renchwoman watched her in silence,
whenever she was allowed to see her. Then when on the second morning
there came a telegram from Chetworth, and Pamela tore it open,
flying with it before she read it to the secrecy of her own room,
the Frenchwoman smiled and sighed. 'Ca, c'est l'amour!' she said to
herself, 'assurement c'est l'amour!' And when Pamela came down
again, radiant as a young seraph, and ready to kiss the apple-red
cheek of the Frenchwoman--the rarest concession!--Madame Guerin did
not need to be told that Arthur Chicksands was safe and likely to be
sound.

But the Frenchwoman's inference was premature. During the two years
she had been at school, Pamela had thought very little of Arthur
Chicksands. She was absorbed in one of those devotions to a
woman--her schoolmistress--very common among girls of strong
character, and sometimes disastrous. In her case it had worked well.
And now the period of extravagant devotion was over, and the girl's
mind and heart set free. She thought she had forgotten Arthur
Chicksands, and was certain he must have forgotten her. As it
happened they had never met since his return to the front in the
autumn of 1915--Pamela was then seventeen and a schoolgirl--or, as
she now put it, a baby. She remembered the child who had hidden
herself in the woods as something very far away.

And yet she did not want to talk about 'Arthur,' as she had always
called him, and there was a certain tremor and excitement in her
mind about him. The idea of being prevented from seeing him was
absurd--intolerable. She was already devising ways and means of
doing it. It was really not to be expected that filial obedience
should reign at Mannering.

* * * * *

The twins had long left the subject of the embargo on Chetworth, and
were wrangling and chaffing over the details of Desmond's packing,
when there was a knock at the door.

Pamela stiffened at once.

'Come in!'

Miss Bremerton entered.

'Are you very busy?'

'Not at all!' said Desmond politely, scurrying with his best Eton
manners to find a chair for the newcomer. 'It's an awful muddle, but
that's Pamela!'

Pamela aimed a sponge-bag at him, which he dodged, and Elizabeth
Bremerton sat down.

'I want to hold a council with you,' she said, turning a face just
touched with laughter from one to the other. 'Do you mind?'

'Certainly not,' said Desmond, sitting on the floor with his hands
round his knees. 'Wha