Part 55 (2/2)

”I should have known you anywhere, Archie. You're so like Barbara--so like mother.”

”They say Pam's exactly like what mother was. Have you seen her?”

”No, not yet. She--Violet--brought me in here.”

”I say, she's a ripper, isn't she? Cedric didn't do badly for himself--trust him. Wonder what the beggar'll be up to next? He's done jolly well, all along the line--retrieved the family fortunes, what? It only remains for me to wed an American, and Pamela to bring off her South African millionaire. She's got one after her, did you know?”

He spoke with a certain boyish eagerness that was rather attractive, but his rapid speech and restless manner made Alex wonder if he was nervous.

”Couldn't you ask Pamela to come to me here, so that I could see her without all those people?”

”What people? It's only old Jack Temple, and Carol. Harmless as kittens, what? But I'll get Pam for you in two twos. You watch.”

He put his fingers into his mouth and emitted a peculiar low whistle on two prolonged notes. The signal was instantly answered from the other room, but quaveringly, as though the whistler were laughing.

Then in a minute she appeared, very slim and tall, in the opening between the two rooms.

”I like your cheek, Archie!”

”I say, Pam, Alex is here.”

”Oh, Alex!”

Pamela, too, looked and sounded rather embarra.s.sed as she came forward and laid a fresh, glowing cheek against her sister's.

”Barbara telephoned last night that you'd come, and seemed awfully seedy,” she said in a quick, confused way. ”She ought to have made you rest today.”

”Oh, no, I'm all right,” said Alex awkwardly. ”How you've changed, Pamela! I haven't seen you since you were at school.”

Looking at her sister, she secretly rather wondered at what Barbara had said of the girl's attractiveness.

Pamela's round face was glowing with health and colour, and she held herself very upright, but Alex thought that her hair looked ugly, plastered exaggeratedly low on her forehead, and she could not see the resemblance to their mother of which Archie had spoken, except in the fairness of colouring which Pamela shared with Barbara and with Archie himself.

”You've changed, too, Alex. You look so frightfully thin, and you've lost all your colour. Have you been ill?”

”No, I've not been ill. Only rather run down. I was ill before Easter--perhaps that's it.”

Alex was embarra.s.sed too, a horrible feeling of failure and inadequacy creeping over her, and seeming to hamper her in every word and movement.

Pamela's cold, rather wondering scrutiny made her feel terribly unsure of herself. She had often known the sensation before--at school, in her early days at the novitiate, again in Rome, and ever since her arrival in England. It was the helpless insecurity of one utterly at variance with her surroundings.

She was glad when Violet came back and said: ”Here's Cedric. Go down to lunch, children--we'll follow you.”

Cedric's greeting to his sister was the most affectionate and the least awkward that she had yet received. He kissed her warmly and said, ”Well, my dear I'm glad we've got you back in England again. You must come to us, if Barbara will spare you.”

”Oh, Cedric!”

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