Anyway she seemed to have
no particular interest in Arthur Chicksands, nor he in her, though
his tone in speaking to her had been, naturally, familiar and
intimate. But probably he was one of those able men who have little
to say to the young girl, and keep their real minds for the older
and experienced woman.
At any rate, Elizabeth dismissed from her mind whatever vague notion
or curiosity as to a possible love-affair for Pamela in that
direction might have been lurking in it. And that being so, she
promptly, and without _arriere pensee_ of any sort, allowed herself
the pleasant recollection of half an hour's conversation which had
put her intellectually on her mettle, and quickened those infant
ambitions of a practical and patriotic kind which were beginning to
rise in her.
But the Squire's coming escapade! How to stop it?--for Desmond's
sake chiefly.
Dear boy! It was on a tender, almost maternal thought of him that
she at last turned to sleep. But the footstep pursued her ear. What
was the meaning of this long nocturnal pacing? Had the Squire, after
all, a heart, or some fragment of one? Was it the parting from
Desmond that thus kept him from his bed? She would have liked to
think it--but did not quite succeed!
CHAPTER VII
A week or two had passed.
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