"Nonsense!" interposed Arnott. "You have got Miss Maitland. Daddy wants mummy." The child pouted her disappointment. "You can have Miss Maitland," she said, with unflattering generosity. "Pamela wants her mummy." Arnott laughed. "Suppose I come instead, kiddie?" he suggested. But his small daughter was decided in her opinions, and unblushingly frank in the expression of them. "I want mummy," she announced. "I don't want any one else." "I'll tell you what I will do," he said, rising abruptly, to Pamela's wondering amazement. "The car is all ready for going out I'll take the whole lot for a spin." He tried not to look as though he were conscious of acting in an altogether unprecedented manner, and added: "You can nurse the boy between you." "That will be jolly," said Pamela. Little Pamela clapped her hands. "That will be jolly," she echoed. "I feel quite the family man," Arnott remarked later, when he had settled Miss Maitland in the back with the children,--an arrangement against which Pamela, the younger, at first protested loudly. She wanted her mummy. Why couldn't Miss Maitland sit in front with daddy? Pamela touched his arm affectionately as he seated himself beside her and grasped the steering wheel. "I love you in the role," she said softly. "I wish you played it more often." He laughed constrainedly. "We'll see how it works," he answered guardedly. It worked well on the whole. David howled lustily part of the time, for no apparent reason, after the manner of small people; but he ceased his cries when Pamela took him on her lap and coaxed him into a good temper. That hour was the happiest she had spent for a long while. It was the first occasion on which Arnott had taken the children out, or evinced any interest in them whatever. She wondered what impulse had moved him to act in this wholly unexpected and delightful way. She understood him sufficiently to realise that it was an impulse, and entertained no great hope that it would develop into a practice; but even as an isolated instance of parental affection it presented him in a new and more kindly light. Aware that he was giving her pleasure, Arnott experienced an agreeable sense of virtuous complacency. He speculated upon what the girl in the tonneau was thinking, as she sat in her silent fashion, responding only when necessary to Pamela's ceaseless prattle. He looked round occasionally to make some joking remark to the child, and once he deliberately addressed himself to the governess. She started when he spoke to her, and answered briefly, and with faint embarrassment. After that one attempt at conversation he did not look round again. "I like going out in the car," remarked little Pamela, when she was lifted out on their return home. "Why don't we go every day?" "Daddy wouldn't be bothered with such a small fidget every day," he answered. "But you shall go again, if you are good." "To-morrow?" demanded Pamela.