"Her ladyship is in the drawing-room, sir," said the servant, impressed, despite himself, by the shabby visitor's easy air of command.
"Ah, thank you, I am not coming in. Good-bye, Pam, darling. I'll get the night-mail back. Be sure and enjoy yourself, and give Lady Jane my kindest regards."
He kissed her hastily, unconscious of the supercilious eyes of the footman. Then he turned towards the wet street.
Pamela stood in the hall, looking after him with her miserable heart in her eyes. He went down the steps with his hands deep in his shabby overcoat pockets—for he carried no umbrella—and his soft hat pulled down over his eyes. Another minute and he would be out of sight. A wave of intolerable loneliness rushed over his daughter's heart as she saw him vanishing and leaving her alone among strangers.
"Papa, papa!" she cried.
The genial, kind face was turned back to her for an instant. Her father's hand waved a farewell. Then he was out of sight, and she became conscious that the weary footman, forcedly polite, was holding the door open for her.
"Her ladyship is in the drawing-room," he repeated, and there was rebuke in his voice. Pamela drew back, and he shut the door.
"Poor little Pam!" said her father as he walked along briskly. "She will be home-sick to-night; to-morrow she will be better content, and the day after she will begin to enjoy herself."
"And now, let me see," he said. "This turn is it, for Hill Street? I ought to know the way, though it is so many years since I took it. I hope I shall catch his lordship before dinner. If I'm obliged to disturb him, he'll be in a horrible rage, and things won't be propitious. Anyhow, at the worst, I'll have time to eat something at the station before I catch the mail. Perhaps his lordship will ask me to dinner if things go well."
He smiled so cheerfully, showing a row of even white teeth, that a wretched girl, carrying an infant, was moved to beg of him. He handed her a shilling, to her unbounded amazement.