Lucy saw no more of Pamela until after Hall. She thought she had escaped—quite escaped. After all, Pamela had not seen much; she had only seen Wyatt Edgell talking to her at the gate. Other girls talked to men at the gate—brothers, cousins, even coaches sometimes—when they had anything particular to say that couldn't wait for the proper opportunity, but lovers never.
It had gone so far that Lucy was obliged to admit that he was a lover. She admitted with a sigh what other girls—what Pamela Gwatkin, what Maria Stubbs—would have given anything—everything, even renounced the higher culture—to have been able to admit.
Capability Stubbs was walking with Pamela when they came across the lovers at the gate of Newnham. Capability took in the whole scene in a moment: perhaps she took in rather more. She coloured it with her own vivid imagination; she surrounded it with an atmosphere entirely her own. There was not a detail in the picture that was not brought out distinctly by this mental process and stamped upon her memory.
She was thinking about it all the time she was at Hall. She had no appetite for her dinner. She couldn't get the picture of the lovers parting at the gate out of her eyes. She sat staring across the soup, and the entrée, and the gooseberry-tart, at the white wall opposite. Perhaps it was all photographed there: the manly figure with the great square shoulders; they were stooping now, and the head was bent—it was almost touching Lucy's hair—and his eyes were looking into hers, and his lips were smiling——Pah! what is the use of describing the lips of another girl's lover?
Miss Stubbs broke off abruptly, and began to press the gooseberry-tart upon her neighbour. She had quite forgotten until now that it was her duty to look after Pamela. All the girls who go in for a Tripos are under special surveillance during the time of their examination, and a keeper is deputed to watch over them and see that they take their food properly and go to bed at ten o'clock. It was Maria Stubbs' duty to look after Pamela. The soup had gone by and the meat, and she had never once thought about her charge. Perhaps she hadn't eaten a morsel. She was looking white and hollow-eyed, and had that starved appearance peculiar to scholars whose brains absorb all the material intended for the body. She did not look as if she had eaten a good dinner, as if she had gone conscientiously through the menu. In point of fact, Pamela had only trifled with her plate, and finding that her keeper was not watching, had not eaten a morsel, and now there was only the gooseberry-pie left.
Maria Stubbs pressed the pie upon her with tears in her eyes. She entreated her, if she valued her place in the Tripos, if the honour of Newnham was dear to her, to partake of that pie; but Pamela was not to be persuaded.
Conscience-stricken, Maria got up from the table and retired to her room. Half an hour later she emerged from it with a tray, and hurried down the corridor to Pamela's door. She didn't find her working as she expected—it was the very last night for work; to-morrow the examination would be over. She found her sitting at the window looking out at the sunset.
Pamela was not generally fond of sunsets, and she never sat at the window like other girls. She had no time to spare for sunsets, and she preferred the Windsor chair at her writing-table to any other chair in the room. It was empty now, and her books were closed, and her papers were all put tidily away. She had quite done with them, and she was looking out of the window.
Maria put down the cup of cocoa and the cake she had brought on a little table by Pamela's side, and watched her while she took it. She took it obediently. It was less trouble to take it than refuse it, but she didn't put any heart in it.
'It will all be over soon, dear,' Maria said by way of encouragement.