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an ignorant schoolgirl! He had no right to hold his head so, as if he were a Prince of the Blood Royal—but he would think that nothing, of course! This was socialism, she supposed. At any rate, it was what her uncle would call cant. She hated it.

“I’m sorry,” said Tony.

Worse and worse! How dared he apologise Was she showing her feelings as plainly as that? It was ill-bred of him—but what could one expect? . . .

“I wonder you mix with people like this if you despise them so,” she said.

“I don’t despise them. They’re very nice, and their manners are beautiful—mostly. Mine aren’t (as you see), because nobody brought me up. Perhaps if I chance to make money, my children’s children may have good manners too.”

Pamela looked as if she thought that such a change would be very desirable, but what she said was abrupt and rather strange. She did not mean to say it—it came out in spite of her. She had been staring hard at Tony, resolutely refusing to lower her eyes, though the faint smile in his, slightly mocking, wholly superior, made her angrier than she had ever been in her life. But as she gazed, a strange thing happened. Suddenly it seemed to her as if they had both become absolutely detached from all their surroundings, from their very bodies even, and she was looking at a very lonely, rather bitter young soul that all its life had had to fight. She shivered, without understanding why, and said:

“You sound as if you hated everybody.”

Now Tony had been thinking of his father, and that always brought the iron into his voice, but Pamela was about the last person in the world he would have suspected of noticing it.

“I don’t hate people,” he said. “I was thinking of work, only when I talk of making money I am speaking