They have no gas or electric light here, only candles in silver sconces. I looked up suddenly and saw the perspiration glistening in beads on Cheneston's forehead. She took my hands.
"Pam," she said, "you're a wonderful little person—half gallant boy, half elf, and the other part sheer mother. The gallant boy in you will be his pal, the elf will keep him your eternal lover, and the mother—will keep him on his knees to you." She looked up at me whimsically, tenderly. "The Cromers are a woman's life-work—they run away for years and leave you to break your heart, and they come back and fill the hall with tusks and elephant-leg umbrella-stands, and expect you to go mad with them over the trophies. The elf in you will still the call of the wild in Cheneston, he will not dare to leave you, and the mother that broods in your quiet eyes." She turned to Cheneston. "You mustn't lose her—she's the one woman in the world for you—the only woman."
Then the nurse came back and signed to us to go.
Old Mrs. Cromer gave me a wonderful smile, and in that smile I suddenly realised how beautiful, how magnetic she had been. It was a smile of the most extraordinary and amazing happiness.
"Your father," I said, when we got outside, "your father went away from her?" I wanted to see if I had understood the significance of the smile.
"He took her," he said hoarsely. "She was his star, his goddess."
To-night we dined alone downstairs.
I wore my grey taffeta with the tiny bunches of pink apple-blossom and the little pink georgette fichu.
I felt that nothing else in my wardrobe was in keeping with the atmosphere of the Court.
Cheneston changed into ordinary evening dress. It was the first time I had seen him out of khaki. It sounds foolish and snobbish to say he looked a very gallant gentleman, as if I were trying to write an old-fashioned novel; but it is the only phrase that exactly describes him.