Elizabeth's Campaign

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

Desmond ruminated.

'He seemed to be getting on with Broomie this afternoon?'

'Magnificently. He always does. She's his sort. She writes to him.'

'Oh, does she?' The boy's voice was dry and hostile. He began to understand, or thought he did. Miss Bremerton was not only plotting to marry his father—had perhaps been plotting for it from the beginning—but was besides playing an unfair game with Pam—spoiling Pam's chances—cutting in where she wasn't wanted—grabbing, in fact. Anger was mounting in him. Why should his father be mopped up like this?—and Pamela made unhappy?

'I'd jolly well like to stop it all!' he said, under his breath.

'Stop what? You dear, foolish old man! You can't stop it, Dezzy.'

'Well, if she'll only make him happy—!'

'Oh, she'll be quite decent to him,' said Pamela, with a shrug, 'but she'll despise him!'

'What the deuce do you mean, Pam?'

Whereupon, quite conscious that she was obeying an evil and feverish impulse, but unable to control it, Pamela went into a long and passionate justification of what she had said. A number of small incidents—trifling acts and sayings of Elizabeth's—misinterpreted and twisted by the girl's jealous pain, were poured into Desmond's ears.