Page:The little blue devil (IA littlebluedevil00mackiala).pdf/246

stepson—it was as if he were saying aloud, “Now I am showing you something about which there can be no doubt. I have kept the best to the last, and I know you will not be disappointed.” Yet Pamela’s first sensation was one of repulsion. It required an effort to put a cordial hand into the rather too fleshy one he held out, and her shy smile suddenly vanished before his—she hated being looked at like that; it was not a mere smile of greeting—it was a sort of familiar approval. His first words were a shock too.

“We are all real pleased to see you, Pamela.”

How dared he call her Pamela? He was not a cousin, but the son of her uncle’s first wife. She glanced at Uncle Markham, but he only smiled back his pleasure and content, quite undisturbed. Oh, well, it was no use being disagreeable about it. Of course he did not mean to be impertinent—only friendly. Perhaps it was the custom in that part of the country—but she certainly would not call him Alick.

“I was very glad to come, Mr. Power,” she said—sweet, but with a touch of the haughtiness which Tony had known in London.

“And she likes riding, Alick. You must hunt up the best mount we can offer her and take her out somewhere every day. You might take her to Pittman’s Crossing to-morrow, eh? (A pretty place, Pamela. You’d like that?)”

“Yes, dad, if you’ll go and see Sawyer instead of me.”

“Sawyer? Oh, hang it all, boy, you know you’d better fix that business yourself! I don’t want to interfere with it at all. But next day———”

“Next day there’s the meeting to consider the question of the bridge, you remember. I shall have to be there, but after that I’m ready to do anything I can for Pamela.”