"'Crow'!"
"I beg your pardon, I mean Christobel, my elder sister. She is Mollie Shard's friend, and she's going to be presented fairly soon--she's done with school--but we are awfully good chums. She believed me, of course. She'd sooner mistrust her own eyes than my word, because we both know we wouldn't tell each other crammers."
"Is that lies?"
"Yes. She knows I wouldn't. You wouldn't tell your sister lies when you knew she trusted you, would you?"
Countess shrugged her shoulders with a faint air of amusement.
"I have no sister, so--well! But I should tell any person what I like, and whatever suited me to say. No one is bound to incriminate themselves. It is not 'lies', as you call it--that is business, and common-sense."
"Can't agree with you at all," said Pamela icily. "'Business and common-sense to tell lies when it paid'. Nice sort of ideas!"
She sat silent for a moment, then she asked:
"Are you at school?"
"Since I was ten years old, I have stayed--with a family--in England."