'Yes,' Pamela said wearily, and she looked out at the white gate which someone had left open. Perhaps she was thinking that she would soon pass through it, and her life here would be ended.
Maria looked in the same direction; but the gate brought something else to her mind, and she forgot all about Pamela and the cocoa.
'Oh, the pity of it!' she murmured; and her eyes lingered on the spot where Wyatt Edgell had last stood.
'The pity of what?' Pamela said impatiently. She was nervous, irritable, over-strung, and everything jarred upon her.
'Nothing, dear, nothing,' Maria said soothingly. 'I was only thinking of the man that girl is fooling. Oh, what idiots men are! Fancy a man—a real man, not a fool—throwing himself away upon that pink-and-white baby!'
Pamela was listening with an abstracted air, but the colour crept up under her skin, and her lip curled.
'You mean the St. Benedict's man?' she said, smiling with a sort of contempt.
'Yes; the man that was talking to her at the gate. Oh, Pamela, did you see his face?'
'Ye—e—s; I saw his face. I have often seen him before. He is Eric's friend. I have known him ever since he has been up.'
'He has known you—you, Pamela—for years, and yet he has chosen her?'