"Pam," Cheneston said gravely, "are you afraid of my being clumsy and not making things clear to him?"
I nodded. I couldn't speak. The idea of Cheneston being clumsy, Cheneston with his fine, fierce, almost uncanny insight into things, had me by the throat.
"I see," Cheneston said slowly. "Little Pam, I hate to think I have made you afraid for your happiness even for one minute. You are so worthy of happiness—so absolutely great! He'll understand, dear, how simply priceless you've been to—come here. He's bound to understand." He looked down at me with fierce anxiety in his hazel eyes, he seemed desperately questioning his own belief in Walter Markham's broad-mindedness.
"I'll make him understand," I said. "Don't worry, I'll make him understand."
A sudden flood of fierce protective love swept over me. I wished for the hundredth time that I might be big and Cheneston little—ever so little—that I might take him in my arms roughly and tell him not to look like that. I felt I could go to Walter Markham and explain everything, I could sit by his bedside and skin my very soul—but I couldn't help feeling, even then, it would be easier to do something bigger and less painful, something more actually physical than soul-skinning.
I never found it very easy to show my feelings to people; the bigger they are the more tightly corked they seem. I often wished for, and sometimes I've cried because I haven't, little frothy feelings that bubble over into little easy caresses and kind words and pretty compliments and easy things like that. It rather hurts me to get to the surface, I seem to have to tug from such a long way down.
"I'll drive you to the station," Cheneston said. "I shall tell mater you've got to go up to Town on business."
"I'll tell her," I answered hastily.
I knew she would sense Cheneston's disquiet; women lie to women better than men to women. She took my departure more quietly than I had anticipated. There was a lovely expression on her dear face—it was as if her soul was smiling to itself while she was grave. She patted me with her lovely soft hands.
"And you will be back early to-morrow, dear, funny little girl? It's odd," she said, "I see a cloud between you and Cheneston. When I first saw it I was frightened, but now I know it is not made by your hearts—it is only a cloud your silly brains have made, child, and it will go. You are going to dissipate some of it to-day."