Desmond was going
into camp that evening. In a few months he would be a full-blown
gunner at the front. Beryl, watching Aubrey's thin face and nervous
frown, proved inwardly that the Aldershot appointment might go on.
And Elizabeth's thoughts had flown to her brother in Mesopotamia.
Pamela, sitting apart, and deeply shaded by a great beech with
drooping branches that rose behind the group, was sharply unhappy,
and filled with a burning jealousy of Elizabeth, who queened it
there in the middle of them--so self-possessed, agreeable, and
competent. How well Arthur had been getting on with her! What a
tiresome, tactless idiot she, Pamela, must seem in comparison! The
memory of her talk with him made her cheeks hot. So few chances of
seeing him!--and when they came, she threw them away. She felt for
the moment as though she hated Elizabeth. Why had her father saddled
her upon them? Life was difficult enough before. Passionately she
began to think of her threat to Arthur. It had been the merest 'idle
word.' But why shouldn't she realize it--why not 'run away'? There
was work to be done, and money to be earned, by any able-bodied
girl.
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