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they think. She is as hard as a granite wall, under that soft, pink skin. (Not so pink now.) She’ll stick it out till she gets in some hole—it doesn’t much matter what sort, there are so many for a girl—and then her obstinacy will break down, and it may be too late. . . . Oh, my God! and she knows nothing, and her old—lizard is too much of a lizard to be much help; she’s so dried and strict that the girl probably thinks she’s too strict to have any sense. Which is no use. And I shouldn’t think she’d be a sympathetic adviser. So the first pleasant fraud that comes along since she’s lonely, and very pretty. . . . Oh, no doubt she ought to go home.”

He frowned savagely, and kicked at a bit of orange-peel.

“What is it?” asked Pamela mildly. He had been saying something quite innocuous and good-natured.

“People shouldn’t leave these things about,” he said. “I’m surprised at Philadelphia, it’s supposed to be a neat place. Are you tired?”

“Perhaps we had better go back, it must be getting late; but I’m not tired.” She looked at Tony askance, sure that his mind was dwelling on Trent Stoke, and determined not to let him speak of it again. It would have been more than she could bear.

In spite of its having been such a nice walk, she rushed up to her room as soon as they returned, and had a hard fight to keep the tears back. It would never do to cry till she was safely in bed that night: Miss Sidmouth’s eyes were sharp. But she did wish they were not going away next day. The Straines were so kind, the whole place felt like a home, but she was desperately—desperately homesick for Trent Stoke really! And Tony did not seem to appreciate the idea of it a bit—that was dreadful—but he would, of course, learn to love it. She wished he would stop being obstinate and go to England at once. It was