can bear the cruel separation no longer. He will soften towards Mother then, and write her an imperative letter to sell up and come out to him without a moment’s unnecessary delay. Oh, I can manage him, I have no doubt of it at all!”

“I don’t think that I have either, if you go straight at it,” admitted Jack, who spoke from experience, knowing himself to be weak as water in the hands of Pam when she had really made up her mind to influence him. “The question in my mind is whether Mother and he will hit it off comfortably when they live together. She is mistress here, and does as she likes; but it would not be happy for her if the old man took to ordering her round as I do Barbara.”

“Indeed, no; but I tell you he can be managed, he must be managed for his own good,” she said earnestly. “If he is very happy and comfortable, he will not want to be tiresome. Think how good it will be for Muriel to have a country life for the next few years. Think, too, what it will do for the boys. Greg is growing much too fast. He ought to have quiet evenings, and to be in bed by eight o’clock, instead of which he and Sid are working hard until after nine on most evenings, waiting at table and clearing away, qualifying for posts as footmen and butlers, but missing all the free and easy life of boyhood that they ought to have.”

Jack drew a long breath which ended in a whistle.

“My word, if you talk to the old man like that, he will be sending for us all by the next boat! I will back you up for all I am worth, see if I don’t. Three cheers for Pam the Pioneer, the intrepid and the brave! Of all the great ideas you ever had, this is the greatest!”

Pam flushed with pleasure. Jack had the balance and steadiness which she lacked; he was apt to sit in judgment on her, and that sort of thing is rather unbearable as a rule. Her mother was always holding Jack before her eyes as a model to be studied and copied, which, of course, was more unbearable still; so that the present moment was sweet indeed, compensating for many a bad quarter of an hour which had come before.

“I must hurry up to Muriel now,” she said, ten minutes later, when they had discussed the scheme in all its bearings. “Be sure you stick by me, Jack, when it comes to the arguments, for you know I do not shine there.”

“Oh, I’ll stick by you, never fear,” he answered in a cheery tone. “I would do a good deal to see a way out of this boarding-house business. This stewing and grilling down 

 Prev. P 10/205 next