‘You know, Pam, you ought to get married soon.’

The boy spoke shyly—­but gravely and decidedly.  Pam thought with a sudden anguish—­’He would never have said that, unless—­’

She laid her head on his shoulder, clinging to him.

‘I shan’t get married, old boy.’

’Oh, that’s nonsense!  Look here, Pam—­you mustn’t mind my poking my nose into things where I’ve no business.  You see, it’s because—­Well, I’ve sometimes thought—­punch my head, if you like!—­that you had a fancy for Arthur Chicksands.’

Pamela laughed.

’Well, as he hasn’t got any fancy for me, you needn’t take that into your dear old head!’

‘Why, he was always very fond of you, Pam.’

’Oh, yes, he liked ragging me when I was a child.  I’m not good enough for him now.’

‘What do you mean—­not good enough?’

’Not clever enough, you silly old boy.  He’ll marry somebody much older than me.’

Desmond ruminated.

‘He seemed to be getting on with Broomie this afternoon?’

‘Magnificently.  He always does.  She’s his sort.  She writes to him.’

‘Oh, does she?’ The boy’s voice was dry and hostile.  He began to understand, or thought he did.  Miss Bremerton was not only plotting to marry his father—­had perhaps been plotting for it from the beginning—­but was besides playing an unfair game with Pam—­spoiling Pam’s chances—­cutting in where she wasn’t wanted—­grabbing, in fact.  Anger was mounting in him.  Why should his father be mopped up like this?—­and Pamela made unhappy?

‘I’d jolly well like to stop it all!’ he said, under his breath.

‘Stop what?  You dear, foolish old man!  You can’t stop it, Dezzy.’

‘Well, if she’ll only make him happy—!’

‘Oh, she’ll be quite decent to him,’ said Pamela, with a shrug, ’but she’ll despise him!’

‘What the deuce do you mean, Pam?’

Whereupon, quite conscious that she was obeying an evil and feverish impulse, but unable to control it, Pamela went into a long and passionate justification of what she had said.  A number of small incidents—­trifling acts and sayings of Elizabeth’s—­misinterpreted and twisted by the girl’s jealous pain, were poured into Desmond’s ears.

’All the servants know that she treats father like a baby.  She and Forest manage him in little things—­in the house—­just as she runs the estate.  For instance, she does just what she likes with the fruit and the flowers—­’

‘Why, you ought to do all that, Pam!’

’I tried when I came home from school.  Father wouldn’t let me do a thing.  But she does just what she pleases.  You can hear her and Forest laughing over it.  Oh, it’s all right, of course.  She sends things to hospitals every week.’

‘That was what you used to want.’

‘I do want it—­but—­’

‘You ought to have the doing of it?’