And Elizabeth, the shrewd and clever Elizabeth, saw nothing, and knew nothing. If she had ever for a passing moment suspected the possibility of 'an affair' between Arthur Chicksands and Pamela, she had ceased to think of it. The eager projects with which her own thoughts were teeming, had driven out the ordinary preoccupations of womankind. Derelict farms, the food-production of the county, timber, village reconstruction, war-work of various kinds, what time was there left?--what room?--in a mind wrestling with a hundred new experiences, for the guessing of a girl's riddle? Yet all the same she remained her just and kindly self. She was troubled--much troubled--by the twins' behaviour. She must somehow get to the bottom of it. So that when only she and Pamela were left in the hall she went up to the girl, not without agitation. 'Pamela--won't you tell me?--have I done anything to offend you and Desmond?' She spoke very quietly, but her tone showed her wounded. Pamela started and looked up. 'I don't know what you mean,' she said coldly. 'Did you think we had been rude to you?' It was the first hostile word they had ever exchanged. Elizabeth grew pale. 'I didn't say anything about your being rude. I asked you if you were cross with me.' 'Oh--cross!' said Pamela, suddenly conscious of a suffocating excitement. 'What's the good of being cross? It's you who are mistress here.' Elizabeth fell back a step in dismay. 'I do think you ought to explain,' she said after a moment. 'If I had done anything you didn't like--anything you thought unkind, I should be very very sorry.' Pamela rose from her seat. Elizabeth's tone seemed to her pure hypocrisy. All the bitter, poisonous stuff she had poured out to Desmond the night before was let loose again. Stammering and panting, she broke into the vaguest and falsest accusations. She was ignored--she was a nobody in her own home--everybody knew it and talked of it. She wasn't jealous--oh no!--she was simply miserable! 'Oh, I daresay you can no more help it than I can. You, of course, are twenty times more use here than I am. I don't dispute that. But I am the daughter of the house after all, and it is a little hard to be so shelved--so absolutely put in the background!--as I am--' 'Don't I consult you whenever I can? haven't I done my best to--' interrupted Elizabeth, only to be interrupted in her turn. --'to persuade father to let me do things? Yes, that's just it!--_you_ persuade father, you manage everything. It's just that that's intolerable!' And flushed with passion, extraordinarily handsome, Pamela stood tremulously silent, her eyes fixed on Elizabeth. Elizabeth, too, was silent for a moment. Then she said with steady emphasis: 'Of course there can only be one end to this. I can't possibly stay here.' 'Oh, very well, go!' cried Pamela. 'Go, and tell father that I've made you. But if you do, neither you nor he will see me again for a good while.' 'What do you mean?'