She guessed that Pamela was in that self-conscious, _exalte_ mood of first youth which she remembered so well in herself--fretting too, no doubt, poor child! over the parting from Desmond.

Anyway she seemed to have no particular interest in Arthur Chicksands, nor he in her, though his tone in speaking to her had been, naturally, familiar and intimate.

But probably he was one of those able men who have little to say to the young girl, and keep their real minds for the older and experienced woman.
At any rate, Elizabeth dismissed from her mind whatever vague notion or curiosity as to a possible love-affair for Pamela in that direction might have been lurking in it.

And that being so, she promptly, and without _arriere pensee_ of any sort, allowed herself the pleasant recollection of half an hour's conversation which had put her intellectually on her mettle, and quickened those infant ambitions of a practical and patriotic kind which were beginning to rise in her.
But the Squire's coming escapade! How to stop it ?--for Desmond's sake chiefly.
Dear boy! It was on a tender, almost maternal thought of him that she at last turned to sleep.

But the footstep pursued her ear.