Wynne."
With the suspicion which this conversation aroused fresh in my
mind, it was curious to hear Pamela laugh, as she said to me
on the afternoon of the same day:
"Aren't Sir Gilbert and Audrey Liston funny? I tell you what,
Mr. Wynne, I believe they're writing a novel together."
"Perhaps Chillington's giving her the materials for one," I
suggested.
"I shouldn't think," observed Pamela in her dispassionate way,
"that anything very interesting had ever happened to him."
"I thought you liked him," I remarked humbly.
"So I do. What's that got to do with it?" asked Pamela.
It was beyond question that Chillington enjoyed Miss Liston's
society; the interest she showed in him was incense to his
nostrils. I used to overhear fragments of his ideas about
himself which he was revealing in answer to her tactful
inquiries. But neither was it doubtful that he had by no means
lost his relish for Pamela's lighter talk; in fact, he seemed to
turn to her with some relief--perhaps it is refreshing to
escape from self-analysis, even when the process is conducted in
the pleasantest possible manner--and the hours which Miss Liston
gave to work were devoted by Chillington to maintaining his
cordial relations with the lady whose comfortable and not over-
tragical disposal was taxing Miss Liston's skill. For she had
definitely decided all her plot--she told me so a few days later.
It was all planned out; nay, the scene in which the truth as to
his own feelings bursts on Sir Gilbert (I forget at the moment
what name the novel gave him) was, I understood, actually
written; the shallow girl was to experience nothing worse than a
wound to her vanity, and was to turn, with as much alacrity as
decency allowed, to the substitute whom Miss Liston had now
provided.
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