation of cold sickness came 
 over him, and he put his hand blindly to his throat. 
 
 " I fear I am going to faint," he said slowly ; " don't 
 be frightened." But she was so frightened that when he 
 came to a few minutes later her face, looking old and worn 
 in its agony, was as white as his own. 
 
 " Jim, my dearest, I thought, oh, I thought " Her 
 
 eyes filled and the hot tears fell on his cheek. 
 
 His heart smote him. " Pam, you see your obstinacy 
 nearly killed me; now you must promise. You must give 
 up this mad idea, my poor child, and I too must give up 
 much. You must marry me." 
 
 Her rnouth trembled piteously as she looked at him 
 through her tears. " ! can't, oh, I can't! Listen, you are
 
 318 P A M 
 
 ill, we can't discuss it now; we will go back into Arcadia 
 for our tea, and when we are in England we can plan 
 things." 
 
 He sighed and, rising, picked up his hat. He was glad 
 to quit the subject; his strength, in two senses, was about 
 gone. 
 
 Half dazed he watched her gather up the letters, the 
 crucifix, and the eider-down shawl she had found, and 
 a few minutes later, her strong young shoulder giving him 
 more than a nominal support, they crossed the boundary 
 and went back into Arcadia.
 
 PART VI 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 "NOW, Pilly, you are to go back into the hotel and have 
 your tea with Caliban. I am going to make a visit." 
 
 The fiacre had stopped in front of Brentano's, and after 
 several minutes Pam had come out of the shop, and now 
 stood looking with mild amusement into her maid's horrified 
 face. 
 
 "A visit! In Paris! I really don't think, Miss Pam, 
 as you ought to do such things." 
 
 " Sorry, but I must. Is my veil all right ? " 
 
 The young girl wore a simple tailor-made gown and a 
 very smart black hat that she had bought that morning. 
 Pilgrim, eyeing her with disapproval of her acts, could net 
 withhold a certain grudging admiration for her looks. 
 
 The girl was curiously graceful, even in this day of grace- 
 ful women, and the unusually long slope of her erect shoul- 
 ders gave her, in conjunction with the alert carriage of her 
 small head, a very distinguished air. 
 
 The day was one of those warm, exciting Paris spring 
 days when something delightful seems to the young to be 
 on the very point of happening. Pam's eyes were bright, 
 her cheeks faintly tinged with pink. 
 
 " Doesn't Paris make you feel wicked, Pilly?" she asked 
 suddenly, with a laugh of pure pleasure. " It does me, and 
 it makes me feel that wicked things are really good! " 
 
 Pilgrim clasped her grey cotton hands imploringly. 
 
 " Oh, Pam, do take me with you ! I can sit in the hall, 
 
 319
 
 320 P A M 
 
 you know, or even in the cab. Other young ladies don't 
 go raging about all alone." 
 
 Pam stared. " Raging?' Oh, well, you poor thing, 
 console yourself, for I'm not going to rage. I'm going to 
 make one visit, and then I shall come back to the hotel, 
 and you know we are going to the theatre. So good- 
 bye. Don't worry, Pilly. I'll be as good as gold, really I 
 will." 
 
 After glaring with hatred and ferocity at a young man 
 who, attired in the fashion of the following month, had 
 come to a standstill and was eyeing Pam with unconcealed 
 admiration, Pilgrim sighed resignedly. 
 
 "Very well, I've done my best, as I shall tell Mrs. 
 Sacheverel. I hope at least that you are going to see a 
 lady." 
 
 Pam stared again, and her frankly puzzled stares were 
 very characteristic of her. " To see a lady ? Of course I 
 am. You don't think I'm going to see a gentleman, do 
 you?" 
 
 Pilgrim tossed her head. " I don't know, I'm sure. 
 You used to, last year, in Torpington." 
 
 Pam got into the shabby vehicle and leaned back in one 
 corner. " Sure enough, so I did," she returned carelessly. 
 " Well, I'm older now, and have given up that habit. Now 
 don't get lost, Pilgrim the hotel is just up the second 
 street, you know. And don't speak to any one you don't 
 know!" 
 
 As the wretched maid walked away in slow dignity, 
 Pam gave an address to the cabby, and moved off in the 
 other direction, still smiling over her little joke. 
 
 It was evening, and the sunshine began to pale; the air 
 was sweet with the odours that awaken even in great cities 
 when spring comes down that way. 
 
 The Champs Elysees was crowded with beautiful car-
 
 P A M 321 
 
 riages filled with beautifully dressed women, flowers were 
 for sale everywhere, the sky was blue, the trees delicately 
 green. Pam was very happy. Only two days before she 
 had been in Arcadia with Peele, and now, because he loved 
 her and she loved him, she was happy in Paris without 
 him. 
 
 Before her, in England, lay two tasks for her tasks 
 which were bound to be very difficult, but at the thought 
 of them her red mouth tightened and her brows drew down 
 in a way that meant confident determination. 
 
 The day in Arcadia had undone her resolution to give up 
 Peele, not because she had learned that she could not do it, 
 but because some instinct told her that it would hurt him 
 to give her up. The moment that conviction had come to 
 her her scruples had melted into nothingness, and she men- 
 tally sacrificed the Lady Henrietta with the incidental pity 
 a high priest of old must have felt for the lamb whose throat 
 he cut to do honour to his god. 
 
 And now there remained in her mind but the one prob- 
 lem whether she should marry Peele. 
 
 Her dislike of the idea of tying herself for life was a 
 perfectly sincere one; whatever her faults were, they were 
 not those of a poseuse. The thought of saying the words 
 she had lately heard her mother say was utterly repugnant 
 to her; she did not believe in the binding quality of such 
 promises, and she had never broken her word in her life. 
 
 Peele had left her that evening two days before, believing 
 her unshaken in her determination; she knew this, and yet 
 she knew that his words had not been without effect. His 
 faint had so terrified her that it had required all her strength 
 to persist after it in the refusal she had given him before it. 
 
 His love for her seemed so wonderful, so incomprehen- 
 sible, that she would have been glad of an occasion to make 
 some tremendous sacrifice for him; and yet her mad ideal
 
 322 P A M 
 
 of absolute freedom had grown with her growth and seemed 
 a part of her very bone and muscle. 
 
 When the fiacre stopped, after ten minutes' easy progress, 
 before a charming little hotel with a coat-of-arms in stone 
 over the door, the girl was deep in thought and roused her- 
 self with an effort. 
 
 The servant who answered her ring looked at her in some 
 surprise. " Yes, Madame was at home, certainly, but Ma- 
 dame was very ill." 
 
 "Just give her this card, will you?" 
 
 A moment later she found herself standing on the thresh- 
 old of a great bare room, in the centre of which stood a 
 large mahogany bed with brocaded curtains. 
 
 "Pam!" 
 
 " Carissima! " 
 
 The great Ravaglia held out her hand without moving 
 her body, and bending over the embroidered pillows the 
 young girl kissed her on both cheeks. 
 
 "You here, Pam! I cannot believe it! " the actress went 
 on in Italian. 
 
 " No? And yet, here I am! but you you are ill! " 
 
 " Yes, so ill, that when I saw your card I thought I was 
 delirious again." 
 
 " Did you remember my name at once? " Pam sat down 
 cosily on the edge of the bed, and took off her hat uninvited. 
 " It is very long since you have seen me ! " 
 
 The sick woman smiled faintly. " Oh, very long three 
 years! Ah, yes, I knew your name. As to your face, you 
 have changed very little, except that you are older." 
 
 There was a short pause, after which she added softly: 
 
 " I have never played Pia since, without thinking of 
 you. Do you remember ? " 
 
 " Indeed I do remember. That is why I came. But tell 
 me first what is the matter with you ? "
 
 P A M 323 
 
 Ravaglia smiled, her yellow face wrinkling amazingly. 
 " The matter ? Nothing ; I am just dying. Please don't 
 make a fuss," she added, with sudden fretfulness. " I hate 
 talking about it. Tell me about yourself. Are your father 
 and mother here ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 "You are not married, are you?" 
 
 " Married ! No. I brought Pilgrim and Caliban with 
 me." 
 
 " Poor old Pilgrim ! Who is Caliban ? Ah, yes, I know 
 now. Well, you are alone in Paris with a maid and a 
 monkey? " 
 
 Pam laughed suddenly. "Yes, is it dreadful? How- 
 ever, we are going on to England, to my grandfather's, 
 to-morrow. I stopped over here to ask your advice about 
 something." 
 
 " My advice ! My dear child, en voila une idee assez 
 rigolo! About what?" 
 
 The girl was silent for a moment, marshalling her words, 
 and then she spoke. 
 
 " You remember telling me that somewhere in the world 
 there was a man whom I should love? Well, he has 
 come." 
 
 The tragedienne, whose life, for all its triumphs, had been 
 so much more tragic than any of her dramas, drew a long 
 breath. 
 
 "You, little Pam? Go on." 
 
 " He is very much older than I ; he is quite old " 
 
 As she paused the sick woman opened her eyes suddenly, 
 very wide, and turned her head sharply. " It isn't Charnley 
 Burke ? " she asked. 
 
 " Charnley Burke ? Good heavens, no ! " 
 
 There was a short pause, after which Ravaglia bade the 
 girl go on with her story.
 
 324 P A M 
 
 " He is James Peele. I met him long ago at my grand- 
 father's. He is a politician, and very brilliant. I don't 
 know," she added, with real humility, but a proud look in 
 her eyes, " why he cares for me, but he does." 
 
 " I think I can guess why, carina. Well, you are 
 engaged ? " 
 
 The last of the afternoon sun was coming in at the win- 
 dow and fell full on Pam's face. Her eyes were, Ravaglia 
 saw with a pang, like her own at that moment. The actress, 
 who was a Sicilian, was superstitious, and her breath caught 
 in her throat as she recognised in the young girl's eyes the 
 look that she believed to be fateful. 
 
 " No," Pam said slowly, " he is engaged to the Duchess 
 of Wight's daughter." 
 
 In her relief the elder woman laughed aloud, and catching 
 the girl's hand kissed it. "Engaged! Only that! Then 
 it is all right, thank God ! " 
 
 Pam looked at her gravely. " You mean because he is 
 not married ? " 
 
 "Yes. Thank God! Ah!" Her short cry of pain 
 frightened Pam and, slipping from the bed, she was about 
 to ask if she could do nothing to relieve her, when she saw 
 that Ravaglia had fainted. 
 
 Ringing the bell hastily, she dipped her handkerchief in 
 some water and laid it on the strangely waxen-looking 
 forehead, and when the maid came in, and some drops 
 had been administered, the sick woman at length opened 
 her eyes and tried to smile. 
 
 " I fainted again, did I ? " she asked. " I hope you weren't 
 frightened, little Pam?" 
 
 " I was, though. Mr. Peele fainted the other day, and 
 now you do it, too! It is awful. I will go now; you are 
 too tired." 
 
 " Yes, I am too tired, but you mustn't go. I haven't
 
 P A M 325 
 
 yet given you my advice," the actress went on, half play- 
 fully, but with an evident effort. " Sit down and let me 
 do it." 
 
 Pam obeyed in silence, and after a moment Ravaglia 
 went on. 
 
 " I am glad for you that this man is not married, dear, 
 and the only thing for him to do is to break his engage- 
 ment. That is my advice; and then he must marry you 
 at once. I am glad for you, but I am sorry for poor 
 Burke." 
 
 "Burke!" ejaculated the girl. "Why do you speak of 
 him?" 
 
 " He is here, and he has told me about you. He is a 
 good man, as men go, and he is not a prig. He would make 
 an admirable husband." 
 
 " He is here, you say? In Paris? " 
 
 "Yes, yes, in Paris; why shouldn't he be in Paris? He 
 comes often to see me, and we talk of you. He loves you 
 very dearly, Pam." 
 
 " I know. I wish he didn't. Do you happen to know 
 whether he is going down to Monks' Yeoland soon? I am, 
 and I do hope he isn't." 
 
 " He is not. He was going south to-morrow to see 
 you. He has your father's permission, and I think, if you 
 say no, he will go back to Australia." 
 
 "If I say no!" 
 
 " Ah, I understand ; you think that only your Mr. 
 Peele exists, dear child, but Burke will go on existing 
 nevertheless. Pam," she went on hurriedly, catching the 
 girl's hands and holding them in a hot, nervous clasp, " I 
 am glad you came! You should not have come, and no 
 one must know that you did, but I am glad. I have so 
 longed to see you; I have thought so much of you. Did 
 they tell you that my little girl died ? "
 
 326 P A M 
 
 "No!" 
 
 " Yes, she died. If I had but known that she had no 
 future I might have kept her with me, and how I would 
 have loved her. Ah, they might have let me know, they 
 might have let me know! " 
 
 As she finished speaking she burst into a fit of crying that 
 shook her whole body, her thin hands clasped tight over her 
 face. 
 
 Pam knelt by her in mute sympathy, her own eyes full 
 of tears. After a few minutes Ravaglia became quiet, and 
 lay with half-closed eyes in a state of exhaustion. Pam 
 watched her for some time, and then rose. She could not 
 go on with her story; the woman was too ill to be troubled, 
 and it was late. 
 
 She said good-bye to her very gently, kissing her poor 
 faded face repeatedly. " I will write to you," she said. 
 " I must go on to-morrow, for I have written, but oh, 
 carissima, I wish I could stay ! " 
 
 " Nonsense, dear. I wouldn't let you stay. I should 
 not have let you come, if I had known. I am glad that I 
 did not know. You must go. Tell your grandfather that 
 I kept my word, dear." 
 
 " My grandfather! You know him? " 
 
 " Yes. And Burke will be coming to see me. What 
 shall I tell him?" 
 
 Pam paused. 
 
 " Tell him," she said, after a moment, with deliberate 
 slowness, " that I am very sorry ; that I love another man 
 with my whole heart, and that because of that I do not 
 wish to see him." 
 
 " You are right. I will tell him. And now, good-bye. 
 Come and let me bless you, if you think my blessing " 
 
 " Hush, carissima! " 
 
 The young girl, her mind still heavy with the burden
 
 P A M 327 
 
 she had hoped to unload here, knelt simply like a child by 
 the bed, and bent her head to the failing hand. 
 
 A moment later she was driving rapidly through the 
 streets, her eyes wet, her heart heavy. 
 
 Ravaglia was dying, and Ravaglia was to be the first 
 person she knew to go through the Great Grate.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 " MONKS' YEOLAND, Wednesday. 
 
 " DEARS BOTH: After divers and varied adventures by 
 sea and land we arrived here on Saturday, and I should 
 have written before only I have been frightfully busy, and 
 I knew you wouldn't worry. 
 
 " Well, to go back to Paris. I looked up Madame Fer- 
 nande, and she measured me for my gown for the wedding, 
 and two others. She says my figure is very good, and I 
 think she's right, too. She's making me a biscuit-coloured 
 cloth gown trimmed with a sort of green and gold braid 
 (sounds appalling, but it isn't), a blue crepe de chine, and 
 the wedding garment, which is, as mother advised, also 
 pale blue, a lovely gauzy, chiffony thing with a silk stripe, 
 and which makes Pam, ' in the dusk with the light behind 
 her,' appear a very attractive young person. I also got 
 some hats one is lovely, very flat, all black, and joy of 
 joys, not lop-sided. 
 
 " Pilly was dreadful in Paris on the point of bursting 
 into loud lamentations all the time; I had my hair washed 
 at Lentheric's, and the man dressed it in a lovely way, 
 low, smooth on top, and parted. I told Pilgrim to watch 
 how he did it, but she glared so he asked me to have her 
 stop, as she made him nervous. In the afternoon we drove 
 a long time. I bought mother's silk stockings, and did some 
 other errands, and then I went to see Madame Ravaglia. 
 The Duchess (with whom I dined just before I left home) 
 told me Ravaglia was going to have a sale of all her things 
 
 328
 
 P A M 329 
 
 as she was 111. She Is very ill, In bed, and I nearly cried. 
 She says that she is dying, and I believe it. Her little girl 
 is dead, too. She was heavenly to me. I forgot to ask 
 her about the sale. It all seems so sad, but I believe she is 
 glad to die. She told me, by the way, that Charnley Burke 
 was on the point of going to a certain villa on a certain 
 coast to say certain things of grave import to a certain 
 young female. Really, do you think it was fair to give 
 him leave to pop in on me like that? Thank goodness, 
 I got away in time! I always liked him, but that is ' just as 
 far as the tale goes,' and you two ought to know it. Madame 
 Ravaglia is going to tell him this, so you needn't manoeuvre ! 
 
 " In the evening we, Pilly and I, went to see Entre 
 Arbre et Ecorce. Awfully well acted, but it was just as 
 well that Pilly didn't understand it all. Guess who sat 
 in a baignoire near us? M. de Vaucourt! He is thinner 
 and looked quite young. Very well got up, of course, and 
 either his hair is beginning to grow, or he is wearing a 
 craftily made ' scratch.' The girl with him was as lovely 
 as an angel, and I heaved a sigh for poor ' Delphine ' ! He 
 came and spoke to me, and the following dialogue ensued : 
 " ' He. Mais, Mademoiselle Pam ! Que je suis enchante 
 de vous revoir ! ' 
 
 1 ' Me. Trop aimable, Monsieur ! ' 
 
 ' He. And Madame votre mere, et Monsieur votre pere, 
 sont-ils avec? ' 
 
 ' Me. No, I am alone with my maid.' 
 
 ; ' He. Will you allow an old friend to compliment you 
 on your beauty ? ' 
 
 ' ' Me. Flattery is always acceptable.' 
 ' He. You have just come from home? ' 
 
 ; ' Me. Yesterday. I am going on to England to- 
 morrow.* 
 
 '* ' He. I go south next week to close my villa, alas.'
 
 330 P A M 
 
 "'Me. Ah!' 
 
 " ' He. The world no doubt looks very bright to your 
 bright eyes, Mademoiselle; to me, alas! there are in my 
 heart yawning gaps that never can be bridged.' 
 
 "'Me (coldly). Oh!' 
 
 " ' He. I shall hope to see your parents, Mademoiselle 
 Pam. I should not like them to believe me worse than I 
 am.' 
 
 " ' Me. I do not think there is any danger of that 
 (sweetly).' 
 
 " ' He (after a suspicious stare). Well, I must be off. I 
 came with my brother-in-law, and must rejoin him, after 
 making my visits.' 
 
 " Then he went, and Pilgrim, whose feelings were as 
 usual almost too much for her, abused him until I snubbed 
 her violently. 
 
 " I had brought the crucifix, etc., that Madame de V. 
 had asked me to look up for her, and sent them to her the 
 next morning. I didn't go myself, for I had no time. 
 
 " We had a brute of a crossing, and I blush to state 
 that I was most awfully sick for an hour. So was Caliban. 
 Pilgrim was perfectly well all the way, but not particularly 
 companionable. 
 
 " It poured in London, so I took a four-wheeler and did 
 my errands. I met Mrs. Cunningham in the Burlington 
 Arcade. She told me all the Monks' Yeoland news, and 
 we lunched together at Prince's. I adore big restaurants. 
 She Mrs. Cunningham told me that poor Cecil More- 
 cambe, Evy's old adorer, had dined with her and Mr. Cun- 
 ningham the evening before, and that he was very unhappy 
 about the wedding. He has a living in Chelsea. 
 
 " I got my present for Evy, and it is really a corker; 
 a big white ostrich feather fan mounted in yellow tortoise- 
 shell. I'm having her monogram put in in little diamonds.
 
 P A M 331 
 
 " Pilgrim had two teeth out, poor dear, and I bought 
 her a new dress and a black cape. I do so love having my 
 own banking-account! I also had my picture taken. The 
 man was very funny. He is a little, wild-eyed, red-haired 
 Yid, and jumped about his camera and waved his arms 
 in the funniest way. The proofs came this morning, and 
 are pretty good. Grandfather says the one I like might 
 be either Cally or me, but the other, the one he likes, looks 
 like a tooth-paste advertisement. 
 
 " G. F. met me at the station, and we fell on each other's 
 necks and wept for joy. 
 
 " Before he had a chance to speak I told him that as I 
 had decided to forgive him we would let bygones be 
 bygpnes, and not reopen old disputes! From the way he 
 laughed at that very silly joke I judged that he has been 
 pretty dull of late, and I find that I was not mistaken. 
 
 " Evelyn and Aunt Rosamund are very busy with the 
 wedding preparations, of course. Mr. Maxse is ill, and 
 Ratty has been having a flirtation with a barmaid in Ox- 
 ford a cheerful divinity called Maudie, who appears to 
 have conceived the idea of becoming the future Lady Yeo- 
 land. 
 
 " G. F. had hopes that Ratty would succumb to my 
 charms (which are considered, you will be glad to hear, 
 to have augmented considerably within the last year), and 
 though I sternly refuse to exercise those charms towards 
 the unlawful ends contemplated by that wicked old man, 
 only modesty prevents my stating that the fair Maudie's 
 chances are rapidly waning since my arrival ! 
 
 " Evelyn is very handsome, and seems much pleased with 
 herself and her prospects! 
 
 " Sir George Chesney is pretty awful, I think a short 
 man with small eyes and a mean mouth but he is in love 
 with her, and has given her the loveliest things. I am glad
 
 332 P A M 
 
 that no one who owns a pink pearl pendant like hers has a 
 fancy to possess my soul ! 
 
 " They are going to Paris, and thence automobiling 
 through Brittany. Mr. Maxse is very ill, and I am terribly 
 sorry for him. He says he has every known disease except 
 the bubonic plague. When I have time I read aloud to 
 him. I don't think any of the others except grandfather 
 realise how ill he is. 
 
 " Cazzy is as great a love as ever. His head is literally 
 quite bald, except a little fringe over his ears and across 
 the back, and he is getting fat. I do love him. He sends 
 all sorts of messages to you both, and the dear old thing 
 has guess what? A wedding present for you! It's a 
 beautiful crystal bowl that belonged to his mother. I had 
 tea with him yesterday, and we had a veiy good time to- 
 gether. Well, this letter is long enough, and I must go 
 do-do. To-morrow is the wedding, and my frock is perfect. 
 The Duchess and Lady Henrietta are here. I have not yet 
 seen them, and the Duchess has just sent her maid to ask 
 me to go in to her for a minute. I'll write all about the 
 wedding before long. " Lovingly, 
 
 " P. S. Of course in the dialogue between me and 
 M. de Vaucourt I should have put ' He I', only ' I ' looks 
 all wrong to me, somehow." 
 
 When she had addressed and stamped her letter Pam 
 rose, and tying the ribbons of her white dressing-gown 
 into a neat bow, swung her long plaits over her shoulders, 
 and crossing the dimly lighted corridor knocked at the 
 Duchess's door. 
 
 Her Grace, who was sitting by her dressing-table in a 
 very gorgeous black satin kimono, greeted the girl with en- 
 thusiasm.
 
 P A M 333 
 
 "Well, you dreadful little creature, how are you! And 
 why did you bolt away like that! Don't sit down on 
 Bijou there's a chair. Will you have some Bovril? Or 
 some Force? Then tell me, why aren't you going to be 
 bridesmaid ? " 
 
 Pam started. 
 
 " Because I am never going to be bridesmaid," she an- 
 swered. " And, anyway, I'd have looked like a nigger among 
 all those blonde girls ! " 
 
 "Bah! You aren't vain, I know better! Your grand- 
 father thinks it's because you don't like George Chesney. 
 Perhaps he's right." 
 
 " Perhaps he is," returned the girl gravely. 
 
 " Evy told me she was very much disappointed." 
 
 "Yes; she is a dear, Evy. How is Lady Henrietta?" 
 
 The Duchess set down her cup, unpinned a beautiful 
 coil of mahogany-coloured hair, and laid it on the table; 
 and then, turning, said, her eyes fixed closely on Pam's, 
 " I want to talk to you about Henny, Pam." 
 
 . . T i tt 
 
 1 o me! 
 
 " Yes, to you. You are a ridiculous runaway thing, but 
 you are shrewd, and you are truthful. I think, too, that you 
 like Henny." 
 
 " I do like her; I do, indeed, but " 
 
 " Now, for Heaven's sake, don't be tiresome and have 
 scruples. If I choose to talk to you about my daughter it 
 is surely my affair! " 
 
 Pam looked steadily at her, frowning as she answered, 
 "Or hers!" 
 
 " If you like. Listen : that night when you dined with us, 
 I saw you watching her as if you understood. Did you ? I 
 mean you saw that she looked ill and worried. Did you 
 guess why ? " 
 
 " I guessed, yes. My guess may not have been correct."
 
 334 P A M 
 
 " It possibly was, however. It was that Jim Peele is not 
 making her happy, wasn't it ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 The Duchess, who seemed, with the removal of part of her 
 hair, to have taken off something of her garment of manner, 
 went on slowly with serious directness: 
 
 " You saw a good deal of him last spring, he told us, and 
 your eyes are keen and young. I never thought that he 
 rared for her really, and now I think she is beginning to 
 think so, too." 
 
 Pam had grown pale, and her eyes were very like Caliban's 
 as she listened. 
 
 " Henny is very beautiful, and she has been much ad- 
 mired," the Duchess resumed, " but she is not spoiled. She 
 was never clever, but she was always sweet and good, and 
 she deserves to be happy not that that is the best reason for 
 her being so! However, when she fell in love with Jim 
 Peele I didn't make even the nominal protest I might have 
 made. The man was, of course, her social inferior, but she 
 had refused dozens of men, and she was thirty. So they be- 
 came engaged. The result is that she is losing her looks and 
 crying her eyes out because he treats her as he does. He is 
 polite and kind enough, he never flirts, he seems to have no 
 bad habits and I, moi qui vous parle, am at my wit's ends! " 
 
 Pam had listened with a curious withholding of action; 
 with a feeling that for her was the role of absolute passivity ; 
 that something outside of herself would give her a mental 
 lead. Now, when the Duchess stopped speaking, and looked 
 expectantly at her, the girl returned her glance with grave 
 attention, but did not answer, and after a pause the old 
 woman went on: "I daresay you think me as mad as a 
 hatter, to be saying all this to you ; but, as I said, I am at my 
 wit's end, and there is no one else of whom I can ask an 
 opinion."
 
 P A M 335 
 
 " An opinion ! " 
 
 " Yes. Algy my son Wight is a mere boy, and devoted 
 to Mr. Peele; my other daughter has met him only once arid 
 can give no opinion; and you know him, and have recently 
 seen them together. Will you tell me, in a word, what you 
 think the trouble is? Is it that the man has no heart in him, 
 or is it that he loves some one else ? " 
 
 Pam stared, still feeling that she need not act; that some- 
 one else would act for her. And before the pause had grown 
 to be too long a brisk knock came to the door. 
 
 " Mrs. Maxse's compliments, Miss, and would you be so 
 kind as to go to Mr. Maxse for a moment? 'E 'as been 
 took bad." 
 
 Pam followed the servant down the passage, after a 
 hasty good-night to the Duchess, telling herself that she had 
 known that the message would come.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 A SLEEPLESS night is bad for one's looks, even in one's 
 teens, and Pam, as she cast a final glance at herself in the 
 glass before leaving her room the next morning, made a face 
 and shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " If candour were your leading characteristic, Pilly," she 
 remarked, taking her gloves from her maid, " you would 
 agree with me that I would rejoice Mr. Darwin's eyes to-day 
 but for the fact that he is dead as an overwhelming argu- 
 ment in favour of his theory ! " 
 
 " You hadn't ought to make faces, Miss Pam ; you'll have 
 wrinkles before you are twenty, if you do; you 'aven't got 
 your mother's skin." 
 
 " What a horrid idea ! Imagine poor mother if I had her 
 skin! Pilly, you do say the most saugrenue things. Now, 
 mind you, don't let Caliban get away, or he'll come to 
 church as sure as eggs is eggs. Heavens, how ugly I am 
 to-day!" 
 
 Pilgrim watched her young mistress out of sight and then, 
 with the sigh that had Become chronic of late, set to work 
 arranging the room, which looked, as was usual to it after 
 the performance of a grand toilette by its present inhabitant, 
 much as though it had been swept by a cyclone. 
 
 " She didn't sleep, I know she didn't," the good woman 
 said to herself as she emptied the candlestick of half a dozen 
 burnt matches ; " and she only began that book yesterday. 
 That means she read in the night ; and she wrote too. Ever 
 
 336
 
 P A M 337 
 
 since that man came to the villa she 'asn't been the same. 
 'Ow I wish 'e'd died when 'e was teething! " 
 
 Tears welled slowly into her unattractive eyes as she 
 worked; she was very troubled about her young mistress, 
 and she had no one to whom to go for help. Even while she 
 knew that Pam would surely insist not only on dreeing her 
 own weird, but also on dreeing it in her own way and time, 
 Pilgrim could not watch the progress of events without at 
 least attempting to turn them from the way in which she 
 believed them to be moving. 
 
 And when she had settled down to some work in her room 
 her mind was busy with the subject of Peele. That morn- 
 ing she had learned to her surprise that Peele was to be at the 
 w r edding. The Duchess's maid had told her, and though 
 Pilgrim, who had been told by Pam several days before that 
 he was unfortunately unable to attend that function, was 
 shocked by the news she had not betrayed her feelings to the 
 other servant. 
 
 "So 'e's coming! Very nice for 'er ladyship, isn't it?" 
 she answered conventionally. 
 
 " Oh, very! 'Er ladyship is going to look a dream, too. 
 'Er gown is by Worth, my dear, and perfectly sweet." 
 
 " She is very beautiful," Pilgrim agreed. 
 
 " Isn't she! And good, too, Miss Pilgrim! Them beau- 
 ties is mostly hawful to serve, but 'er ladyship is as kind as 
 if she was 'idious. Much too good for "tm, is my opinion, if 
 you ask it ! " 
 
 Pilgrim had not asked it, but it was none the less accept- 
 able to her. "A very pleasant gentleman, 'e seems; 'e was 
 'ere once before, and we liked "im," she answered. 
 
 " Did you ? Well, it's not for me to say, but when a 
 lady 'as the 'eadache as often as 'er ladyship, and cries 'er 
 eyes out every few days, it isn't me as says 'er gentleman is 
 good enough for her. And not even a baronet ! "
 
 338 P A M 
 
 Poor Pilgrim was a very honest woman, and the natural 
 bent of her character was towards a somewhat grim and 
 unattractive straightforwardness; but on this occasion she 
 had tampered with the Lady Henrietta's communicative 
 maid, and had learned many things that made her uneasier 
 and more anxious than before. 
 
 She had not told Pam that Peele was, in spite of his 
 original intention to the contrary, coming to the wedding in 
 obedience to a telegraphic summons from his fiancee sent the 
 day before. It would, she felt, be better to tell Pam, but 
 somehow she had been unable to approach the subject with 
 the girl, though she was sure that Pam did not know. And 
 in this she was right. Peele's coming down to Sir Henry 
 Pockington's had been duly communicated to Mrs. Maxse, 
 but in the excitement and hurry usual at such times the 
 news had elicited no comment, and Pam had not heard it. 
 
 She did not see Peele until, when the marriage ceremony 
 was nearly over, she raised her eyes to find his fixed on her. 
 For a moment she met his gaze, and then turned again to 
 the bevy of girls at the altar-rails. It seemed, his presence, 
 very much to have been expected, and quite appropriate to 
 the curious chain of events that had led to the present situa- 
 tion. The Duchess's confidence had thrown the girl back 
 into the confusion and trouble from which her perceptions 
 of Peele's real need of her had raised her; if he needed her, 
 Lady Henrietta seemed to need him quite as badly, and it is 
 not pleasant to be confided in by a person you are contem- 
 plating injuring. 
 
 The Duchess's confirmation of the girl's own impression 
 that Peele was making his future wife unhappy had again 
 roused in her the curious resentment she had felt towards 
 him the evening of the dinner at the hotel. She had not 
 slept, and all night long the combinations possible as an end 
 of the chapter she had come to in her life passed before her
 
 P A M 339 
 
 eyes. Peele might marry Lady Henrietta that was the 
 first possibility. And that granted, he might forget Pam 
 and make his wife happy, or he might remember and want 
 Pam, and ruin Lady Henrietta's life. 
 
 The second possibility was that he should break his engage- 
 ment. This hypothesis accepted, the girl's mind went on to 
 picture him either as her own husband or her lover. 
 
 If she married him, as he wished, he would be happy (for 
 she knew that she could be an admirable wife), unless the 
 comparative poverty that would be the result of such a mar- 
 riage, and the lost prestige occasioned by his jilting of the 
 Duke of Wight's sister, should hurt his love for her. He 
 had admitted that the close relations to several powerful men 
 into which his marriage with the Lady Henrietta would 
 bring him would be of the utmost importance to his career, 
 and instinctively the girl felt that his ambition, were she 
 herself not almost more ambitious for him, would be her only, 
 but dangerous, rival. 
 
 If, then, he did not marry her, but, breaking his engage- 
 ment, allowed her to follow out her own plan of going to 
 him as his mistress, it would, as she believed, assure their love 
 to each other for ever. 
 
 As she reached for the hundredth time this point in her 
 reflections the organ burst out into the recessional, and Sir 
 George and Lady Chesney, followed by the bridesmaids, 
 passed into the vestry. 
 
 Pam and Ratty, among others, followed them, and a few 
 moments later the road between the church and the house 
 was bright with gaily attired women and their soher-hued 
 attendants. Ratty, whose was the misfortune of looking 
 his very best in his oldest clothes, placed himself a*- Pam's 
 side and stuck there with sullen persistence all the 
 way, although several men tried to oust him from his D* 
 sition.
 
 340 PAM 
 
 " Hang 'em all," the fat youth muttered, " why don't 
 they go and talk to their own cousins ? " 
 
 " Why don't you ask them ? " she suggested carelessly. 
 " Don't step on Mrs. Baring's gown again ! " 
 
 " Look here, Pam, I'd like to kick that chap Liddes- 
 leigh ! " 
 
 " Why ? He is harmless enough surely 1 " 
 
 " Then what does he mean by staring at you all through 
 the service ? " 
 
 " Did he stare at me ? And what if he did ? " 
 
 " You know he did ! and I believe you like it." 
 
 She turned and looked at his red, angry face as they 
 crossed the lawn. " Look here, Ratty, don't be idiotic, 
 please." 
 
 " Idiotic 1 Is a man idiotic because he is in " 
 
 " Some men are," she returned coolly, " and all boys. If 
 you propose to me again, I'll tell grandfather. I give you 
 my word I will ! " 
 
 Ratty subsided at this threat into sulky silence, and a few 
 minutes later Pam came down from Maxse's room after 
 having given the invalid a brief description of events, and 
 went into the library where her grandfather, the victim since 
 the day before of a sharp attack of his old enemy, was 
 installed in his wheel-chair. 
 
 " It's done, G. F.," she exclaimed gaily, kissing him. 
 " Evelyn Maxse is dead ; long live Lady Chesney ! " 
 
 The old man looked at her keenly. " So Peele came down 
 after all," he said. 
 
 " Yes. Ratty says the Duchess told Aunt Rosamond 
 yesterday, but I didn't know, either. I looked up during the 
 service, and' there he was, sweetly squeezed in between the 
 Duchess and Lady Henrietta. He looks very ill, by the way." 
 
 " Humph ! " Lord Yeoland rubbed his nose and, after 
 a pause, went on : " Here's a list I've made. If you let any
 
 P A M 341 
 
 of these people get in here, I'll shoot 'em in their tracks. 
 Mind you look out, now ! " 
 
 The young girl took the slip of paper and left the room, 
 frowning thoughtfully. She was very quick at feeling other 
 people's moods, and she knew that something connected with 
 James Peele had disturbed her grandfather. 
 
 In the hall she met the Lady Henrietta and Peele, and 
 stood quite still as they approached, an involuntary tribute to 
 the wonderful beauty of the woman in the shimmering silver- 
 coloured gown. 
 
 " How do you do, Miss Pam ? " Peele shook hands with 
 her and then asked for news of her grandfather. 
 
 " He is not very well ; he has the gout horribly, poor dear ; 
 isn't it a pity ? " 
 
 " It is, indeed." 
 
 The Lady Henrietta patted her arm as Peele spoke, and 
 after a short pause said kindly: " You look ill, Pam, what 
 is it, a headache? " 
 
 " No. I am troubled about something I slept badly." 
 
 " You are young to be troubled, dear. Perhaps we can 
 help you, when the people are gone and we can be quiet." 
 
 Pam shook her head. " No, you can't," she said almost 
 ungraciously. " No one can, but I'll be all right." 
 
 As she spoke she noticed a telegram that Peele held in his 
 hand. " Is that for me? " she added, surprised. 
 
 " Yes. I found a servant looking for you," returned the 
 Lady Henrietta, " and I said I'd give it to you." 
 
 The young girl opened the message, which was very long, 
 and read it slowly, a slow flush creeping up her face. 
 
 "Pam, Pam!" The Lady Henrietta shook her finger 
 playfully at the girl as she spoke. " I never saw you blush 
 before!" 
 
 " I it is something very good and kind. I I must go, 
 Lady Henrietta." Turning, she ran swiftly up the shallow
 
 342 P A M 
 
 oaken stairs. When she had reached her room and bolted 
 the door, she sat down and reread the telegram. 
 
 " Have seen R. [it said], and will not trouble you again. 
 Am staying on here as long as she needs me, and if I can be 
 of use to you in any way wire me Langham, and I will come. 
 I promise not to say a word to you about myself. For God's 
 sake, do nothing about P. without telling your grandfather. 
 God bless you, and as long as I live I am at your disposition. 
 Permanent address, Cooke Melbourne. 
 
 " CHARNLEY BURKE." 
 
 For a long time the girl sat musing. He was very good, 
 Charnley Burke, and very unselfish, and his love for her was 
 strong and sincere. It was a pity that she had not fallen in 
 love with him ! 
 
 At last, putting the telegram in her pocket, she went down- 
 stairs again.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 EVELYN, sitting in a low chair in the skirt of her wed- 
 ding gown, while her maid changed her satin shoes for a 
 very smart pair of patent-leather boots, wept softly, dabbing 
 her eyes with her handkerchief which she had rolled into a 
 ball. 
 
 Pam, standing by the dressing-table, very erect, her hands 
 behind her, looked on in stern disapproval. 
 
 " Your howling in this way is a charming tribute to your 
 husband," she observed drily, in French. 
 
 Evelyn sniffed. " I know it ; it's awful, but I can't help 
 it. Vm so nervous I could die." 
 
 The bride's French brought a faint smile to her cousin's 
 mouth, but that critical person only nodded. " Want some 
 orange-flower water? I'll get you some of Uncle Dick's," 
 she asked in English after a pause. 
 
 " No, thanks. Pam, is my nose red ? " 
 
 " Red as a beet. Really, Evy, I'd be raging if I were Sir 
 George. Why are you crying ? " 
 
 Evelyn rose suddenly, unhooked her skirt, stepped out 
 of it, and kicking it aside with an indifference that alarmed 
 Pam, said to her maid : " You may go, Harkness, and when 
 I want you I'll ring. Pam," she went on hurriedly, as the 
 door closed, " Mamma will be coming in a minute, and I 
 must tell you first. Look here, and you'll see why I cry." 
 
 Opening a drawer of her writing-table, she took out a 
 book and a letter and handed them to the now thoroughly 
 alarmed Pam. 
 
 343
 
 344 P AM 
 
 "A Bible! My dear Evy, you aren't crying about a 
 Bible! " But her jocular tone failed her as she glanced at 
 the open letter. 
 
 " MY DEAR EVELYN : I am sending you a Bible as a 
 wedding gift. Please let it be the one you use. And now, 
 writing you for the last time, I can only repeat what you 
 know, that I shall never forget you and never love any one 
 else. You have made your choice, and I pray that you may 
 be happy. You will at least have all the comforts to which 
 you are used. I am going to Africa with the Bishop of 
 Natal. I may be able to do some good there. 
 
 " Good-bye again, and God bless you. 
 
 " CECIL MORECAMBE." 
 
 Pam read the letter twice, and then looked up with a 
 frown at which the bride trembled. 
 
 " You have been writing each other all the time," she 
 said sternly. 
 
 " Oh, Pam, I couldn't help it. I I love, I mean, I 
 loved him so." 
 
 " How did you get his letters? " 
 
 " He used to send them to Mary Kirke." 
 
 " Mary Kirke ! Well, and so you have been having a 
 a love correspondence while you were engaged. I must 
 say, Evelyn, I am ashamed of you. There is nothing so 
 loathesome as a sneak! And now you are Lady Chesney! " 
 
 " You have no right to call me a sneak, Pam Yeoland." 
 
 " Yes. I have, because you are one. And a coward, or 
 you would not have given Cecil up, just because he was poor. 
 Bah! how he must despise you! " 
 
 Evelyn sank into the chair at her dressing-table and wept 
 with an utter disregard for her nose which Pam's practical 
 mind at once observed.
 
 P A M 345 
 
 " Now stop crying," she said, giving her flaccid cousin an 
 energetic shake. " You'll look like a boiled lobster if you 
 don't. Come, here's camphor; smell it hard, never mind if 
 it does burn. I'll get hot water, and rose-water. And I'm 
 going to burn this letter of Cecil's, and you must just try and 
 forget all about him; it's all you can do now." 
 
 A few minutes later the bride, with a scrap of old batiste 
 soaked in rose water tenderly wrapped about her nose, sat 
 with downcast but dry eyes before her glass, while Pam's 
 deft hands braided and arranged her hair for the last time. 
 
 " You see, Evy, I told you long ago, when he first pro- 
 posed, that it would be as easy as rolling off a log to just 
 tell grandfather that you would marry him. And I told 
 him Cecil that, too." 
 
 " You tell everybody things, Pam," returned Evy with 
 a movement of not inexcusable resentment. " You always 
 did think you could do everything. Just wait until you 
 get into a muddle, and see how easy it is to get out of it ! " 
 
 Pam's hands faltered for a moment in their work among 
 the speaker's honey-coloured tresses, and then, with a peculiar 
 little smile, she answered gaily : " I know, Evy, you poor 
 thing, I am horribly arbitrary, but then, you see, when I can 
 see my way one bit I never hesitate never!" 
 
 " I suppose you think I saw my way with Cecil writing 
 frantic letters to me, and Sir George I mean George get- 
 ting engaged to me almost before I knew it! " 
 
 Pam bent down and kissed her hot cheek, in a sudden im- 
 pulse of pity. " Poor Evy! I'm sorry I was so cross, dear, 
 but you know what a fiend of a temper I have. There! 
 Your hair's perfect; look at it sideways. I'll ring for Hark- 
 ness now and go down. Grandfather told me not to desert 
 him. All the Horrors have found him out in the Red Room 
 and he's having an awful time ! " 
 
 As she went downstairs she met her aunt ascending.
 
 346 P AM 
 
 " Your grandfather wants you, Pam," Mrs. Maxse said, 
 " and your uncle too." 
 
 "All right, Aunt Rosamund; I'll go to grandfather first, 
 and then I'll come back to Uncle Dick. Don't let Evy cry 
 again, or Sir George will refuse to take her ! " 
 
 Lord Yeoland's pleasant little plan of seeing, in his retreat, 
 only those people who did not bore him had of course been 
 foiled, and when Pam entered the Red Room she found him 
 struggling in a bog of conversation with the wife of a neigh- 
 bouring squire who, being deeply interested in bees, took 
 for granted in all others a similar love for those irritatingly 
 exemplar little creatures, and who had for the last quarter 
 of an hour been discoursing to the old gentleman on the 
 merits of her own pet hives and the glaring defects of all 
 others. 
 
 " Eh, Pam, my dear," Lord Yeoland exclaimed with that 
 heartfelt cordiality with which one greets one's rescuer from 
 a bore, "you know Mrs. Bevis, I think? She has been 
 telling me the most enchanting things about her bees." 
 
 " Indeed ! How delightful. But you musn't be selfish, 
 grandfather, and keep Mrs. Bevis all to yourself. Have you 
 seen the roses? " she added, turning to the good lady with a 
 little burst of enthusiasm and cordiality that brought an 
 instantly repressed grin to Lord Yeoland's face. 
 
 A moment later Mrs. Bevis had buttonholed the Marquis, 
 and was shouting into his better ear a few polite questions 
 about his health which cunningly led the way to apiculture, 
 and Pam had escaped. 
 
 She stood for a few minutes on the lawn, sighing with 
 relief, her face relaxed into troubled lines, her brows drawn 
 together. 
 
 " 'Just wait until I get into a muddle,' " she said aloud, 
 quoting Evelyn's words to her with a short laugh. " A 
 muddle!" Catching sight, as she spoke, of the Duchess
 
 P A M 347 
 
 at one of the drawing-room windows, the young girl turned 
 and, crossing the lawn, went into the ruin and ran up the 
 stairs to the top of the tower. The block of wood, whose 
 failure as a foothold had forced her to be present at Peek's 
 proposal to the Lady Henrietta the year before, was still 
 there, and, sitting down on it, the girl rested her chin on her 
 hands, and tried to think. 
 
 It was hard for her to force her thoughts into any definite 
 channel, for they were wide-spread and disconnected, un- 
 decided and confused. 
 
 Peek's presence had been a shock to her, the more so 
 because of the Duchess's interrupted confidence on the 
 evening before. As she had told Evelyn, whenever she 
 could see her way she had no hesitation about boldly taking 
 it, regardless of possible or inevitable results; but here she 
 could see no way. 
 
 Everything seemed, since she had decided that Peek's 
 future depended more or less on her, once more a whirl of 
 indecision, for the Lady Henrietta had again come into the 
 foreground, and her rights again loomed before the girl's 
 eyes. 
 
 Peek had come, the Lady Henrietta had unobtrusively 
 assumed a right of ownership over him, and Arcadia seemed, 
 at best, only a dream. 
 
 To Pam's impatient mind nothing was so maddening as 
 this indecision. " If I could only decide what to do," she 
 told herself with a frown, " I could do it if it killed me; but 
 the more I think the less I can tell what would be best for 
 him. And after all, I may be just a vain fool to imagine 
 that he cares that much for me. He might forget all about 
 me in six months, and she could help him in a thousand ways. 
 And she is beautiful, and good, and kind, and I am brown 
 and ugly and illegitimate. Or, perhaps I am not that any 
 more, since father and mother are married."
 
 348 P A M 
 
 As she arrived at this irrelevant point in her musings 
 her quick ear caught the sound of footsteps in the ruin, and 
 she sat up listening. She knew, before he appeared in the 
 stairway, that it was Peele, and that he had followed her. 
 
 " Well ! " he said, coming towards her. 
 
 " Well ? " She did not move as she looked up with a 
 silent nod, " You look very smart in that coat." 
 
 " Do I? I'm glad. Pam, what are you doing here? " 
 
 " Sitting on a block of wood and glowering." 
 
 " I can see that much. I saw you coming, and I came 
 too." 
 
 " I can see that much. What do you want? " 
 
 Peele leaned against the parapet and, folding his arms, 
 smiled at her. " You are in a very bad temper, aren't 
 you ? " he asked. 
 
 " Yes. I am in a devilish temper. I wish you'd go away 
 and leave me." 
 
 "Do you really, Pam?" 
 
 She met his eyes steadily. " Yes. Why did you come 
 to the wedding at all ? I saw your ' regrets ' myself." 
 
 " Henrietta wired me." 
 
 " Oh. Well, I didn't wire you." 
 
 " Pam, stand up." 
 
 " Thanks, I am very comfortable." 
 
 " Stand up, I say." He spoke very quietly, but, half out 
 of curiosity, she obeyed him. 
 
 Then he took her hands and looked into her eyes. 
 
 " Will you marry me? " 
 
 " I told you there that I would not." 
 
 " That was in Arcadia. This is life, and it has to be 
 faced." 
 
 There was a long pause, during which she made such an 
 effort to stop feeling and to begin to think that she grew 
 very pale.
 
 P A M 349 
 
 " Pam, will you marry me? " 
 
 " If I said yes," she faltered, " what would you say to 
 Henrietta? " 
 
 " I should tell her the truth, and ask her forgiveness. I 
 have done nothing but think about it, and it's the only way. 
 Dear? " 
 
 His eyes were full of tears as he spoke, and the tears so 
 softened and changed his face that she longed to pull his 
 head to her breast and comfort him as a mother does her 
 child. Then he said her name, very softly. " Pam," and 
 " the way " she had been seeking opened before her. He 
 needed her so much that all the objections she had against 
 marrying shrunk to nothingness. She must become his 
 wife. 
 
 With a great heart-throb she was about to answer him, 
 when something broke the encompassing quiet. " Jim ! 
 Jim, are you here? " 
 
 It was Henrietta Shanklin's voice in the refectory below. 
 "Jim!" 
 
 Pam drew her hands from Peele and, putting them behind 
 her, whispered the one word, " Go." 
 
 " I cannot. You must marry me." 
 
 " I will not. Never. Go." 
 
 " You have no right to chop and change like this. You 
 must marry me ! " 
 
 "Jim, are you there?" called the other woman from 
 below. Pam looked straight at him. " I have been a fool 
 to waver. I always knew that you must keep your promise 
 to her. Go." 
 
 And without a word he left her. 
 
 " I saw you sneaking away by yourself, you unsociable 
 creature! " his fiancee called as he reached the ground, " and 
 I rather hoped you might be here. Jim, how pale you 're ! 
 What is it ? You are not ill again ? "
 
 350 P A M 
 
 Pam listened eagerly, leaning against the parapet where 
 he had leaned. 
 
 " 111? Of course I'm not. I saw that bee-woman search- 
 ing for another victim, and I bolted, that's all. What a 
 lovely old place this is." 
 
 " Yes. Do you remember, Jim ? " Her voice was sud- 
 denly very tender, and Pam gave a forced nod of approval as 
 she listened. 
 
 " If he isn't nice to her, I'll kill him! " the girl thought, 
 hugging the thorn to her breast. 
 
 Then, suddenly, she drew a quick breath and closed her 
 eyes. 
 
 " Henny," Peele was saying, very distinctly, " I am sail- 
 ing for South Africa four weeks from to-day, with Miller. 
 Will you marry me before I go ? " 
 
 Pam heard no answer, but she knew that the Lady Hen- 
 rietta was crying in Peele's arms.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 AN hour later Pam knocked at Lord Yeoland's door. 
 
 " Grandfather, I have come to ask a favour of you! " 
 
 The old man looked up from the fire he had every even- 
 ing, even in the spring days. 
 
 "A favour? You have only to ask, Pam." 
 
 The young girl came to the fire and sat down, her white 
 dressing-gown falling gracefully about her, and tinged with 
 pink by the dancing flames. 
 
 "May I wear my grandmother's emerald to-night?" 
 
 " Your grandmother's emerald ! What in the name of 
 all that's irrelevant has put that into your head, my dear? " 
 
 " I don't know, but I should love to wear it. It isn't," 
 she added, "as if it were cut, you know. Lots of people 
 will think it's a chrysoprase." 
 
 " That's true. Well, yes ; I see no reason why you should 
 not wear it. Is there any particular reason why you 
 should?" 
 
 Pam drew one of her long plaits thoughtfully through her 
 hands. 
 
 " Yes, G. F., dear, there is a reason. You see, Pam is 
 looking very pale to-night, and dreadfully like Cally, and 
 as she is to go to her first ball she wants to look well." 
 
 " The emerald will be very unbecoming, if you are pale." 
 
 " Yes. It will make me paler, but people will think that 
 it is it that makes me pale, do you see ? " 
 
 " I see. And it will not be the emerald ? " 
 
 " Noj grandfather." 
 
 351
 
 352 P A M 
 
 " I wonder," the old man leaned over and laid his hand 
 on her shoulder as he spoke, " I wonder, Pam, whether 
 you had not better tell me what it is ? " 
 
 She did not answer, and he went on, a little wistfully, 
 " I don't want to force your confidence, my dear, but, we 
 have always been good friends." 
 
 " Grandfather," she returned, looking at him, " it is this: 
 Mr. Peele asked me to marry him this afternoon, and I 
 refused." 
 
 " Peele! " She did not notice that the old man expressed 
 no surprise. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 There was a long pause, and then Pam added quietly, 
 " That's why. May I have the emerald ? " 
 
 " You may have all the emeralds if you want 'em. Or 
 perhaps perhaps you'd rather have the diamonds, my 
 dear?" 
 
 The girl rose, and burst into a merry laugh. " Oh, grand- 
 father, what a lamb you are! No, thank you, dearest old 
 man, I don't want the diamonds, and I'm glad I told you, 
 but we won't say any more about it." 
 
 " No," returned Lord Yeoland promptly, " not a word." 
 
 Pam held out her hand, grateful for his forbearance, and 
 they shook hands gravely, as two men might have done. 
 Then she flung the tail of her gown over her arm and went 
 to the door. " Will you send ft up to my room ? Or shall 
 Pilly fetch it?" 
 
 " Pilgrim had better fetch it, my dear." 
 
 When he was alone Lord Yeoland sat for a long time 
 staring at the fire. He had asked no questions and made 
 no protest, but Pam's confirmation of the story he had heard 
 that morning had made him sad. His plans for the girl had 
 been many, and he now knew instinctively that they had come 
 to naught.
 
 P A M 353 
 
 It had been quite out of his reckoning that the girl should 
 fall in love with a man she couldn't marry, but even if he 
 had been unprovided with data on the subject, one look at 
 her white face would have been sufficient to convince him 
 that she did love Peele. 
 
 When Pilgrim came in for the jewel, which the old man 
 had had brought to him, she found him still brooding over the 
 fire. 
 
 " You were right, Jane," he said without looking up ; 
 " she has told me herself." 
 
 "Oh, my Lord, told you herself! My poor Pam, my 
 child, my dearie! " 
 
 " Yes. But you were wrong, as I told you, about Mr. 
 about the gentleman in question. He asked her to marry 
 him and she refused. That was all." 
 
 Pilgrim clasped her hands and gave a sort of groan of 
 relief. " Thank God, my Lord, thank God ! I am an old 
 fool, your Lordship, ever to think anything else was possible, 
 but I 'ave seen 'ow w r e were looked askant at always, and 
 I've 'card talk among the servants, and then, at Torpington, 
 she a-goin' in 'er hinnocence to 'is very 'ouse every day! 
 And 'er Ladyship's maid talking about the engagement " 
 
 The poor woman's voice broke, and she pressed one bony 
 hand hard to her mouth to hide its trembling. 
 
 Lord Yeoland looked at her kindly. " Well, well, my 
 good creature," he said after a pause, and holding up a 
 slender gold fillet, on which gleamed a great pear-shaped 
 cabochon emerald, " take this up to her, and just tell her, 
 will you, that she is to to keep it." 
 
 "Oh, my Lord! 'Ow glad she will be ! Thank you, my 
 Lord, that is, I 'ave no business to thank your Lordship, 
 but " 
 
 The old man waved his hand at her in gentle impa- 
 tience.
 
 354 PAM 
 
 " There, there, Jane, that will do, I quite understand. And 
 I wish to tell you that I appreciate all your love for and 
 care of my grand-daughter. I I shall provide for your 
 old age. Now please go," he added hastily, pointing to the 
 door. " I don't wish for any thanks; you are a faithful ser- 
 vant and friend, and I shall provide for you. Just ring for 
 my man, will you ? " 
 
 Pilgrim rushed from the room, to burst into tears in the 
 hall, so that, when she went to Pam, that young lady turned 
 from her with a gesture of despair. " Great heavens, Pilly, 
 you have been crying and your nose is as red as Evelyn's 
 was! I seem to be haunted by fiery-eyed,, glossy-faced 
 weeping-willows to-day! Ah, you have it. Give it to me." 
 
 She had arranged her hair something in the way the 
 Parisian hair-dresser had tried to teach Pilgrim, parted and 
 rolled back into a soft knot on the nape of her neck; it 
 looked, for some reason, lighter, done this way, and the 
 waves over her ears were shot with coppery red. 
 
 " The emerald is so big no one will believe it's real," 
 she observed, settling the fillet firmly on her head and 
 securing it. " Makes me pale, too, doesn't it? " she added, 
 watching the maid's swollen face in the glass. 
 
 " You are pale, anyway, to-night, Pam," Pilgrim answered, 
 laying one hand on the girl's bare shoulder with unwonted 
 tenderness. 
 
 "Am I? Hard luck, at my first ball, isn't it? How- 
 ever, I am never pretty, so it doesn't much matter." 
 
 " Never pretty ! you aren't a wax doll, like some, if that's 
 what you mean." 
 
 " It is. Exactly what I mean. Has my bouquet come 
 up?" 
 
 " It's here, I'm just opening the paper. Oh, Pam Miss 
 Pam, I mean, whatever possessed you to order them nasty 
 snaky things ! "
 
 P A M 355 
 
 The despised flowers were exquisite pale-green orchids 
 splashed with velvety brown and white streaks. 
 
 Pam laughed. " You goose, it took half an hour's coaxing, 
 and an order from grandfather, to get them out of 
 McWhirter ! They are his very finest orchids ! " 
 
 " But they are green, and you will look like a ghost! " 
 
 " Silly Pilly! I shall be a dream of beauty. Now, hurry 
 up and dress me, or I'll be late for dinner! " 
 
 Half an hour later the young girl knocked at the 
 Duchess's door, and went into the room where her Grace 
 was deep in the mysteries of the toilet of the young-looking 
 woman of sixty-five. 
 
 Several red curls lay on the dressing-table, and rouge pots 
 and powder-boxes yawned boldly in the electric lights, but 
 the Duchess was quite unconcerned over the exposure. 
 
 " How d'ye do, my dear," she said sociably, powdering 
 her nose. " What a beautiful frock. Just go into the other 
 room for a minute, will you," she added to her maid, going 
 on as the door closed : " She'll glue her ear to the keyhole, 
 but never mind. One has to pretend to a certain reserve. 
 Pam, I have news for you ! " 
 
 " Have you? " Pam looked at her with brave eyes, but 
 her hands trembled as she smoothed her gloves. 
 
 " Yes. About Henny. They are to be married in three 
 weeks! What do you think of that?" 
 
 " I am very glad." 
 
 " And so am I ! Henny is a queer mortal, not a bit like 
 me, and I am always tempted to tease her, but I am glad. I 
 think Jim may be happier, too, when they are once married. 
 He is going out in Albert Miller's Commission the week 
 after the wedding, but that can't be helped." 
 
 Pam stared. " But she will go with him! " 
 
 "Henny? To South Africa? Not she, my dear. She 
 is a wretched sailor and can't stand roughing it at all. She
 
 356 P AM 
 
 will stay at home and get the house ready. They ar\, to 
 have my house in Berkeley Square. The time will pass 
 quickly enough, particularly as they are to have new pWimb- 
 ing put in. How's my complexion ? " 
 
 Pam examined her critically. "I'd rub off a bit xmder 
 your right eye. Yes, that's better; well, I'll go dowvi and 
 not bother you. I am very glad, Duchess." 
 
 The dressing-room was empty when she entered It, but 
 a moment later Sir Henry Pockington and Peele cam* in. 
 
 " My uncle was a little worse this evening, Sir Henry," 
 Pam explained, shaking hands with him, " so my aunt is late. 
 How do you do, Mr. Peele? " 
 
 " How do you do, Miss Yeoland ? " 
 
 Sir Henry, of whom Pam had always been rather a pet, 
 looked at her admiringly. " Well, Miss Pam I suppose 
 you will allow me to observe that you are looking lovely. 
 Lovely, by Jove ! " 
 
 " I am glad you think so. My maid told me the emerald 
 and orchids made me too pale," she returned, with civil care- 
 lessness. 
 
 " Not a bit, not a bit. I hate your apple-fated women, 
 don't you, Peele?" 
 
 " I do indeed." 
 
 " And I must say," Sir Henry went on, putting on feis 
 rimless pince-nez and looking down at the top of the girl's 
 head, " that I never saw such hair in my life! " 
 
 Pam laughed. " Here comes Aunt Rosamund," she said, 
 " and it is time she did. Sir Henry is spoiling me most 
 dreadfully, Aunt Rosamund." 
 
 Mrs. Maxse, plainer than ever in her stone-coloured satin 
 gown, her eyes swollen with tears, laughed nervously. 
 
 " Ah, Mr. Peele! " she cried, shaking hands with the elder 
 man, " my father has just told me the news. How delight- 
 ful it is!"
 
 P A M 357 
 
 Pam passed her arm affectionately through that of the 
 poor woman who had lost her only comfort. " Doesn't she 
 look as though weddings delighted her ? " the girl asked 
 gently. " Poor Aunt Rosamund, just think how soon she 
 will be back!" 
 
 Then, as more guests arrived, she went to the window 
 near which Peele was standing, looking out into the rose- 
 garden, and held out her hand to him. 
 
 " I hope you will be very happy," she said simply. 
 
 " Thanks." He did not take her hand, nor did he look at 
 her as he spoke. 
 
 " You are not angry with me? " 
 
 He turned, his face expressionless. "Angry?" he re- 
 peated coldly. " Certainly not. Why should I' be angry? 
 You are a very wise womaa ; anything else would have been 
 pitiable folly." 
 
 Passing her, he sauntered through the open window, and 
 a moment later, as she stood talking to the Lady Henrietta, 
 he came back, carefully breaking the thorn off a rose he had 
 picked, and then putting it in his coat.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 TO Lord Yeoland's unspeakable and unspoken relief, Pam 
 not only did not recur to the subject of Peele, nor did she 
 visibly pine. The change in her was so slight as to be 
 unnoticed by every one except her grandfather and Pil- 
 grim, and to comfort them at first by the thought that she 
 possibly did not much care, after all. 
 
 Pilgrim, indeed, had, in her satisfaction on hearing of 
 Peele's proposal, for a time considered everything to be in 
 order; for, according to the good woman's simple ethics, if 
 Pam had wanted Peele she'd have taken him. But the 
 maid's eyes were sharper than those of many mothers, and 
 several small signs observed by her combined little by little 
 to teach her that, bravely as she did it, Pam had had a serious 
 blow, and still suffered under it. 
 
 The girl laid awake at night instead of sleeping, and her 
 eyes, more like the monkey's than ever, were heavy. She 
 was very cheerful, reading aloud to Dick Maxse, who was 
 a little better, playing cards with him, and trying, in a 
 boyish way that was not without a shade of pathos, to do 
 for her aunt various little things that had always fallen to 
 Evelyn's share. 
 
 Every morning she read the Times to her grandfather, 
 and he once saw how, after reading with unfaltering voice 
 a letter on the South African Commission in which much 
 was said of James Peele, every bit of colour left her 
 face. 
 
 358
 
 P A M 359 
 
 The old man shook his head as she went on to the next 
 article; it was, after all, then, as serious as he had at first 
 thought, but he did not speak of it. 
 
 A week had passed, after the wedding, and Ratty had gone 
 back to Oxford, after a final interview with his cousin in 
 which his attitude had been one of despair mixed with pat- 
 ronage, and hers one of rather unusual patience. " I am 
 sorry, Ratty," she said, at parting, " but as I couldn't ever 
 marry you under any consideration whatever, I really think 
 you'd better stop thinking of it." 
 
 " Just like a girl. You always were an idiot, Pam ! " 
 returned the swain, sending a shower of gravel over the 
 lawn with a savage kick, " as if I could stop thinking 
 of it!" 
 
 The girl laughed. " Then try to remember how you 
 always despised me, that ought to be a comfort. Think 
 what an idiot I am and always was; how thin I am; how 
 much I look like Cally. You surely, in your sane moments, 
 don't want a wife who looks like that, do you ? " 
 
 Caliban, who came hirpling along over the grass towards 
 her, after a short voyage of discovery in the shrubbery, and 
 muttering with many grimaces, in the usual disillusion of 
 explorers, was certainly not attractive, and Ratty, burying 
 his hands in his trousers pockets, burst into reluctant 
 laughter. 
 
 " You are a wonder, Pam ! I declare, I don't believe 
 there's another like you on the face of the earth. There 
 are a dozen girls, even in this dead-and-alive neighbourhood, 
 who are a thousand times prettier than you, and who can 
 play, or paint, and all that, while you can't do a thing, and 
 ^et a fellow can't get you out of his head ! " 
 
 Pam looked up suddenly from her occupation of stroking 
 Caliban, her eyes alight with interest. " Really, Ratty ? 
 Do you honestly think that that a fellow can't get me
 
 360 P A M 
 
 out of his head? I mean, that I should be hard to forget 
 altogether?" 
 
 Ratty shrugged his shoulders, a trick he had learned 
 from the girl herself. " If you are thinking of Lassels," 
 he returned, with sullen malice, " I don't think that his 
 attentions at the ball meant much. I'm a fool about you, 
 sometimes, but Lassels is going to be the Marquis of Bud- 
 combe, my good girl, you must remember." 
 
 She raised her eye-brows, looking at him with a gentle 
 scorn that made him uncomfortable. " Try not to be a 
 cad, Ratty," she said quietly, holding out her hand. " The 
 dog-cart is there, and Aunt Rosamund looking for you. 
 Good-bye." 
 
 Thus, the household diminished by two, the week passed. 
 
 Dick Maxse, much afflicted by the fact that his wife, 
 bereft of her daughter, now devoted more of her time to 
 him than ever before, sought distraction in a mild flirtation 
 with one of his nurses, a pretty young woman from St. 
 Thomas's; Lord Yeoland had two bad days, and was better 
 again ; Pam took long walks in the late afternoons and passed 
 the rest of her time with one or the other of her relatives; 
 Pilgrim studied her mistress with a humble zeal that sat 
 oddly on her gaunt face. 
 
 One day Pam and Maxse had what the suffering ne'er- 
 do-weel call a "naked-soul talk." 
 
 " But Miss Perry is pretty," he protested innocently, in 
 reply to a vigorous expostulation from the girl. 
 
 " Of course she is pretty, but oh, well, Uncle Dick, for 
 a man who says he is going to live only six months, you 
 really are pretty horrid." 
 
 " Why am I horrid ? " he persisted, with one of his old 
 graceless grins. "What on earth do I do?" 
 
 " Well, couldn't you possibly take your drops without 
 kissing her hand? "
 
 P A M 361 
 
 Pam, very erect in a high-backed chair, Caliban in her 
 arms, looked at him seriously as she spoke, and he turned 
 a little so that he could see her at his ease. 
 
 " Without kissing her hand? Well, yes; if you put it in 
 that way, I suppose I could, but then, why should I ? " 
 
 " Don't you think it would be more dignified ? " 
 
 He burst out laughing. " Dignified ! My dear Amelia, 
 can you imagine, in your wildest flights of imagination, 
 Richard Allison Joyce Maxse being dignified ? " 
 
 " I can imagine him trying," she answered drily. 
 
 " Then you can do more than I can, my dear. Why, 
 look here, Pam, I'll be as dead as Queen Anne in six months' 
 time, and they'll arrange me nicely in a coffin, with flowers 
 and all that, and then what will happen? The 'dignity of 
 death,' as poets say, will turn away from me, and there 
 won't be one bit of 'majesty ' or ' peace ' or any other of 
 the usual nice things about me. I'll look just as I do now 
 when I'm asleep like a poor devil who has had his day, 
 and done all those things he ought not to have done. And 
 to go back to Miss Perry (first name Daisy!)" he resumed, 
 with unabashed cheeriness. " I've kissed her hand for a 
 week now, and I couldn't stop or it would hurt her feelings." 
 
 Pam rose. " Well, at least be careful not to hurt Aunt 
 Rosamund's feelings; let her have some nice things to remem- 
 ber about you." 
 
 " ' Sweet as remembered kisses, after death.' " he 
 chuckled, as she left the room. 
 
 On her way downstairs she met a servant with some 
 letters for her, and going into the library sat down by an 
 open window and read them. 
 
 The first was a short note from her mother, written from 
 St. Jean de Luz, and containing the news that she and 
 Sacheverel were thinking of going to Japan in a yacht with 
 some friends.
 
 362 P A M 
 
 Pam gave a short laugh, which was not mirthful, and 
 took up her second letter, which was from the Duchess: 
 
 " DEAR PAM : Thanks so much for sending my slippers. 
 That creature forgets everything. I am a wreck, and no 
 rouge can hide the ravages made by fatigue in flying about 
 getting Henrietta's things. The wedding, of course, is to 
 be very quiet, but I want you to come, and to stay with 
 me until it is over. Will you? It is quite improper of 
 me to want you, you know. I ought to ask Maria's Alice, 
 but the child bites her nails and drives me mad, whereas 
 you and I always agree. You may bring your suite, ' Pilly 
 and Cally,' with you, and we'll do some theatres incog., if 
 you like. Now don't rush off and visit some person in 
 Derbyshire this time, please, or I'll never speak to you again. 
 My love to your Grandfather and tell him that I will take 
 good care of you. " Yours affectionately, 
 
 " ELIZA WIGHT." 
 
 Pam read this letter twice, and then opened the last, 
 which was from Burke: 
 
 "DEAR PAM: Madame Ravaglia is dead, and write to 
 tell you, as she asked me to do. She also gave me the en- 
 closed note for you. I have been a good deal with her of 
 late, and you will be glad to hear that towards the last she did 
 not suffer at all. Last night I was there when the priest 
 came and gave her extreme unction. She seemed glad to 
 take communion, and told me that she was not afraid to die. 
 I am feeling rather badly about it, for she was a good friend 
 to me, and at my age one doesn't easily make friends. 
 Thanks for your letter. I am glad my telegram relieved 
 your mind. Of course I shall never trouble you again, and 
 I hope with all my heart that you may be happy. She did
 
 P A M 363 
 
 not tell me who the man is, and I took it for granted it must 
 be Peele, until I saw in a paper this morning the announce- 
 ment of the day of his marriage with some one else. Who- 
 ever he may be I hope you will be happy, and my telegram 
 holds good. The sale of poor Madame Ravaglia's things 
 is going on, and there will be a good deal of money, all of 
 which goes to the Church, I believe. She left her rings to 
 you, did you know? 
 
 " Good-bye, then ; if you knew how I love you you would 
 be sorry for me. Remember, always, that if you ever want 
 me I will come, no matter where I am. You know my 
 banker's address. " CHARNLEY BURKE." 
 
 The letter was badly written, as well as awkwardly 
 expressed, and as Burke, as a rule, was voluble enough, she 
 knew what his nervousness meant. And Ravaglia was dead. 
 It was not a shock, but it was an added loneliness. 
 
 A few minutes later the girl went out on the terrace, 
 where her grandfather sat near the spot where he had first 
 received her, years ago. 
 
 " Grandfather," she began abruptly, " I want you to do 
 something for me. Not a jewel this time; worse; I mean 
 harder for you." 
 
 "What is it, Pam?" 
 
 " The Duchess wants me to go to the wedding, and to 
 stay with her afterwards. Of course I can't, and so I want 
 you to be ill, and need a change of air, and go away with me, 
 somewhere too far for me to go to town. Will you? " 
 
 " Of course I will, my dear. We'll go to the sea or 
 somewhere. To Cornwall, for instance." 
 
 " You are very good to me, grandfather." 
 
 " I want to be, Pam. So that's settled. I'll be worse in 
 the night, and to-morrow I'll make Harris send me to 
 Cornwall."
 
 364 P AM 
 
 Pam went close to him and laid one hand on his shoulder, 
 while her face was turned towards the terrace below. 
 " Just there it was," she said slowly, her voice deepening, 
 " that I came up the path, years ago, with poor old Cally 
 in my arms. I remember it very well. You said, ' Hovr 
 do you do, my dear? I am very glad to see you.' " 
 
 " Yes, and then, a moment later, you informed me that 
 you were at the ugly age," he answered lightly, for some- 
 thing in her voice made him sad. 
 
 " You were very good to me, grandfather, from the 
 first," she went on, taking no notice of his interruption, 
 " and you have always been good. I have never tried to 
 thank you, and I have not been very good to you." 
 
 " There is no need of thanks, my dear, and the only thing 
 I have against you is that you did not always stay with me. 
 You have made my life much pleasanter than it could have 
 been without you, Pam." 
 
 " Have I, grandfather? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Then you will let me stay always, won't you?" she 
 asked, turning at last, and looking at him with moist eyes 
 that suddenly reminded him that he had never seen her 
 cry. 
 
 " Let you stay? I will not let you go, Pam; neither to 
 the Duchess nor to any one else." 
 
 " No one else wants me," she said, with a smile. Then 
 very quickly she stooped, kissed him, and was off like an 
 arrow, speeding down the path until she was lost to view 
 at a turning among the trees. 
 
 Lord Yeoland's eyes were wet as she disappeared 
 " Damn that fellow! " he said aloud.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 TWO days later Lord Yeoland, Pam, Pilgrim, Jenkins, 
 the valet, and Caliban were settled in an hotel on the 
 Cornish coast Hot far from Penzance. It was a delightful 
 spot, surrounded by beautiful drives, and the air was full 
 of the music of the waves as they boomed on the great rocks 
 below. 
 
 " An excellent place for an invalid, Pam ? " the old man 
 asked solemnly, while his servant settled him in a sheltered 
 corner of the garden, the day after their arrival. " I de- 
 clare I feel better already. You must write and tell your 
 aunt the good news." Pam nodded, as her grandfather 
 winked over the back of Jenkins as that functionary tucked 
 the plaid carefully about his master's legs, and rose, with 
 a pleased glance at the wicked old gentleman's beaming face. 
 
 The old man had thoroughly entered into the spirit of 
 the little comedy. In the night following his talk with Pam 
 on the terrace he had had a mysterious seizure involving 
 numerous perplexingly irreconcilable symptoms, and all the 
 next day new ones had developed. " I can't explain," he 
 said irritably to the doctor, who was feeling his pulse for 
 the twentieth time. " It was a tremendous flutter, and a 
 sharp pain, and then I think I fainted. Didn't I faint, 
 Jenkins? " 
 
 " Nearly, M'Lud. The brandy just saved your Lordship 
 from quite going off," returned the faithful servant, who 
 had a turn for dramatic narration. " His Lordship's lips 
 was blue as indigo, sir," he added to the doctor, " and 'is 
 
 365
 
 366 P A M 
 
 'ands like ice. 'Is Lordship 'ad 'orrible pain in 'is stummick, 
 too, afterwards, and electric shocks in 'is spinal cord. ' Jen- 
 kins,' 'is Lordship said to me, ' it's my spinal cord, sure.' " 
 
 " Oh, yes, spinal cord very bad, Harris," the old man 
 added, winking at Pam past Mrs. Maxse, who stood with 
 anxiously fluttering hands by the bed. 
 
 Harris, who was a rather clever man, nodded without 
 speaking. Knowing that Lord Yeoland's heart, spinal cord, 
 and temperature were in as good order as usual, he was 
 not alarmed, but chronic gout may show itself in many 
 ways, and he had no reason for suspecting his patient of 
 malingering, 
 
 Cornwall being suggested by the invalid himself, the 
 doctor agreed at once. Sea air might do gout good; that 
 nothing else did was certain, and as Cornwall seemed to be 
 the remedy for which Lord Yeoland yearned, to Cornwall 
 he was sent. 
 
 Mr. Maxse earnestly urged his father-in-law to take one 
 of his nurses (not Miss Perry) with him, but the old man 
 rebelled at this idea, protesting that Jenkins understood 
 him better than any strange woman could, so Jenkins, very 
 proud of his charge, and armed with divers bottles against 
 a renewal of his Lordship's strange attack, assumed his 
 new honours. 
 
 " I wonder," Lord Yeoland remarked thoughtfully, when 
 the servant had left him alone with Pam, " whether Pilgrim 
 is worried about me? " 
 
 " I think, between you and me," the girl returned, with 
 a laugh, " that Pilgrim strongly suspects you of being a 
 fraud, G. F." 
 
 " I agree with you. There is suspicion in her eyes. And 
 a cold fishy eye it is, too. Pilgrim is excellent, Pam, but 
 she is not an irresistible woman." 
 
 " Poor Pilly! No, she is not. Just look at that fuchsia,
 
 P A M 367 
 
 isn't it exquisite? I suppose all the bells ring at midnight, 
 and make the most lovely music! " 
 
 " It's a beautiful place, Pam. Your friend Ravaglia 
 used to have a house near here, by the way, poor soul ! " 
 
 "Did she? Where?" 
 
 " I don't know exactly, but in this neighbourhood some- 
 where." 
 
 There was a long pause, and then Pam said suddenly, 
 " G. F., tell me about her, won't you? She told me once 
 that somebody would tell me her story some day, and I'd 
 like to hear it." 
 
 " Her story ! Poor soul, she had dozens," answered the 
 old man, picking a rose from the wall near him, and sniffing 
 at it. 
 
 " But her real one? Every one must have a real story." 
 
 " Well, yes. Years ago, when she was living with her 
 husband, a little snuffy avvocato in Sicily, she did some- 
 thing wrong. Then she ran away from her husband, and 
 from the other man, too, and went on the stage. She had 
 no influence, she was not pretty, and for years no one 
 heard of her. She has told me, and I believe her, that 
 during those years her life was irreproachable. At last, 
 suddenly, she became famous. And when she came to Lon- 
 don the first time she met a man, a friend of mine. They 
 fell in love with each other. Tremendously. It was like," 
 he went on thoughtfully, forgetful that he was speaking 
 to a child of eighteen, " a race ; as if each of them wished 
 to love more than the other. He found out that there was 
 nothing known against her, and he was a man of higher 
 rank than I wanted to marry her. Then she told him. 
 Told him of the old days in Sicily. You understand ? " 
 He broke off, looking sharply at his hearer who sat quite 
 motionless, listening to him. 
 
 " Yes, I understand."
 
 368 P A M 
 
 " Well, he didn't marry her, of course. That was all. 
 H'm! It's a sad story. I, personally, always respected her 
 for telling him." 
 
 Pam rested one elbow on her knee, and her chin in her 
 hand, looking up at him. " Whose was the child ? " she 
 asked. " The little girl who died ?" 
 
 " Oh, that was his, my friend's. I didn't know she died." 
 
 " Yes. And then what happened afterwards, grand- 
 father?" 
 
 " H'm! Well, you see, my friend married later. Had 
 to have an heir, of course, and then she, Ravaglia, went 
 to pieces. It was a great pity." 
 
 " Yes. It was a great pity. Grandfather, you wrote to 
 ask her to to go away from me? That time in Aix." 
 
 " Yes, my dear, I did. Her reputation was, with perfect 
 justice, outrageous. She was very nice about doing as I 
 asked her." 
 
 "Yes. She went away and I never saw her again until 
 the other day in Paris. And now she is dead." 
 
 " Yes, God rest her soul," he added, after a pause. 
 
 Pam stared. " That is what the Catholics say," she com- 
 mented. 
 
 " Yes, but it does not hurt a heathen to say it, too." 
 
 It was a perfect morning, and the warm air, full of the 
 sea-tang, was sweet with the scent of growing things. A 
 bee buzzed drowsily among the gilly-flowers : a bird sang 
 in an apple-tree. 
 
 For several minutes Lord Yeoland and his grand-daughter 
 were both silent, and then, without changing her position, 
 the young girl spoke. 
 
 " G. F., I want to tell you about Mr. Peele." 
 
 " If you wish to, my dear. Otherwise, it is not at all 
 necessary." 
 
 " I do wish to. Because you think you understand, but
 
 P A M 369 
 
 you don't. You see it was this way. When I was at 
 Torpington, he was ill that is, overworked, and nearly 
 ill and I used to go to see him at his house. It was silly, 
 but it didn't seem so then, somehow. And he was very 
 good to me, and we had such good times together. Then 
 I went away, to Houlgate, and mother was not well all 
 the summer, and I wrote to him (he had asked me to, of 
 course) and he never answered, and I was angry with him. 
 Mother's illness made me nearly forget all about him, 
 though, and you know about the wedding. Well," she 
 paused, but did not move, her dark eyes full of the sunlight 
 as she looked steadily at the old man, whose lips were 
 trembling with his sudden overwhelming realisation of her 
 great youth, as she told him her story, all in the past tense. 
 " That evening after the wedding I was lonely, somehow, 
 and I went for a swim to amuse myself. When I came up 
 from the sea, there he was, in our grounds, as if he had 
 fallen from the sky. And we had supper together, and I 
 was very happy, but I didn't know why. Really, I didn't, 
 G. F. But when it was time for him to go, then I suddenly 
 knew, and so did he. He kissed me. Once." 
 
 Again she paused. " He said it was Arcadia. That is 
 the name of our villa, you know. And he said that he 
 could not stay. That was because he was engaged. I don't 
 know whether I ever told you, grandfather," she went on 
 with a change of tone that startled him like an abrupt 
 change of key in a song, " that I don't believe in marriage." 
 
 " Yes, you once told me." 
 
 " Well, I had told him, too. And Madame Ravaglia 
 had once said to me something about the man I should 
 some day love, and that he would have a right to my past, 
 as well as to my future. (That was what she meant, my 
 poor dear, what you told me, you know!) Well, in Tor- 
 pington he had teased me about it, about my ' him,' and
 
 370 P A M 
 
 because I said it was a mistake to marry. And then, that 
 evening after the wedding, he talked about it again. And 
 when he kissed me, then I knew that we loved each other. 
 He didn't come the next day, and I forgot all about Lady 
 Henny. It seemed to me that well I simply didn't think 
 of her at all. But when I dined with them all the next 
 evening, then I remembered, and I decided not to see him 
 again." 
 
 "And he let you decide?" 
 
 " No. He came the next day. I had written him a 
 letter saying good-bye. And he had one for me, also saying 
 good-bye. We read them together," she added, with a laugh. 
 " It must have been funny, only we didn't know it." 
 
 " And when you had read the letters ? " 
 
 There was still the glimmer of curious detached amuse- 
 ment in her eyes as she went on. " We went down the 
 hill and spent the day together. We were very sensible, 
 G. F. ; we knew it must be the last time, but we wanted just 
 that one day." 
 
 " Just the one day, oh, Lord ! " groaned the old man. 
 
 " Yes, and then suddenly, he asked me to marry him. Or 
 rather he just said that I must. And I said I wouldn't." 
 
 " On Henny Shanklin's account? " 
 
 Pam rose. " No, grandfather, not altogether. He is 
 not strong, you know, and he works too hard. It seems to 
 me that I could take care of him, and help him that he 
 needed me more than he needed Lady Henny's money 
 and position." 
 
 " Pam, I am an old man, and I have seen a good deal of 
 the English world. The devil lays no craftier snare than 
 that ' thinking you can help.' That has wrecked more 
 women than but go on, my dear, go on, my poor child." 
 
 " The trouble was that I would not say I'd marry him. 
 I I do not believe in it, you see."
 
 P A M 37T 
 
 " I see. Go on." 
 
 " And he insisted, and I refused, and then he fainted." 
 
 "And you yielded." 
 
 " No, I didn't. I kept on refusing, grandfather ; I said 
 I'd go anywhere with him." 
 
 Standing there in her cotton frock, her hands clasped 
 before her, she reminded him irresistibly of the way she 
 stood under the trees the day she had knocked Dick Maxse 
 down ; the day he had realised that she had a soul. 
 
 " So you said you'd go anywhere with him ! " 
 
 " Yes, grandfather. I love him, you see. And he said 
 no, and that was all. I came away leaving it undecided. 
 Only I hated to hurt him." 
 
 " I know. Go on, Pam." He spoke very gently, and 
 Jenkins, catching a glimpse of his face from a window, went 
 and opened a bottle of brandy. 
 
 "Well, Madame Ravaglia I told her about it, too; she 
 seemed to think that I should of course marry him. And 
 then I came to Monks' Yeoland, and there was the wedding, 
 and after it he asked me again. And, grandfather, it does 
 seem awful to promise a lot of things you may not be able 
 to keep, in a church, and it seems to me the very fact of 
 having made the promises makes it impossible to keep them ; 
 but I was just going to give in when Lady Henrietta came, 
 and then it seemed too awful, and I said no, and sent him 
 away." 
 
 " You were not logical, my dear." 
 
 " I know it. I have always been so proud of my strong 
 will, grandfather, and it always seemed to me that I could 
 always have my own way, but I think that I didn't care 
 so much about my own way as I did about his." 
 
 " And you again forgot Henrietta? " 
 
 " Yes, grandfather ; there was no room for her. But 
 when I heard her voice, I had to remember her: and I
 
 372 P A M 
 
 remembered at the same time, like a flash, all the things 
 to be said for him on her side, against me. That she is the 
 Duke's sister, and so rich, and and all that " 
 
 " And when you sent him to her, he went." 
 
 "Yes. He was very angry: he did not speak to me at 
 all at the ball, and he went away without saying good-bye. 
 He might," she added, with a quick quiver of her lip, 
 "have said good-bye to me! But he didn't, and thf 
 is all." 
 
 The old man watched her for some minutes in silence. 
 
 Her absolute unreserve towards him was, he knew, that 
 of a very reserved nature driven by circumstances and a 
 longing for sympathy to tell just once what never could be 
 repeated again. 
 
 He knew that women who confide in many people never 
 tell the whole of their story, and that Pam would never 
 tell hers to any one else. 
 
 There was something unspeakably touching to him, 
 toward the closing of his long life, to see this young creature, 
 just starting out on her journey, with such a burden. 
 
 He himself, looking back on the women he had loved, 
 could hardly remember which of two or three he had cared 
 for most; he was exuberant, inconstant, light-hearted by 
 nature as well as by careful cultivation, but he knew that 
 his grand-daughter was of different metal. The absurdity 
 of one of her desperately faithful stamp objecting to matri- 
 mony, on the ground that it promised more than it could 
 fulfil, had not escaped him. He and Charnley Burke had 
 laughed together over it long ago, but he had, naturally, 
 never taken her prejudice seriously. 
 
 When the right man came, he had thought, she would 
 change her mind quickly enough! And now the right man 
 had come, was at the same time hopelessly the wrong man, 
 she had not changed her mind, but would have sacrificed
 
 P A M 373 
 
 her view-point, and in a week James Peele would be Hen- 
 rietta Shanklin's husband. 
 
 "You think I did right, G. F.?" the girl asked at last, 
 turning to him. 
 
 "Right? Who knows? You did your best, dear, that 
 much is certain."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 LATE the next evening Pam said good-night to her grand- 
 father and prepared to go to her room. She had been read- 
 ing aloud ever since dinner, for the London post arrived 
 by the afternoon train, and she was tired. 
 
 No more had been said about Peele, but she felt relieved 
 by having told the whole story, and knew that she had 
 pleased the old man by doing so. 
 
 Now, as she said good-night, she asked him quietly, her 
 hand in his: " Well, G. F., do you not think, after all, that 
 I did what was best for him ? " 
 
 " My dear, I will tell you what I think. I have never 
 been a very good man; I am what women writers call a 
 cynical old worldling; I do not believe in anything in par- 
 ticular, and I can face without quailing the great fact that 
 selfishness rules the world. So it is more to the point than 
 if I were a parson, or a saintly old patriarch, that 1 think 
 you did what was noble and good. And what is more, I 
 haven't a doubt that you will have your reward." 
 
 " Grandfather! You mean that I'll go to heaven? " 
 
 " I hope you will, my dear, and indeed I fully expect that 
 you will, but I didn't mean that. You did the best thing 
 you could do, and whatever may happen " 
 
 He stopped hastily, biting his lip, but she only smiled 
 absently. " Nothing can possibly happen, short of Lady 
 Henny at the last minute running away with some one else, 
 as happens in books. And I am not going to fade away 
 like one of Rhoda B rough ton's tubercular heroines. I am 
 
 374
 
 P A M 375 
 
 going to have a very good time, and dance, and flirt like 
 mad (I feel that the Yeoland gift for that art lieth dor- 
 mant in my young breast), and wear fine clothes, and ride. 
 You will find me a very frivolous and expensive young 
 woman." 
 
 "Shall I, indeed? Well, just as you like. I feel so 
 much better of late that I am beginning to make plans for 
 a visit to Paris, and possibly even for a winter in Rome. 
 We could take an apartment, and you could try your charms 
 on the Italians." 
 
 " Oh, G. F., I should love to be in Rome with you! You 
 are an angel to think of it, and it will be perfect. Now, 
 good-night. Aren't my brown paws funny with these 
 rings?" 
 
 Ravaglia's rings had come that afternoon, and she had 
 put them all on. 
 
 " I shall always wear the ruby, G. F., don't you think 
 I might? She always did." 
 
 " George the man I told you of gave it to her, my 
 dear. It is very valuable, but wear it if you like, as a 
 souvenir." 
 
 * I shall always wear it. Good-night, grandfather. I 
 am glad you are so well." 
 
 He laughed. " Yes, my dear, Cornwall seems to be doing 
 me good." 
 
 Pam sat for hours by her open window, turning the 
 ring on her finger and studying, in her curious way, the 
 situation. She had definitely given up Peele; she would 
 never again see him; of these things she was certain. And 
 she did not intend to rnope. " In a few months," she 
 thought, " the ache of it will be better. People do get over 
 things, even if they can't forget them." Her lip shook sud- 
 denly, but she would not allow herself to cry, and, rising, 
 went to her table and wrote a long letter to Evelyn. Then,
 
 376 P A M 
 
 her lips still set hard, she undressed and went to bed. Three 
 hours later she was awakened by a loud knocking at her 
 door. 
 
 It was Jenkins. ' 'Is Lordship, Miss, I think 'e's gone 
 already," stammered the man. 
 
 " No, no, Jenkins I am coming you are mistaken he 
 was better he is better." 
 
 But Lord Yeoland had gone. He had died in his sleep. 
 When the doctor had left and the hotel-keeper's wife had 
 gone back to her room, Pam and the servant sat on the 
 bed, where, in the cheerful lamplight, the old man lay 
 smiling. 
 
 Twice the girl touched his hand gently, hardly believing 
 that she had not been dreaming. But his hand was chill as 
 living hands, however cold, never are. 
 
 Pilgrim, whose loud crying had annoyed her mistress, 
 had been sent to her room; and at last Jenkins fell asleep 
 and Pam was alone. Alone to realise her great loneliness. 
 
 Her father and mother had sailed for Japan in the 
 O'Neill's yacht; the letter had come that afternoon, and 
 Lord Yeoland had said that he was glad, as it made Pam 
 more altogether his. 
 
 They were gone, and now he too had gone. She had not 
 cried at all. As yet, though she repeated over and over 
 that he was dead, she could not quite believe it. It required 
 an effort, and she knew that she would not realise it fully 
 for days. 
 
 They were to have gone to Rome; they were to have been 
 together. He, of all the people in the world, had needed 
 her, and to be needed is to some natures dearer than being 
 loved. 
 
 Hours passed, and dawn came in at the windows. 
 Jenkins awaking with a start, put out the lamp and went 
 to dress.
 
 P A M 377 
 
 " You must telegraph to my aunt, Jenkins," Pam said 
 quietly, " and to young Mr. Maxse." 
 
 " Yes, Miss, of course. I'll 'ave some tea made for you, 
 Miss. Ah, 'ere is Pilgrim." 
 
 Pilgrim, gaunter than ever after her tearful vigil, took 
 the girl to her room and dressed her. " You mustn't take 
 cold, my poor lamb," she said, and Pam, even in her misery, 
 smiled at the unusual tenderness. 
 
 Towards noon Mrs. Maxse wired that she could not leave 
 her husband, who had taken a sudden turn for the worse, 
 but that Cazalet had started. Ratty, too, was coming. 
 
 The morning had been one of brilliant sunshine, but 
 towards evening the wind rose, and it began to rain. Pam 
 wished vaguely that a great storm would come, but it was 
 only what the landlord called ' nasty weather.' All day 
 the young girl sat in the room with the dead man. He had, 
 in his lifetime, hated solitude, and she felt that she could 
 not leave him now. 
 
 At six o'clock Cazalet arrived, having driven from the 
 only station to which he could come at that hour. 
 
 Pam met him at the door of her grandfather's room. 
 
 "Oh, Cazzy!" she said. 
 
 " My dear, it has been dreadful for you, all alone." 
 
 " I am always alone," she answered, and then he passed 
 her and stood at the bed, looking down on the man who had 
 been his master, and whom he had never in the least 
 understood. 
 
 When he turned Pam stood by him, her hands behind 
 her, in the way common to her and to the dead man. 
 
 " He was better," she said, " last night; was it last night? 
 And we were making plans about going to Paris and Rome. 
 He died in his sleep. The doctor says it was his heart." 
 
 "Then that queer attack at home was from his heart! 
 The doctor made too little of it, as I thought at the time."
 
 378 P A M 
 
 She shook her head. " No. That was just a joke, 
 Cazzy. He was not ill. I wanted to go away, for a 
 change, and so he pretended to be ill, just to to make his 
 leaving home more natural." 
 
 Gazalet turned, surprise written all over his honest face. 
 
 " He pretended? I don't understand." 
 
 " Oh, never mind about that. He was ill, though he 
 did not know it. And now oh, grandfather I " 
 
 Covering her face with her hands, she stood for a moment 
 without speaking, but there were no tears in her eyes. 
 
 Christopher Cazalet went sadly to his room and, sending 
 for the landlord, made the necessary arrangements for the 
 next day's journey. 
 
 His kind heart ached for the girl, so nearly a child, who 
 had looked at him with such tragedy in her eyes. He was 
 not an unimaginative man, and the pathos of her life had 
 always touched him. Since that day, ten years ago, when 
 she had opened the door of the Villa to him, the monkey in 
 her arms, he had really loved her. She had been, in his dull 
 life, something of the sunshine that she was to his master, 
 and now, finding her alone with the dead man, he realised, 
 as keenly as if she had been of his own blood, the fact of her 
 utter loneliness. 
 
 Mr. Maxse was worse; he could not live long, and his 
 wife was engrossed with him; Evelyn had married a man 
 Pam did not like, and who, Cazalet knew, disapproved of 
 her intimacy with his wife; Sacheverel and his wife were 
 utterly selfish, absolutely sufficient to each other; Ratty's 
 wish to marry the girl would make her living at Monks' 
 Yeoland, even if Fred Yeoland's wife had been kindly dis- 
 posed to her, unbearable. 
 
 There was literally no place in the world whither Pam 
 Yeoland could go, as one who belonged there. 
 
 His own house was hers, but the old man knew that he
 
 P A M 379 
 
 could not urge her to come to him. She did not belong 
 there, either. At last, tired of his own thoughts, Cazalet 
 went back to the sitting-room, and found the girl sitting 
 talking in an undertone to Ratty who, very solemn, his 
 hands in his pockets, was staring at her with bulging eyes. 
 
 " I want her to go into the garden with me, Cazalet." 
 the young man began abruptly, as the old man entered. 
 " There's no one about, and the rain has stopped. It's a 
 beastly hole of an hotel; the Bellevue at Treherne is much 
 better, but at least this is empty, and no one will be in the 
 garden." 
 
 " I don't want to go into the garden. Please don't 
 bother, Ratty." 
 
 "But look at her, Cazalet; she looks horribly ill, and a 
 mouthful of fresh air will do her good ! " 
 
 Pam, looking at him, realised how very fat her grand- 
 father would have found him in that suit of clothes, and 
 with difficulty she repressed a smile. 
 
 As Cazalet sat down Jenkins came in bringing a lighted 
 lamp, and the old man started as he caught sight of the 
 girl's face. " Good gracious, Pam, you do look ill. Have 
 you eaten anything to-day ? " he exclaimed. 
 
 "Yes, I have eaten, but I have a headache; it is only 
 that, Cazzy." 
 
 " But if I were you, I really would go into the garden 
 for a moment. Do go, my dear." 
 
 The girl hesitated, but at length rose. " Very well," she 
 said indifferently, " I'll go, but I'd rather go alone, Ratty, 
 if you don't mind." 
 
 The young man was about to protest when Cazalet made 
 him a sign, and he let her leave the room alone. 
 
 " Do not trouble her, Mr. Ratty," the steward began, as 
 the door closed. " She is very unhappy, and the shock has 
 been very great."
 
 380 P A M 
 
 " I know. They were awfully fond of each other." 
 
 "Yes. And she is utterly alone." 
 
 Ratty pulled at his young moustache and nodded, 
 " Utterly. Her father and mother you know, Cazalet, 
 and I suppose my grandfather left her some money, how- 
 ever," he added. 
 
 Cazalet shook his head. " No. He intended doing so ; 
 he told me so himself, but he put it off. His will dates 
 from '83." 
 
 "I say! That is rotten! I mean hard luck. She'll 
 have to go back to her father and mother, won't she, 
 
 1 " 
 
 " She will go to Monks' Yeoland for the present, I sup- 
 pose," answered Cazalet. " Her father and mother are 
 yachting, she tells me; gone to Japan. She has no address, 
 and has no idea when they will be back." 
 
 "Of course she'll come to Monks' Yeoland; until Fred 
 and Minnie Yeoland turn us out." There was a long 
 pause, while Cazalet stared at the table-cloth in deep thought, 
 and Ratty pulled at his moustache. 
 
 Then the young man rose and took up his hat. " I'll go 
 and look after her," he said nervously.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE rain had entirely ceased, and the moon shone faintly 
 from behind wind-blown clouds. Pam, Caliban in her 
 arms, walked up and down the gravel path, her skirts trail- 
 ing unheeded. To-morrow they would take him back home, 
 and they would bury him in the old vault in the church 
 he had so rarely visited, and Fred Yeoland, whom she had 
 never seen, would bear his name, and Fred Yeoland's wife, 
 whom her grandfather had once told her was a cat, and 
 who had been unkind to her, would be mistress of the old 
 house, and their children run about the grounds and have 
 tea in the schoolroom. 
 
 The Maxses would go away; Dick was going to die, too, 
 however; Ratty would go back to Oxford and funk his 
 examinations and grow fatter than ever. Evy would have 
 a house in London; Mr. and Mrs. Sacheverel would be 
 very kind to Pam Yeoland, but they would be rather sorry 
 to have her come back, and, anyway, they were going to 
 Japan; Madame Ravaglia was dead; Charnley Burke was 
 going back to Australia, if he had not already gone. Every 
 one was provided for. Every one but Pam, and Pilgrim, 
 and Caliban. 
 
 Suddenly the moon, which had for a moment been hiding 
 behind a cloud, shone out, shedding its lovely light on Ratty 
 as he came down the path. 
 
 " I wish you would not come, Ratty," Pam said, a little 
 pettishly. 
 
 " Now, don't you be nasty, young woman. Look here, 
 381
 
 382 P A M 
 
 Pam," he went on, joining her as she turned, and walking 
 by her, " I have just been talking about you with Cazalet." 
 
 "Have you?" 
 
 " Yes. Ugh! I hate that monkey! " 
 
 She laughed a little. " That, all things considered, is 
 impolite, Ratty ! " 
 
 " Well, I do, but never mind that. Cazalet tells me that 
 /our father and mother are away yachting somewhere, and 
 that you don't know when they will be back." 
 
 " Yes. Mr. and Mrs. Sacheverel are going to Japan," 
 she answered, with a queer little smile. 
 
 " H'm! And, of course, you know that Fred Yeoland 
 will take possession at once. I wired him this morning, and 
 he will of course come to the funeral." 
 
 " I know." 
 
 " Well naturally you will go back with us now, and 
 stay until after the funeral. Minnie Yeoland is a daughter 
 of Lord Verney of Dalgeston." His pause was significant. 
 
 " I see. You mean that the daughter of Lord Verney of 
 Dalgeston will not care to acknowledge a cousinship with 
 me. I know that already. Go on." 
 
 Ratty broke off a spray of fuchsia and shook them free 
 of rain-drops. 
 
 " And how are you regarding money? " he asked slowly. 
 
 She turned. " Make your mind easy on that score, my 
 good he-cozen (as Pepys says), my grandfather has left me 
 some money." 
 
 " You are wrong ; he hasn't made a will since '83 ! 
 Cazalet told me so. He meant to provide for you, and 
 he put it off until too late. Now don't don't look like 
 that, Pam. I I'm sorry I told you so abruptly. I only 
 wanted you to know that, after all, you wouldn't do so badly 
 by marrying me." His voice shook with unmistakable 
 feeling as he spoke, but Pam did not answer.
 
 P A M 383 
 
 Caliban, who had been asleep, had wakened, and turning 
 his face to hers, wizened and weird in the moonlight, she 
 said gently: " Cally, we shall have to move on. Like Jo 
 in ' Bleak House,' you and I and Pilly must move on ! " 
 
 " Pam, will you listen to me?" Ratty laid his hand on 
 hers and arrested her, as she started to leave him. 
 
 " Pam you know I love you. I'm a brute to have told 
 you that, but you always laugh at me, and we'd not be 
 rich, but \ve'd not starve, and you'd not be lonely. I'll be 
 as good as I can to you, and try to please you." 
 
 " Thank you, Ratty; but it is quite impossible." 
 
 "Why is it impossible? I'll do my very best to make 
 you happy. And if it's because I'm so fat, why, there's a 
 chap at Christ's who nearly lost two stone in ten days, 
 taking some American powders." 
 
 Pam burst out laughing into a genuine laugh of irrepres- 
 sible amusement. " Oh, Ratty Maxse, you are too funny,'* 
 she cried, " with your American powders ! " 
 
 " Well, I must say you are pretty queer, yelling like a 
 hyena with my grandfather dead in the house," he returned 
 sulkily. " A nice impression you'd make if any one hap- 
 pened to hear you." 
 
 " I know I oughtn't to have laughed, but I couldn't help 
 it, and he would have laughed, too, Ratty." 
 
 " Well, give me my answer. You treat me like a brute, 
 but I love you and I'll try to make you happy," he repeated, 
 frowning. 
 
 " I am sorry, Ratty, but I cannot marry you. I thank 
 you, though, and I know you mean to be kind." 
 
 Ratty drew himself up to his full height. 
 
 " Very well. I shall not trouble you again ; indeed, I 
 shall try to avoid seeing you, in the future. And some day, 
 when you see what most men think on certain subjects, you 
 may be sorry." Then he left her.
 
 384 P AM 
 
 The girl sat down on a wet bench and watched his 
 majestic withdrawal. Poor Ratty, he was so absurd! 
 
 A few minutes later Pilgrim came out, a pair of overshoes 
 in her hand. " You might have more sense," the ancient 
 hand-maiden observed sourly, " than to walk around in this 
 sopping gravel with them slippers on ! " 
 
 " Pilly, I have no sense. Not a bit. Pilly, how would 
 you like to go back to the Villa? " 
 
 " To the Villa? Why should we go there? " 
 
 Pilgrim, who was kneeling on the gravel to which she 
 had objected, rose with angular agility. 
 
 Pam shrugged her shoulders. " Why should we go any- 
 where? My grandfather is dead, father and mother don't 
 want us, Aunt Rosamund will go and live with Evy as soon 
 as Uncle Dick has died, and the new Lady Yeoland has 
 already refused to know me. We've only a very little 
 money, too; only what mother settled on me, of my grand- 
 mother's. We might go to America, you know." 
 
 "And people don't need money in America, I suppose! " 
 
 " Don't be sarcastic, Pilly. Sit down here and listen." 
 
 " You'll take your death of cold on that bench ; come on 
 in, it is late." 
 
 " Just a moment. You see, I can't go back to Monks' 
 Yeoland. Poor Ratty is angry with me, and if I'm there 
 he won't come, and Aunt Rosamund will need him. Then 
 Lady Yeoland would be very angry if I came to the 
 funeral." 
 
 " Why do you say those things? She might like you now 
 you're a grown up young lady ! " Poor Pilgrim's tone was 
 very wistful, and Pam took her hand kindly. 
 
 " No, poor old Pilly. I shan't go at all now. We won't 
 go to the funeral. My being grown-up doesn't make any 
 difference. Mrs. I mean Lady Yeoland refused to meet 
 me once, when she was visiting at Budcombe, and I don't
 
 P A M 38? 
 
 care to meet her. My G. F. won't mind ; he'll understand. 
 Pilly, you go and pack, and we'll run away again." 
 
 Pilly was crying now; crying hopelessly and without 
 bitterness at being once more thus cast into outer darkness. 
 
 Pam was very gentle with her, but quite firm, and hardly 
 an hour later, when the good woman had gone to pack, 
 preparatory to their last flitting from the kmd old man whc 
 was dead, the young girl, fearful lest Ratty or Cazalet might 
 come to look for her, passed out of the garden and went 
 down the path to the edge of the rocks. 
 
 The wind had died down, and the great waves broke 
 more gently than during the day, but with a sort of sullen 
 dignity. Overhead, the moon now shone in a perfectly clear 
 sky. 
 
 Pam's head ached, and she was very tired. It was a 
 relief to her that Pilgrim was prepared, and that before 
 morning they would be again under weigh. She would 
 write to her aunt, of course, and she would leave a note for 
 Cazalet. Then she would go to America or back to the Villa. 
 
 " I might go on the stage, too," she told herself. " My 
 voice is good, and I could act. If I were not so hideously 
 
 young 
 
 After a minute she rose from the rock on which she had 
 been sitting, and stood looking at the sea. 
 
 " Pilly and I will go away from here. That is the first 
 step to be taken," she said aloud, " and the next needn't be 
 taken until after that. And of one thing I am sure. I am 
 a privateer, as he said but I will not be a derelict! " 
 
 Full of dreary courage she turned towards the hotel, and 
 at the garden gate met James Peele, as she had met him that 
 night in Arcadia. 
 
 " Pam, the Duchess sent me your grandfather wired her 
 to come, and she couldn't we didn't even know he was 
 ill "
 
 386 P AM 
 
 " You/ " she said faintly, leaning against the gate. 
 
 " Yes. Yesterday no, the day before he wired her to 
 come, on very important business, and she could not get 
 away, so she sent me. I swear I tried to get out of it, and 
 couldn't." 
 
 " And couldn't." After a pause she went on : "I see 
 now what he meant." 
 
 "What he meant?" 
 
 " Yes, I told him about our ' pitiable folly ' in Arcadia. 
 And he said that I was right, and might be rewarded. He 
 was going to tell the Duchess ! " 
 
 Peele started. "Was he? You think that was why 
 he telegraphed ? " 
 
 " I know it. He was going to fight for me, my dear old 
 man!" 
 
 The first tears she had shed since her grandfather's death 
 rushed to her eyes, and to hide them she bent over Caliban. 
 
 " Pam for God's sake don't cry! " 
 
 " No, I'll not cry. Well, I'm glad he did it, for nov you 
 will forgive me, won't you? " 
 
 " Forgive you ! " 
 
 " Yes." He took her hand and held it to his heart ; she 
 could hear the throbbing under the rough waistcoat. 
 
 " It is you who must forgive me, dear." 
 
 " Then we both forgive each other, and our consciences 
 are at peace. I must go in now. Mr. Cazalet, the steward, 
 has come, and Ratty, my cousin will you see them ? " 
 
 " Yes, no I don't know." 
 
 " Then good-night. And believe that I hope you will 
 be very happy." 
 
 " Without you? Yes; that is very likely. Tell me, what 
 are your plans? " 
 
 She told him, in a sudden nervous flow of words; told 
 him that Mrs. Fred Yeoland's presence at the funeral, and
 
 P A M 38? 
 
 Ratty's, ensured her own absence ; that her father and mother 
 were gone; that she could not go to Evelyn's; that she was 
 very poor. Then she added : " And so Pilly and Caliban 
 and I are ' off to Philadelphia in the morning! ' I am 
 going somewhere and begin life over again." 
 
 " Somewhere ! Pam listen ! " He hesitated for a mo- 
 ment and then, his eyes fixed on hers, his hand on her 
 shoulders, hurried on: "If it is as you say, if you are so 
 utterly alone, and have no place to go by God! I am a 
 scoundrel, but I can't help it come with me. Come to 
 South Africa with me. You love me, and I love you, nothing 
 else matters." 
 
 She closed her eyes for a moment, while a beautiful blush 
 crept up to her brow. 
 
 "To Africa with you! Ah, if I could! But Lady 
 Henny " 
 
 " You will come, you will ? " 
 
 He caught her roughly to him and kissed her. " Pam, 
 you will oh, bother Lady Henny! It is Fate; we can't 
 help it. I've tried all this time to hold it back, this love, 
 but I can't, and neither can you." 
 
 " Then, yes." 
 
 For a long time they stood together without speaking, 
 and then, raising her head, the girl began : " To think that 
 my darling old grandfather did it, after all! How glad 
 he would be or perhaps is." 
 
 Peele started. " In any other case, at least," he an- 
 swered hurriedly, " I am sure he would not blame us ; I 
 mean, if you were not his grand-daughter." 
 
 " But he would not blame us at all. He could only have 
 told the Duchess the truth, if he had lived; that was of 
 course what he meant to do." 
 
 Peele looked at her keenly. His face was white, his eyes 
 like steel in the moonlight. " Pam you are not going to
 
 388 P AM 
 
 regret it later? There is yet time, you know. If you were 
 not so utterly alone I should not have proposed it, but I 
 love you." 
 
 " And I love you. I have known, ever since that evening 
 in Arcadia, that I shall love you, must love you, until 1 
 die. Ah, no, I shall not regret it ! " 
 
 His face softened as he drew her close to him. 
 
 " The only thing I regret is about her. It is hard, it is 
 cruel, for she has done nothing to deserve it." 
 
 " A train leaves at six," he said hastily. " I shall walk to 
 Penellen and join you there. You will take Pilgrim, I 
 suppose ? " 
 
 " Of course. Poor old Pilly, how glad she will be. But, 
 Jim, we must wait, now. I was running away only because 
 I was all alone. Now I must go to the funeral. Mrs. Fred 
 Yeoland cannot hurt me any more." 
 
 Peele drew away from her and folded his arms. 
 
 " Pam, you don't understand," he said. " I cannot 
 break my engagement now; it is too late, and it would be 
 impossible." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 It annoyed him, even in his angry embarrassment, to have 
 Caliban's misty eyes staring at him as well as the girl's. 
 mean, my dear child, you have refused a dozen times to 
 marry me, you do not believe in marriage " 
 
 " You mean, that you will marry her, and that I Shall 
 
 1 l> 
 
 "Make that brute stop staring at me, can't you? I 
 mean that I cannot with decency break my engagement with 
 the Duke of Wight's sister at the eleventh hour, but that I 
 love you, and you love me, and that is as you have no 
 family ties, I ask you to trust yourself to me, to give your 
 life into my keeping, and I swear before God ! " he went on 
 eagerly, his voice vibrating, " that you are and always will
 
 P A M 389 
 
 be, the only woman I have ever loved, and that I will make 
 you as happy as ever a man made a woman." 
 
 When he paused, out of breath, and biting his lip to 
 control his agitation, there was a long pause. 
 
 At the end of the pause, Pam laughed. 
 
 " You have made," she said, " a curious mistake! " 
 
 " I have made no mistake. You have told me over and 
 over again that you will never marry; if you are afraid, 
 now that the time has come to test your courage " 
 
 She stopped him with a gesture. " What do you know 
 about courage? You, who are trying to run both with the 
 hare and the hounds? I meant that loving you, I would be 
 proud to come to you, before all the world, to be your wife 
 in everything but the name, you to be my husband in every- 
 thing but the name. I knew that I could have no friends, 
 that no one would know me, that I should be an outcast, 
 like my mother, but I thought our life should be like that 
 of my father and mother's. And that seemed to me not 
 only beautiful, but good. 
 
 "You have offered me a life of shame; of sneaking and 
 hiding, of taking, behind her back, the love you would, 
 knowing it to be false, have sworn in a church to give to 
 Henrietta Shanklin. So you see our ideas differ/' 
 
 " You are an absurd child! " he returned angrily. 
 
 " Yes, I am an absurd child ! I have been very ridicu- 
 lous and very wrong ; and now I know. I know that people 
 must marry so that their daughters can bear their father's 
 name, and not be hurt like this." 
 
 Her voice broke, and she bent her head to the dark face 
 of the drowsy monkey. 
 
 Peele took her hand in his. " Pam, will you forgive me ? 
 I I beg your pardon. You were a fool, perhaps, but I 
 was a scoundrel, and I am ashamed. I will break my en- 
 gagement and then I will come and ask you to marry me.'
 
 390 P A M 
 
 She looked up, and saw that his eyes were full of tears. 
 
 " No," she said gently. " I forgive you, and I thank you, 
 but I will not marry you." 
 
 " Then you do not forgive me." 
 
 "Yes; don't think that, for I do. But I cannot marry 
 you. Good-bye now. I must go in, or Pilgrim will be 
 frightened." 
 
 " The other day, in the ruin," he went on hurriedly, 
 ** you were on the point of saying you would marry me." 
 
 " Yes. Because I thought you really needed me, and 
 then she came. Oh, I know I have been illogical and 
 foolish. I must go in now." 
 
 "Pam!" 
 
 " No." 
 
 She gave him her hand for a moment, with a little smile, 
 and turned away and went quickly back through the garden. 
 
 Seven hours later he stood on the platform of the little 
 station with her, while Pilgrim, grimmer of aspect than 
 ever, bought the tickets. 
 
 " I could not go to Monks' Yeoland," the girl explained 
 patiently, " even for the funeral. Ratty is very angry with 
 me, and Mrs. Yeoland would be very angry, too, if I came. 
 And, as I am going away, it doesn't matter what other people 
 think. My grandfather would have understood, or does 
 understand." 
 
 " Pam, you love me. How can you do this? " 
 
 " It is the only thing I can do. And in a little while, 
 you will see that anything else would indeed have been 
 ' pitiable folly ! ' What would you be, socially or politically, 
 if you jilted the Duke of Wight's sister four days before the 
 wedding? It would ruin you." 
 
 " Then you are going away out of pure philanthropy ? " 
 he asked, with a sneer.
 
 P A M 391 
 
 " No ; partly for your sake, partly for her sake, and a 
 good deal for my own sake." 
 
 " I don't understand that." 
 
 " I daresay you don't. But you see, I am a pagan philos- 
 opher, and I want to be as happy as I can. I should be 
 very unhappy if I married you." 
 
 " Yet you loved me ! " 
 
 The sun was rising, gilding the shabby front of the little 
 station, and sparkling on the dewy grass beyond. 
 
 An unshorn porter slouched towards them, Pam's trunk 
 on his shoulder, followed by Pilgrim. 
 
 Pam turned and looked at Peele. " I love you," she said 
 quietly ; " it's a misfortune, and can't be helped, but it exists. 
 Now, here comes the train." 
 
 " I can't let you go." 
 
 " Oh, yes, you can! Pilly, take my bag, will you? I must 
 wrap Caliban up in my cape, he is shivering. Good-bye, 
 Mr. Peele." 
 
 " I shall write to your father," he said, crushing her hand 
 in his. 
 
 " So shall I ! The dears, how glad I shall be to see them 
 again. And give my love to the Duchess and to Lady 
 Henrietta, and tell her that I hope with all my heart that 
 she will be happy." 
 
 The train had stopped, and the guard had opened the door 
 of a first-class empty carriage. 
 
 Pilgrim climbed up, with an unconscious display of a lath- 
 like leg, and took the bags from the porter. 
 
 " Good-bye, again, then," Pam said, for Peele could not 
 speak, " and God bless you." 
 
 As the door closed she opened the window and stood by 
 it, looking at him until the train had gone, the monkey's 
 face pressed close to her own.
 
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 The re-publication of this story will please those lovers of sea yarns 
 who delight in so much of the salty flavor of the ocean as can come through 
 the medium of a printed page, for never has a story of the sea and those 
 "who go down in ships" been written by one more familiar with the scenes 
 depleted. 
 
 The one book of this gifted author which is best remembered, and which 
 will b read with pleasure for many years to come. Is "Captain Brand," 
 who, as the author states on his title page, was a "pirate of eminence in 
 the West Indies." As a sea story pure and simple, "Captain Brand" has 
 never been excelled, and as a story of piratical life, told without the usual 
 embellishments of blood and thunder, It has no equal. 
 
 NICK OF THE WOODS. A story of the Early Settlers of Kentucky. By 
 Robert Montgomery Bird. Cloth, izmo. with four illustrations by J. Watson 
 Da via. Price, $1.00. 
 
 This most popular novel and thrilling story of early frontier life In 
 Kentucky was originally published in the year 1837. The novel, long out of 
 print, had in its day a phenomenal sale, for its realistic presentation of 
 Indian and frontier life in the early days of settlement in the South, nar- 
 rated in the tale with all the art of a practiced writer. A vpry charming 
 love romance runs through the story. This n*w and tasteful edition of 
 "Nick of the Woods" will be certain to make many new admirers foi 
 this enchanting story from Dr. Bird's clever and versatile pen. 
 
 GUY F AWKES. A Romance of the Gunpowder Treason. By Wm. Harri- 
 son Ainsworth. Cloth, izmo. with four illustrations by George Cruikshank. 
 Price, Ji.oo. 
 
 The "Gunpowder Plot" was a modest attempt to blow up Parliament, 
 the King and his Counsellors. James of Scotland, then King of England. 
 was weak-minded and extravagant He hit upon the efficient scheme of 
 extorting money from the people by imposing taxes on the Catholics. In 
 their natural resentment to this extortion, a handful of bold spirits con- 
 cluded to overthrow the government. Finally the plotters were arrested, 
 and the King put to torture Guy Fawkes and the other prisoners with 
 royal vigor. A very intense love tory runs through the entire romance.
 
 BURT'S SERIES of STANDARD FICTION. 
 
 DARNLEY. A Romance of the times of Henry VIII. and Cardinal Wolsey. 
 By G. P. R. James. Cloth, 121110. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. 
 Price, {i.oo. 
 
 As a historical romance "Darnley" is a book that can be taken up 
 pleasurably again and again, for there is about it that subtle charm which 
 those who are strangers to the works of G. P. R. James have claimed was 
 only to be imparted by Dumas. 
 
 If there was nothing more about the work to attract especial attention, 
 the account of the meeting of the kings on the historic "field of the cloth of 
 gold" would entitle the story to the most favorable consideration of every 
 reader. 
 
 There is really but little pure romance in this story, for the author has 
 taken care to imagine love passages only between those whom history has 
 credited with having entertained the tender passion one for another, and 
 fee succeeds in making such lovers as all the world must jove. 
 
 WINDSOR CASTLE. A Historical Romance of the Reign of Henry VIII 
 Catharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. By Wm. Harrison Ainsworth. Cloth. 
 i2tno. with four illustrations by George Cruikshank, Price, $1.00. 
 
 "Windsor Castle" is the story of Henry VIII., Catharine, and Anne 
 Boleyn. "Bluff King Hal," although a well-loved monarch, was none too 
 good a one in many ways. Of all his selfishness and unwarrantable acts, 
 none was more discreditable than his divorce from Catharine, and his mar- 
 riage to the beautiful Anne Boleyn. The King's love was as brief as it 
 was vehement. Jane Seymour, waiting maid on the Queen, attracted him, 
 and Anne Boleyn was forced to the block to make room for her successor. 
 This romance is one of extreme interest to all readers. 
 
 HORSESHOE ROBINSON. A tale of the Tory Ascendency in South Caro- 
 lina in 1780. By John P. Kennedy. Cloth, izmo. with four illustrations by J. 
 Watson Davis. Price, |i.oo. 
 
 Among the old favorites in the field of what is known as historical fic- 
 tion, there are none which appeal to a larger number of Americans than 
 Horseshoe Robinson, and this because it is the only story which depicts 
 with fidelity to the facts the heroic efforts of the colonists in South Caro- 
 lina to defend their homes against the brutal oppression f the British 
 under such leaders as Cornwallis and Tarleton. 
 
 The reader is charmed with the story of love which forms the thread 
 of the tale, and then impressed with the wealth of detail concerning those 
 times. The picture of the manifold sufferings of the people, is never over- 
 drawn, but painted faithfully and honestly by one who spared neither 
 time nor labor in his efforts to present in this charming love story all that 
 price in blood and tears which the Carolinians paid as their share in the 
 winning of the republic. 
 
 Take it all in all, "Horseshoe Robinson" is a work which should be 
 found on every book-shelf, not only because it is a most entertaining 
 story, but because of the wealth of valuable information concerning the 
 colonists which it contains. That it has been brought out once more, well 
 illustrated, is something which will give pleasure to thousands who have 
 long desired an opportunity to read the story again, and to the many wh 
 have tried vainly in these latter days to procure a copy that they might 
 read it for the first time. 
 
 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. A story of the Coast of Maine. By 
 Harriet Beecher Stowe. Cloth, I2mo. Illustrated. Price, f i.oo. 
 
 Written prior to 1862, the "Pearl of Orr's Island" is ever new; a book 
 filled with delicate fancies, such as seemingly array themselves anew eatfh 
 time one reads them. One sees the "sea like an unbroken mirror all 
 around the pine-girt, lonely shores of Orr's Island," and straightway 
 comee "the heavy, hollow moan of the surf on the beach, like the wild 
 angry howl of some savage animal." 
 
 Who can read of the beginning of that sweet life, named Mara, which 
 came into this world under the very shadow of the Death angel's wings, 
 without having an inttnse desire to know how the premature bud blos- 
 somed? Again and again one lingers over the descriptions of the char- 
 acter of that baby boy Moses, who came through the tempest, amid the 
 angry billows, pillowed on his dead mother's breast. 
 
 There is no more faithful portrayal of New England life than that 
 Which Mrs. Stowe gives in "The Pearl of Orr's Island."
 
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