She watched them coming, with a curious mingling of interest in them and detachment from them. She was to them merely the Squire's paid secretary. Were they anything to her? A puckish thought crossed her mind, sending a flash of slightly cynical laughter through her quiet eyes. If Mrs. Gaddesden's terrors—for she supposed they were terrors—were suddenly translated into fact, why, all these people would become in a moment related to her!—their lives would be mixed up with hers—she and they would matter intimately to each other!

She sat smiling and dreaming a few more minutes, the dimples playing about her firm mouth and chin. Then, as the sound of wheels drew nearer, she rose and went towards the party.

* * * * *

The party from Chetworth soon perceived Elizabeth's approach. 'So this is the learned lady?' said the Captain in Pamela's ear. She had brought him in her pony-carriage so far, as he was not yet able for much physical exertion, and he and Beryl were to walk back from Holme Wood Hill.

He put up his eye-glass, and examined the figure as it came nearer.

'She's just come up, I suppose, from the farm,' said Pamela, pointing to some red roofs among the trees, in the wide hollow below the hill.

'"Athene Ageleie"!' murmured the Major, who had been proxime for the Ireland, and a Balliol man. 'She holds herself well—beautiful hair!'

'Beryl, this is Miss Bremerton,' said Aubrey Mannering, with a cordial ring in his voice, as he introduced his fiancee to Elizabeth. The two shook hands, and Elizabeth thought the girl's manner a little stand-off, and wondered why.

The pony had soon been tied up, and the party spread themselves on the grass of the hill-side; for Holme Wood Hill was a famous point of view, and the sunny peace of the afternoon invited loitering. For miles to the eastward spread an undulating chalk plain, its pale grey or purplish soil showing in the arable fields where the stubbles were just in process of ploughing, its monotony broken by a vast wood of oak and beech into which the hill-side ran down—a wood of historic fame, which had been there when Senlac was fought, had furnished ship-timber for the Armada, and sheltered many a cavalier fugitive of the Civil Wars.

The wood indeed, which belonged to the Squire, was a fragment of things primeval. For generations the trees in it had sprung up, flourished, and fallen as they pleased. There were corners of it where the north-west wind sweeping over the bare down above it had made pathways of death and ruin; sinister places where the fallen or broken trunks of the great beech trees, as they had crashed down-hill upon and against each other, had assumed all sorts of grotesque and phantasmal attitudes, as in a trampled melee of giants; there were other parts where slender plumed trees, rising branchless to a great height above open spaces, took the shape from a distance of Italian stone palms, and gave a touch of southern or romantic grace to the English midland scene; while at their feet, the tops of the more crowded sections of the wood lay in close, billowy masses of leaf, the oaks vividly green, the beeches already aflame.

'Who says there's a war?' said Captain Chicksands, sinking luxuriously into a sunny bed of dry leaves, conveniently placed in front of Elizabeth. 'Miss Bremerton, you and I were, I understand, at the same University?'

Elizabeth assented.

'Is it your opinion that Universities are any good?—that after the war there are going to be any Universities?'

'Only those that please the Labour Party!' put in Mannering.

'Oh, I'm not afraid of the Labour Party—awfully good fellows, many of them. The sooner they make a Government the better. They've got to learn their lessons like the rest of us. But I do want to know whether Miss Bremerton thinks Oxford was any use—before the war—and is going to be any use after the war? It's all right now, of course, for the moment, with the Colleges full of cadets and wounded men. But would you put the old Oxford back if you could?'

He lay on his elbows looking up at her. Elizabeth's eyes sparkled a little. She realized that an able man was experimenting on her, putting her through her paces. She asked what he meant by 'the old Oxford,' and an amusing dialogue sprang up between them as to their respective recollections of the great University—the dons, the lectures, the games, the Eights, 'Commem.' and the like. The Captain presently declared that Elizabeth had had a much nicer Oxford than he, and he wished he had been a female student.

'Didn't you—didn't you,' he said, his keen eyes observing her, 'get a prize once that somebody had given to the Women's Colleges for some Greek iambics?'

'Oh,' cried Elizabeth, 'how did you hear of that?'

'I was rather a dab at them myself,' he said lazily, drawing his hat over his eyes as he lay in the sun, 'and I perfectly remember hearing of a young lady—yes, I believe it was you!—whose translation of Browning's "Lost Leader" into Greek iambics was better than mine. They set it in the Ireland. You admit it? Capital! As to the superiority of yours, I was, of course, entirely sceptical, though polite. Remind me, how did you translate "Just for a ribbon to put on his coat"?'

With a laughing mouth, Elizabeth at once quoted the Greek.

The Captain made a wry face.

'It sounds plausible, I agree,' he said slowly, 'but I don't believe a Greek would have understood a word of it. You remember that in the dim Victorian ages, when one great Latin scholar gave, as he thought, the neatest possible translation of "The path of glory leads but to the grave," another great Latin scholar declared that all a Roman could have understood by it would have been "The path of a public office leads to the jaws of the hillock"?'

The old Oxford joke was new in the ears of this Georgian generation, and when the laugh subsided, Elizabeth said mildly:

'Now, please, may I have yours?'

'What—my translation? Oh—horribly unfair!' said the Captain, chewing a piece of grass. 'However, here it is!'

He gave it out—with unction.

Elizabeth fell upon it in a flash, dissected and quarrelled with every word of it, turned it inside out in fact, while the Captain, still chewing, followed her with eyes of growing enjoyment.

'Well, I'll take a vote when I get back to the front,' he said, when she came to an end. 'Several firsts in Mods on our staff. I'll send you the result.'

The talk dropped. The mention of the front reminded every one of the war, and its bearing on their own personal lot. Desmond was going into camp that evening. In a few months he would be a full-blown gunner at the front. Beryl, watching Aubrey's thin face and nervous frown, proved inwardly that the Aldershot appointment might go on. And Elizabeth's thoughts had flown to her brother in Mesopotamia.

Pamela, sitting apart, and deeply shaded by a great beech with drooping branches that rose behind the group, was sharply unhappy, and filled with a burning jealousy of Elizabeth, who queened it there in the middle of them—so self-possessed, agreeable, and competent. How well Arthur had been getting on with her! What a tiresome, tactless idiot she, Pamela, must seem in comparison! The memory of her talk with him made her cheeks hot. So few chances of seeing him!—and when they came, she threw them away. She felt for the moment as though she hated Elizabeth. Why had her father saddled her upon them? Life was difficult enough before. Passionately she began to think of her threat to Arthur. It had been the merest 'idle word.' But why shouldn't she realize it—why not 'run away'? There was work to be done, and money to be earned, by any able-bodied girl. And perhaps then, when she was on her own, and had proved that she was not a child any longer, Arthur would respect her more, take more interest in her.

'What do you prophesy?' said Elizabeth suddenly, addressing Arthur Chicksands, who seemed to be asleep in the grass. 'Will it end—by next summer?'

'What, the war?' he said, waking up. 'Oh dear, no. Next year will be the worst of any—the test of us all—especially of you civilians at home. If we stick it, we shall save ourselves and the world. If we don't—'

He shrugged his shoulders. His voice was full and deep. It thrilled the girl sitting in the shade—partly with fear. In three weeks or so, the speaker would be back in the full inferno of the front, and because of her father's behaviour she would probably not be able to see him in the interval. Perhaps she might never see him again. Perhaps this was the last time. And he would go away without giving her a thought. Whereas, if she had played her cards differently, this one last day, he might at least have asked her to write to him. Many men did—even with girls they hardly knew at all.

Just then she noticed a movement of Beryl's, and saw her friend's small bare hand creep out and slip itself into Aubrey Mannering's, as he sat beside her on the grass. The man's hand enfolded the girl's—he turned round to smile at her in silence. A pang of passionate envy swept through Pamela. It was just so she wished to be enfolded—to be loved.

It was Elizabeth—as the person who had business to do and hours to keep—who gave the signal for the break-up of the party. She sprang to her feet, with a light, decided movement, and all the others fell into line. Arthur and Beryl still accompanied the Mannering contingent a short distance, the Captain walking beside Elizabeth in animated conversation. At last Beryl peremptorily recalled him to the pony-carriage, and the group halted for good-byes.

Pamela stood rather stiffly apart. The Captain went up to her.

'Good-bye, Pamela. Do write to me sometimes! I shall be awfully interested about the farms!'

With vexation she felt the colour rush to her cheeks.

'I shan't have much to say about them,' she said stiffly.

'I'm sure you will! You'll get keen! But write about anything. It's awfully jolly to get letters at the front!'

His friendly, interrogating eyes were on her, as though she puzzled him in this new phase, and he wanted to understand her. She said hurriedly, 'If you like,' hating herself for the coolness in her voice, and shook hands, only to hear him say, as he turned finally to Elizabeth, 'Mind, you have promised me "The Battle of the Plough"! I'm afraid you'll hardly have time to put it into iambics!'

So he had asked Miss Bremerton to write to him too! Pamela vowed inwardly that in that case she would not write him a line. And it seemed to her unseemly that her father's secretary should be making mock of her father's proceedings with a man who was a complete stranger to her. She walked impetuously ahead of Aubrey and Elizabeth. Towards the west the beautiful day was dying, and the light streamed on the girl's lithe young figure and caught her golden-brown hair. Clouds of gnats rose in the mild air; and a light seemed to come back from the bronzed and purple hedgerows, making a gorgeous atmosphere, in which the quiet hill-top and the thinning trees swam transfigured. A green woodpecker was pecking industriously among some hedgerow oaks, and Pamela, who loved birds and watched them, caught every now and then the glitter of his flight. The world was dropping towards sleep. But she was burningly awake and alive. Had she ever been really alive before?

Then—suddenly she remembered Desmond. He was to be home from some farewell visits between five and six. She would be late; he might want her for a hundred things. His last evening! Her heart smote her. They had reached the park gates. Waving her hand to the two behind, with the one word 'Desmond!' she began to run, and was soon out of their sight.

* * * * *

Elizabeth and Aubrey were not long behind her. They found the house indeed pervaded with Desmond, and Desmond's going. Aubrey also was going up to town, but of him nobody took any notice. Pamela and Forest were in attendance on the young warrior, who was himself in the wildest spirits, shouting and whistling up and downstairs, singing the newest and most shocking of camp songs, chaffing Forest, and looking with mischievous eyes at the various knitted 'comforts' to which his married sisters were hastily putting the last stitches.

'I say, Pam—do you see me in mittens?' he said to her in the hall, thrusting out his two splendid hands with a grin. 'And as for that jersey of Alice's—why, I should stew to death in it. Oh, I know—I can give it to my batman. The fellows tell me you can always get rid of things to your batman. It's like sending your wedding-presents to the pawn-shop. But where is father?' The boy looked discontentedly at his watch. 'He vowed he'd be here by five. I must be off by a few minutes after eight.'

'The train's late. He'll be here directly,' said Pamela confidently; 'and I say—don't you hurt Alice's feelings, old man.'

'Don't you preach, Pam!' said the boy, laughing. And a few minutes afterwards Pamela, passing the open door of the drawing-room, heard him handsomely thanking his elder sisters. He ran into her as he emerged with his arms full of scarves, mittens, and the famous jersey which had taken Alice Gaddesden a year to knit.

'Stuff 'em in somewhere, Pam!' he said in her ear. 'They can go up to London anyway.' And having shovelled them all off on to her, he raced along the passage to the library in search of Elizabeth.

'I say, Miss Bremerton, I want a book or two.'

Elizabeth looked up smiling from her table. She was already of the same mind as everybody outside and inside Mannering—that Desmond did you a kindness when he asked you to do him one.

'What kind of a book?'

'Oh, I've got some novels, and some Nat Goulds, and Pamela's given me some war-books. Don't know if I shall read 'em!—Well, I'd like a small Horace, if you can find one. "My tutor" was an awfully good hand at Horace. He really did make me like the old chap! And have you got such a thing as a Greek Anthology that wouldn't take up much room?'

Elizabeth went to the shelves to look. Desmond as the possessor of literary tastes was a novelty to her. But, after all, she understood that he had been a half in the Sixth at Eton, before his cadet training began. She found him two small pocket editions, and the boy thanked her gratefully. He began to turn over the Anthology, as though searching for something.

'Can I help you to find anything?' she asked him.

'No—it's something I remember,' he said absently, and presently hit upon it, with a look of pleasure.

'They did know a thing or two, didn't they? That's fine anyway?' He handed her the book. 'But I forget some of the words. Do you mind giving me a construe?' he said humbly.

Elizabeth translated, feeling rather choky.

'"On the Spartans at Thermopylae.

'"Him—"'

'That's Xerxes, of course,' put in Desmond.

'"Him, who changed the paths of earth and sea, who sailed upon the mainland, and walked upon the deep—him did Spartan valour hold back, with just three hundred spears. Shame on you, mountains and seas!"'

'Well, that's all right, isn't it?' said the boy simply, looking up. 'Couldn't put it better if you tried, could you?' Then he said, hesitating a little as he turned down the leaf, and put the book in his pocket, 'Five of the fellows who were in the Sixth with me this time last year are dead by now. It makes you think a bit, doesn't it?—Hullo, there is father!'

He turned joyously, his young figure finely caught in the light of Elizabeth's lamp against the background of the Nike.

'Well, father you have been a time! I thought you'd forgotten altogether I was off to-night.'

'The train was abominably late. Travelling is becoming a perfect nuisance! I gave the station-master a piece of my mind,' said the Squire angrily.

'And I expect he said that you civilians jolly well have to wait for the munition trains!'

'He muttered some nonsense of that sort. I didn't listen to him.' The Squire threw himself down in an arm-chair. Desmond perched on the corner of a table near. Elizabeth discreetly took up her work and disappeared.

'How much time have you got?' asked the Squire abruptly.

'Oh, a few minutes. Aubrey and I are to have some supper before I go. But Forest'll come and tell me.'

'Everything ready? Got money enough?'

'Rather! I shan't want anything for an age. Why, I shall be buying war-loan out of my pay!'

He laughed happily. Then his face grew suddenly serious.

'Look here, father—I want awfully to say something. Do you mind?'

'If you want to say it, I suppose you will say it.'

The Squire was sitting hunched up, looking old and tired, his thick white hair piled fantastically above his eyes.

Desmond straightened his shoulders with the air of one going over the parapet.

'Well, it's this, father. I do wish you'd give up that row about the park!'

The Squire sat up impatiently.

'That's not your business, Desmond. It can't matter to you.'

'Yes, but it does matter to me!' said the boy with energy. 'It'll be in all the papers—the fellows will gas about it at mess—it's awfully hard lines on me. It makes me feel rotten!'

The Squire laughed. He was reminded of a Fourth of June years before, when Desmond had gone through agonies of shame because his father was not, in his eyes, properly 'got-up' for the occasion—how he had disappeared in the High Street, and only joined his people again in the crowd at the fireworks.

'I recommend you to stick it, Desmond. It won't last long. I've got my part to play, and you've got yours. You fight because they make you.'

'I don't!' said the boy passionately. 'I fight because—'

Then his words broke down. He descended from the table.

'Well, all right, father. I suppose it's no good talking. Only if you think I shan't mind if you get yourself put in quad, you're jolly well mistaken. Hullo, Forest! I'm coming!'

He hurried off, the Squire moving slowly after him. In the hour before the boy departed he was the spoilt darling of his sisters and the servants, who hung round him, and could not do enough for him. He endured it, on the whole, patiently dashing out at the very end to say good-bye to an old gardener, once a keeper, with whom he used to go ferreting in the park. To his father alone his manner was not quite as usual. It was the manner of one who had been hurt. The Squire felt it.

As to his elder son, he and Aubrey parted without any outward sign of discord, and on the way to London Aubrey, with the dry detachment that was natural to him in speaking of himself, told the story of the preceding twenty-four hours to the eager Desmond's sympathetic ears. 'Well done, Broomie!' was the boy's exultant comment on the tale of the codicil.

The house after Desmond's departure settled dreamily down. Pamela, with red eyes, retreated to the schoolroom, and began to clear up the debris left by the packing; Alice Gaddesden went to sleep in the drawing-room; Mrs. Strang wrote urgent letters to registry offices, who now seldom answered her; the Squire was in the library, and Elizabeth retreated early to her own room. She spent a good deal of time in writing up a locked diary, and finishing up a letter to her mother. Then she saw to her astonishment that it was nearly one o'clock, and began to feel sleepy.

The night was warm, and before undressing she put out her light, and threw up her window. There was a moon nearly at the full outside, and across the misty stretches of the park the owls were calling.

Suddenly she heard a distant footstep, and drew back from the window. A man was pacing slowly up and down an avenue of pollarded limes which divided the rose-garden from the park. His figure could only be intermittently seen; but it was certainly the Squire.

She drew the curtains again without shutting the window; and for long after she was in bed she still heard the footstep. It awakened many trains of thought in her—of her own position in this household where she seemed to have become already mistress and indispensable; of Desmond's last words with her; of the relations between father and son; of Captain Chicksands and his most agreeable company; of Pamela's evident dislike of her, and what she could do to mend it.

As to Pamela, Elizabeth's thoughts went oddly astray. She was vexed with the girl for what had seemed to the elder woman her young rudeness to a gallant and distinguished man. Why, she had scarcely spoken a word to him during the sitting on the hill! In some way, Elizabeth supposed, Captain Chicksands had offended her—had not made enough of her perhaps? But girls must learn now to accept simpler and blunter manners from their men friends. 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. What was the meaning of this long nocturnal pacing? Had the Squire, after all, a heart, or some fragment of one? Was it the parting from Desmond that thus kept him from his bed? She would have liked to think it—but did not quite succeed!



CHAPTER VII

A week or two had passed.

The Squire was on his way to inspect his main preparations for the battle at the park gates, which he expected on the morrow. He had been out before breakfast that morning, on horseback, with one of the gardeners, to see that all the gates on the estate, except the Chetworth gate, were locked and padlocked. For the Chetworth gate, which adjoined the land to be attacked, more serious defences were in progress.

All his attempts to embarrass the action of the Committee had been so far vain. The alternatives he had proposed had been refused. Fifty acres at the Chetworth end of Mannering Park, besides goodly slices elsewhere, the County Committee meant to have. As the Squire would not plough them himself, and as the season was advancing, he had been peremptorily informed that the motor plough belonging to the County Committee would be sent over on such a day, with so many men, to do the work; the land had been surveyed; no damage would be done to the normal state of the property that could be avoided; et cetera.

So the crisis was at hand. The Squire felt battle in his blood.

As he walked along through his domain, exhilarated by the bright frosty morning, and swinging his stick like a boy, he was in the true Quixotic mood, ready to tilt at any wind-mill in his path. The state of the country, the state of the war, the state of his own affairs, had produced in him a final ferment of resentment and disgust which might explode in any folly.

Why not go to prison? He thought he could bear it. A man must stand by his opinions—even through sacrifice. It would startle the public into attention. Such outrages on the freedom, on the ancient rights of Englishmen, must not pass without protest. Yes—he felt it in him to be a martyr! They would hardly refuse him a pocket Homer in prison.

What, a month? Three weeks, in actual practice. Luckily he cared nothing at all about food—though he refused to be rationed by a despotic Government. On a handful of dates and a bit of coarse bread he had passed many a day of hard work when he was excavating in the East. One can always starve—for a purpose! The Squire conceived himself as out for Magna Charta—the root principles of British liberty. As for those chattering fellows of the Labour Party, let them conquer England if they could. While the Government ploughed up his land without leave, the Socialists would strip him of it altogether. Well, nothing for it but to fight! If one went down, one went down—but at least honourably.

In the Times that morning there was a report of a case in the north, a landowner fined L100, for letting a farm go to waste for the game's sake. And Miss Bremerton had been holding up the like fate to him that morning—because of Holme Wood. A woman of parts that!—too clever!—a disputatious creature, whom a man would like to put down. But it wasn't easy; she slipped out of your grip—gave you unexpected tits for tats. One would have thought after that business with the will, she would be anxious to make up—to show docility. In such a relation one expected docility. But not a bit of it! She grew bolder. The Squire admitted uncomfortably that it was his own fault—only, in fact, what he deserved for making a land-agent, accountant, and legal adviser out of a poor lady who had merely engaged herself to be his private secretary for classical purposes.

All the same he confessed that she had never yet neglected the classical side of her duties. His thoughts contrasted the library and the collections as they were now, with what they had been a couple of months before. Now he knew where books could be found; now one could see the precious things he possessed. Her taste—her neatness—her diligence—nothing could beat them. And she moved so quietly—had so light a foot—and always a pleasant voice and smile. Oh yes, she had been a great catch—an astonishing catch—no doubt of that. All the same he was not going to be entirely governed by her! And again he thought complacently of the weak places in her scholarship—the very limited extent of her reading—compared to his. 'By Zeus!—[Greek: ei pot' estin]—if it weren't for that, I should never keep the whip-hand of her at all!'

She had made a forlorn attempt again, that morning, to dissuade him from the park adventure. But there he drew the line. For there really was a line, though he admitted it might be difficult to see, considering all that he was shovelling upon her. He had been very short—perhaps she would say, very rude—with her. Well, it couldn't be helped! When she saw what he was really prepared to face, she would at least respect him. And if he was shut up, she could get on with the catalogue, and keep things going.

Altogether the Squire was above himself. The tonic air and scents of the autumn, the crisp leaves underfoot, the slight frost on the ruts, helped his general intoxication. He, the supposed scholar and recluse, was about to play a part—a rattling part. The eye of England would be upon him! He already tasted the prison fare, and found it quite tolerable.

As to Desmond—

But the thought of him no sooner crossed the Squire's mind than he dismissed it. Or rather it survived far within, as a volcanic force, from which the outer froth and ferment drew half its strength. He was being forcibly dispossessed of Desmond, just as he was being forcibly dispossessed of his farms and his park; or of his money, swallowed up in monstrous income tax.

Ah, there were Dodge and Perley, the two park-keepers, one of whom lived in the White Lodge, now only a hundred yards away. Another man who was standing by them, near the park wall, looked to the Squire like Gregson, his ejected farmer. And who was that black-coated fellow coming through the small wicket-gate beside the big one? What the devil was he doing in the park? There was a permanent grievance in the Squire's mind against the various rights-of-way through his estate. Why shouldn't he be at liberty to shut out that man if he wanted to? Of course by the mere locking and barricading of the gates, as they would be locked and barricaded on the morrow, he was flouting the law. But that was a trifle. The gates were his own anyway.

The black-coated man, however, instead of proceeding along the road, had now approached the group of men standing under the wall, and was talking with them. They themselves did not seem to be doing anything, although a large coil of barbed wire and a number of hurdles lay near them.

'Hullo, Dodge!'

At the Squire's voice the black-coated man withdrew a little distance to the roadway, where he stood watching. Of the three others the two old fellows, ex-keepers both of them, stood sheepishly silent, as the Squire neared them.

'Well, my men, good-morning! What have you done?' said the Squire peremptorily.

Dodge looked up.

'We've put a bit of wire on the gate, Squoire, an' fastened the latch of it up—and we've put a length or two along the top of the wall,' said the old man slowly—'an' then—' He paused.

'Then what?—what about the hurdles? I expected to find them all up by now!'

Dodge looked at Perley. And Perley, a gaunt, ugly fellow, who had been a famous hunter and trapper in his day, took off his hat and mopped his brow, before he said, in a small, cautious voice, entirely out of keeping with the rest of him:

'The treuth on it is, Squoire, we don't loike the job. We be afeard of their havin' the law on us.'

'Oh, you're afraid, are you?' said the Squire angrily. 'You won't stand up for your rights, anyway!'

Perley looked at his employer a little askance.

'They're not our rights, if you please, Muster Mannering. We don't have nothing to say to 'un.'

'They are your rights, you foolish fellow! If this abominable Government tramples on me to-day, it'll trample on you to-morrow.'

'Mebbe, Squoire, mebbe,' said Perley mildly. 'But Dodge and I don't feel loike standing up to 'un. We was engaged to mind the roads an' the leaves, an' a bit rabbitin', an' sich like. But this sort of job is somethin' out o' the common, Muster Mannering. We don't hold wi' it. The County they've got a powerful big road-engine, Squoire. They'll charge them gates to-morrow—there 'll be a terr'ble to do. My wife, she's frightened to death. She's got a cart from Laycocks, and she's takin' all our bit things over to her mother's. She won't stay, she says, to be blowed up, not for no one. Them Governments is terr'ble powerful, Squoire. If they was to loose a bit o' gas on us—or some o' they stuffs they put into shells? Noa, Noa, Squoire'—Perley shook his head resolutely, imitated exactly by Dodge—'we'll do our dooty in them things we was engaged to do. But we're not foightin' men!'

'You needn't tell me that!' said the Squire, exasperated. 'The look of you's enough. So you refuse to barricade those gates?'

'Well, we do, Squoire,' said Perley, in a tone of forced cheerfulness.

'Yes, we do,' said Dodge slowly, copying the manner of his leader.

All this time Gregson had been standing a little apart from the rest. His face showed traces of recent drinking, his hands wandered restlessly from his coat-collar to his pockets, his clothes were shabby and torn. But when the Squire looked round him, as though invoking some one or something to aid him against these deserters, Gregson came forward.

'If you want any help, Mr. Mannering, I'm your man. I suppose these fellows'll lend a hand with carrying these things up to the gates. They'll not risk their precious skins much by doing that!'

Perley and Dodge replied with alacrity that so far they would gladly oblige the Squire, and they began to shoulder the hurdles.

It was at that moment that the Squire caught the eye of the black-coated man, who had been observing the whole proceedings from about ten yards off. The expression of the eye roused in Mannering an itching desire to lay immediate hands on its possessor. He strode up to him.

'I don't know, sir, why you stand there, looking on at things that are no business of yours,' he said angrily. 'If you want to know your way anywhere, one of my men here will show you.'

'Oh, thank you,' said the other tranquilly. 'I know my way perfectly.' He held up an ordnance map, which he carried in his hand. 'I'm an engineer. I come from London, and I'm bound for a job at Crewe. But I'm very fond of country walking when the weather's good. I've walked about a good bit of England, in my time, but this part is a bit I don't know. So, as I had two days' holiday, I thought I'd have a look at your place on the road. And as you are aware, Mr. Mannering'—he pointed to the map—'this is a right-of-way, and you can't turn me out.'

'All the same, sir, you are on my property,' said the Squire hotly, 'and a right-of-way only means a right of passing through. I should be much obliged if you would hurry yourself a little.'

The other laughed. He was a slim fellow, apparently about thirty, in a fresh, well-cut, serge suit. A book was sticking out of one pocket; he returned the map to the other. He had the sallow look of one who has spent years in hot workshops, and a slight curvature of the spine; but his eyes were singularly, audaciously bright, and all his movements alert and decided.

'It's not often one sees such a typical bit of feudalism as this,' he said, without the smallest embarrassment, pointing to the old men, the gates, the hurdles, which Gregson was now placing in position, and finally the Squire himself. 'I wouldn't have missed it for worlds. It's as good as a play. You're fighting the County Agricultural War Committee, I understand from these old fellows, because they want a bit of your park to grow more food?'

'Well, sir, and how does it matter to you?'

'Oh, it matters a great deal,' said the other, smiling. 'I want to be able to tell my grandchildren—when I get 'em—that I once saw this kind of thing. They'll never believe me. For in their day, you see, there'll be no squires, and no parks. The land 'll be the people's, and all this kind of thing—your gates, your servants, your fine house, your game-coverts, and all the rest of it—will be like a bit of history out of Noah's Ark.'

The Squire looked at him attentively.

'You're a queer kind of chap,' he said, half contemptuously. 'I suppose you're one of those revolutionary fellows the papers talk about?'

'That's it. Only there are a good many of us. When the time comes,' he nodded pleasantly, 'we shall know how to deal with you.'

'It'll take a good deal longer than you think,' said the Squire coolly; 'unless indeed you borrow the chap from Russia who's invented the machine for cutting off five hundred heads at once, by electricity. That might hasten matters a little!'

He had by now entirely recovered his chaffing, reckless temper, and was half enjoying the encounter.

'Oh, not so long,' said the other. 'You're just passing a Franchise Bill that will astonish you when you see the results! You perhaps may just live it out—yes, you may die peaceably in that house yonder. But your son, if you have one—that'll be another pair of boots!'

'You and your pals would be much better employed in stopping this accursed war than in talking revolutionary drivel like that,' said the Squire, with energy.

'Oh ho! so you want to stop the war?' said the other, lifting his eyebrows. 'I should like to know why.'

The Squire went off at once into one of his usual tirades as to 'slavery' and 'liberty.' 'You're made to work, or fight! willy-nilly. That man's turned out of his farm—willy-nilly. I'm made to turn him out—willy-nilly. The common law of England's trampled under foot. What's worth it? Nothing!'

The Squire's thin countenance glowed fanatically. With his arms akimbo he stood towering over the younger man, his white hair glistening in the sun.

The other smiled, as he looked his assailant up and down.

'Who's the revolutionist now?' he said quietly. 'What's the war cost you, Mr. Mannering, compared to what it's cost me and my pals? This is the first holiday I've had for three years. Twice I've dropped like dead in the shop—strained heart, says the doctor. No time to eat!—no time to sleep!—come out for an hour, wolf some brandy down and go back again, and then they tell you you're a drunken brute! "Shells and guns!" says the Government—"more shells!—more guns!—deliver the goods!" And we've delivered 'em. My two brothers are dead in France. I shall be "combed" out directly, and a "sniper" will get me, perhaps, three days after I get to the trenches, as he did my young brother. What then? Oh, I know, there's some of us—the young lads mostly—who've got out of hand, and 'll give the Government trouble perhaps before they've done. Who can wonder, when you see the beastly towns they come out of, and the life they were reared in! And none of us are going to stand profiteering, and broken pledges, and that kind of thing!'—a sudden note of passion rushed into the man's voice. 'But after all, when all's said and done, this is England!' he turned with a fine, unconscious gesture to the woods and green spaces behind him, and the blue distances of plain—'and we're Englishmen—and it's touch and go whether England's going to come out or go under; and if we can't pay the Huns for what they've done in Belgium—what they've done in France!—what they've done to our men on the sea!—well, it's a devil's world!—and I'd sooner be quit of it, it don't matter how!'

The man's slight frame shook under the force of his testimony. His eyes held the Squire, who was for the moment silenced. Then the engineer turned on his heel with a laugh:

'Well, good-day to you, Mr. Mannering. Go and fasten up your gates! If I'm for minding D.O.R.A. and winning the war, I'm a good Socialist all the same. I shall be for making short work with you, when our day comes.' And touching his hat, he walked rapidly away.

The Squire straightened his shoulders, and looked round to see whether they had been overheard. But the labourers carrying the hurdles, and Gregson burdened with the coil of wire, had not been listening. They stood now in a group close to the main gate waiting for their leader. The Squire walked up to them, picking his way among various articles of furniture, a cradle, some bedding, a trunk or two, which lay scattered in the road in front of the white casemented lodge. The wife of old Perley, the lodge-keeper, was standing on her doorstep.

'Well, no offence, Muster Mannering, but Perley and me's going over to my sister's at Wood End to-night, afore the milingtary come.' The black-browed elderly woman spoke respectfully but firmly.

'What silly nonsense have you got into your heads?' shouted the Squire. 'You know very well all that's going to happen is that the County Council are going to send their motor-plough over, and they'll have to break down the gates to get in, so that the law can settle it. What's come to you that you're all scuttling like a pack of rabbits? It's not your skins that'll pay for it—it's mine!'

'We're told—Perley an' me—as there'll be milingtary,' said Mrs. Perley, unmoved. 'Leastways, they'll bring a road-engine, Perley says, as'll make short work o' them gates. And folks do say as they might even bring a tank along; you know, sir, as there's plenty of 'em, and not fur off.' She nodded mysteriously towards a quarter, never mentioned in the neighbourhood, where these Behemoths of war had a training-ground. 'And Perley and me, we can't have nowt to do wi' such things. We wasn't brought up to 'em.'

'Well, if you go, you don't come back!' said the Squire, shaking a threatening hand.

'Thank you, sir. But there's work for all on us nowadays,' said the woman placidly.

Then the Squire, with Gregson's help, set himself fiercely to the business. In little more than an hour, and with the help of some pieces of rope, the gate had been firmly barricaded with hurdles and barbed wire, wicket-gate and all, and the Squire, taking a poster in large letters from his pocket, affixed it to the outside of the gate. It signified to all and sundry that the Chetworth gate of Mannering Park could now only be opened by violence, and that those offering such violence would be proceeded against according to law.

When it was done, the Squire first addressed a few scathing words to the pair of park-keepers, who smoked imperturbably through them, and then transferred a pound-note to the ready palm of Gregson, who was, it seemed, on the point of accepting work as a stock-keeper from another of the Squire's farmers—a brother culprit, only less 'hustled' than himself by the formidable County Committee, which was rapidly putting the fear of God into every bad husbandman throughout Brookshire. Then the Squire hurried off homewards.

His chief thought now was—what would that most opinionated young woman at home say to him? He was at once burning to have it out with her, and—though he would have scorned to confess it—nervous as to how he might get through the encounter.

* * * * *

Fate, however, ordained that his thoughts about the person who had now grown so important to his household should be affected, before he saw her again, from a new quarter. The Rector, Mr. Pennington, quite unaware of the doughty deeds that had been done at the Chetworth gate, and coming from his own house which stood within the park enclosure, ran into the Squire at a cross-road.

The Squire looked at him askance, and kept his own counsel. The Rector was a man of peace, and had once or twice tried to dissuade the Squire from his proposed acts of war. The Squire, therefore, did not mean to discuss them with him. But, in general, he and the Rector were good friends. The Rector was a bit of a man of the world, and never attempted to put a quart into a pint-pot. He took the Squire as he found him, and would have missed the hospitalities of the Hall—or rather the conversation they implied—if he had been obliged to forgo them. The Squire on his side had observed with approval that the Rector was a fair scholar, and a bad beggar. He could take up quotations from Horace, and he was content with such parish subscriptions as the Squire had given for twenty years, and was firmly minded not to increase.

But here also the arrival of Elizabeth had stirred the waters. For the Rector was actually on his way to try and get a new subscription out of the Squire; and it was Elizabeth's doing.

'You remember that child of old Leonard the blacksmith?' said the Rector eagerly; 'a shocking case of bow-legs, one of the worst I ever saw. But Miss Bremerton's taken endless trouble. And now we've got an admission for him to the Orthopaedic hospital. But there's a few pounds to be raised for his maintenance—it will be a question of months. I was just coming over to see if you would give me a little,' he wound up, in a tone of apology.

The Squire, with a brow all clouds, observed that when children were bow-legged it was entirely the fault of their mothers.

'Ah, yes,' said the Rector, with a sigh. 'Mrs. Leonard is a slatternly woman—no doubt of that. But when you've said that you haven't cured the child.'

The Squire ungraciously said he would consider it; and the Rector, knowing well that he would get no more at a first assault, let the child alone, and concentrated on the topic of Elizabeth.

'An extraordinarily capable creature,' he said warmly, 'and a good heart besides. You were indeed lucky to find her, and you are very wise to give her her head. The village folk can't say enough about her.'

The Squire felt his mouth twitching. With some horses, is there any choice—but Hobson's—as to 'giving' them their head?

'Yes, she's clever,' he said grudgingly.

'And it was only to-day,' pursued the Rector, 'that I heard her story from a lady, a friend of my wife's, who's been spending Sunday with us. She seems to have met Miss Bremerton and her family at Richmond a year or so ago, where everybody who knew them had a great respect for them. The mother was a nice, gentle body, but this elder daughter had most of the wits—though there's a boy in a Worcester regiment they're all very fond and proud of—and she always looked after the others, since the father—who was a Civil servant—died, six years ago. Then two years since, she engaged herself to a young Yeomanry officer—'

'Eh—what?—what do you say?—a Yeomanry officer?' said the Squire, looking round.

'Precisely—a Yeomanry officer. They were engaged and apparently very happy. He was a handsome, upstanding fellow, very popular with women. Then he went out to Egypt with his regiment, and it was intended they should marry when he got his first leave. But presently his letters began to change. Then they only came at long intervals. And at last they stopped. He had complained once of an attack of sunstroke, and she was wretched, thinking he was ill. At last a letter reached her from a brother officer, who seems to have behaved very kindly—with the explanation. Her fiance had got into the clutches—no one exactly knew how—of a Greek family living in Alexandria, and had compromised himself so badly with one of the daughters, that the father, a cunning old Greek merchant, had compelled him to marry her. Threats of exposure, and all the rest! The brother officer hinted at a plot—that the poor fellow had been trapped, and was more sinned against than sinning. However, there it was. He was married to the Greek girl; Miss Bremerton's letters were returned; and the thing was at an end. Our friend says she behaved splendidly. She went on with her work in the War Trade Department—shirked nothing and no one—till suddenly, about six months ago, she had a bad breakdown—'

'What do you mean?' said the Squire abruptly. 'She was ill?'

'A combination of overwork and influenza, I should think; but no doubt the tragedy had a good deal to do with it. She went down to stay for a couple of months with an uncle in Dorsetshire, and got better. Then the family lost some money, through a solicitor's mismanagement—enough anyway to make a great deal of difference. The mother too broke down in health. Miss Bremerton came home at once, and took everything on her own shoulders. You remember, she heard of your secretaryship from that Balliol man you wrote to—who had been a tutor of hers when she was at Somerville? She determined to apply for it. It was more money than she was getting in London, and she had to provide for her mother and to educate her young sister. Plucky woman! All this interested me very much, I confess. I have formed such a high opinion of her! And I thought it would interest you.'

'I don't know what we any of us have to do with it,' grumbled the Squire.

The Rector drew himself up a little, resenting the implied rebuke.

'I hope I don't seem to you to be carrying gossip for gossip's sake,' he said, rather indignantly. 'Nothing was further from my intention. I like and admire Miss Bremerton a great deal too much.'

'Well, I don't know what we can do,' said the Squire testily. 'We can't unmarry the man.'

The Rector pulled up short, and offered a chilly good-bye. As he hurried on towards the village—little knowing the obstacles he would encounter in his path—he said to himself that the Squire's manners were really past endurance. One could hardly imagine that Miss Bremerton would be long able to put up with them.

* * * * *

The Squire meanwhile pursued the rest of his way, wrapped in rather disagreeable reflections. He was not at all grateful to the Rector for telling him the story—quite the reverse. It altered his mental attitude towards his secretary; introduced disturbing ideas, which he had no use for. He had taken for granted that she was one of those single women of the present day whose intellectual interests are enough for them, who have never really felt the call of passion, and can be trusted to look at life sensibly without taking love and marriage into account. To think of Miss Bremerton as having suffered severely from a love-affair—broken her heart, and injured her health over it—was most distracting. If it had happened once—why, of course, it might happen again. She was not immune; in spite of all her gifts, she was susceptible, and it was a horrid nuisance.

He went home all on edge, what with the adventure of the gates, the encounter with the engineer fellow, and now the revelations of the Rector.

As he approached the house, he saw from the old clock in the gable of the northern front that it was two o'clock. He was half-an-hour late for lunch. Luncheon, in fact, must be over. And indeed, as he passed along the library windows, he saw Elizabeth's figure at her desk. It annoyed him that she should have gone back to work so soon after her meal. He had constantly made it plain to her that she was not expected to begin work of an afternoon till four o'clock. She would overdo it: and then she would break down again as she had done before. In his selfishness, his growing dependence on her companionship and her help, he began to dread the mere chance.

How agreeable, and how fruitful, their days of work had been lately! He had been, of course, annoyed sometimes by her preoccupation with the war news of the morning. Actually, this Caporetto business, the Italian disaster, had played the mischief with her for a day or two—and the news from Russia. Any bad news, indeed, seemed to haunt her; her colour faded away; and if he dictated notes to her, they would be occasionally inaccurate. But that was seldom. In general, he felt that he had made great strides during the preceding weeks; that, thanks to her, the book he was attempting was actually coming into shape. She had suggested so much—sometimes by her knowledge, sometimes by her ignorance. And always so modest—so teachable—so docile.

Docile? The word passing through his mind again, as it had in the morning, roused in him mingled laughter and uneasiness. For outside their classical work together, nothing indeed could be less docile than Miss Bremerton. How she had withstood him in the matter of the codicil! He could see her still, as she stood there with her hands behind her, defying him. And that morning also, when she had spoken her mind on the project of the gates.

Well, now, he had to go in and tell her that the deed was done, and the park was closed.

He crept round to a side door, nervous lest she should perceive him from the library, and made Forest get him some lunch. Then he hung about the hall smoking. It was ridiculous—nonsensical—but he admitted to himself that he shrank from facing her.

At last a third cigarette put the requisite courage into him, and he walked slowly to the library. As he entered the room, Elizabeth rose from her chair.

She stood there waiting for his orders, or his report—her quiet eyes upon him.

He told himself not to be a fool, and throwing away his cigarette, he walked up to her, and said in a tone of bravado:

'Well, the barricades are up!'



CHAPTER VIII

The Squire having shot his bolt, looked anxiously for the effect of it.

Elizabeth, apparently, took it calmly. She was standing with one hand on the table behind her, and the autumn sun streaming in through the western windows caught the little golden curls on her temples, and the one or two small adornments that she habitually wore, especially a Greek coin—a gold stater—hanging on a slender chain round her neck. In the Squire's eyes, the stately figure in plain black, with the brilliant head and hands, had in some way gathered into itself the significance of the library. All the background of books, with its pale and yet rich harmony of tone, the glass cases with their bronzes and terra-cottas, the statues, the papers on the table, the few flowers that were never wanting to Elizabeth's corner, the taste with which the furniture had been re-arranged, the general elegance and refinement of the big room in fact, since Elizabeth had reduced it from chaos to order, were now related to her rather than to him. He could not now think of the room without her. She had become in this short time so markedly its presiding spirit. 'Let there be order and beauty!' she had said, instead of dirt and confusion; and the order and beauty were there.

But the presiding spirit was now surveying him, with eyes that seemed to have been watchfully withdrawn, under puckered brows.

'I don't understand,' said Elizabeth. 'You have fastened up the gates?'

'I have,' said the Squire jocularly. 'Mrs. Perley believes the Committee will bring a tank! That would be a sight worth seeing.'

'You really want to stop them from ploughing up that land?'

'I do. I have offered them other land.'

Elizabeth hesitated.

'Don't you believe what the Government say, Mr. Mannering?'

'What do they say?'

'That everything depends upon whether we shall have food enough to hold out? That we can't win the war unless we can grow more food ourselves?'

'That's the Government's affair.' The Squire sat down at his own table and began to look out a pen.

'Well now, Miss Bremerton, I don't think we need spend any more time over this tiresome business. I've already lost the morning. Suppose we get on with the work we were doing yesterday?'

He turned an amicable countenance towards her. She on her side moved a little towards a window near her table, and looked out of it, as though reflecting. After a minute or two he asked himself with a vague anxiety what was wrong with her. Her manner was certainly unusual.

Suddenly she turned, and came half across the room towards him.

'May I speak to you, please, Mr. Mannering?'

'By all means. Is there anything amiss?'

'I think we agreed on a month's notice, on either side. I should be glad if you would kindly accept my notice as from to-day.'

The Squire rose violently, and thrust back his chair.

'So that's what you have been cogitating in my absence?'

'Not at all,' said Elizabeth mildly. 'I have made a complete list of the passages you asked for.'

She pointed to her table.

'Yet all the time you were planning this move—you were making up your mind what to do?'

She hesitated.

'I was often afraid it would have to be done,' she said at last.

'And pray may I ask your reasons?' The Squire's tone was sarcastic. 'I should like to know in what I have failed to satisfy you. I suppose you thought I was rude to you this morning?'

'Oh, that didn't matter,' she said hastily. 'The fact is, Mr. Mannering,' she crossed her hands quietly in front of her, 'you put responsibilities on me that I am not prepared to carry. I feel I must give them up.'

'I thought you liked responsibility.'

Elizabeth coloured.

'It—it depends what sort. I begin to see now that my principles—and opinions—are so different from yours that, if we go further, I shall either be disappointing you or—doing what I think wrong.'

'You can't conceive ever giving up your opinion to mine?'

'No!' Elizabeth shook her head with decision. 'No! that I really can't conceive!'

'Upon my word!' said the Squire, fairly taken aback. They confronted each other. Elizabeth began to look disturbed. Her eyelids flickered once or twice.

'I think we ought to be quite serious,' she said hurriedly. 'I don't want you to misunderstand me. If you knew how I valued this opportunity of doing this classical work with you! It is wonderful'—her voice wavered a little, or the Squire fancied it—'what you have taught me even in this short time. I am proud to have been your secretary—and your pupil. If it were only that'—she paused—'but you have also been so kind as to—to take me into your confidence—to let me do things for you, outside of what you engaged me for. I see plainly that—if I go on with this—I shall become your secretary—your agent in fact—for a great many things besides Greek.'

Then she made an impetuous step forward.

'Mr. Mannering!—the atmosphere of this house chokes me!'

The Squire dropped back into his chair, watching her with eyes in which he tried—not very successfully—to keep dignity alive.

'Your reasons?'

'I am with the country!' she said, not without signs of agitation; 'and you seem to me to care nothing about the country!'

Disputation was never unwelcome to the Squire. He riposted.

'Of course, we mean entirely different things by the word.'

She threw back her head slightly, with a gesture of scorn.

'We might argue that, if it were peace-time. But this is war! Your country—my country—has the German grip at her throat. A few months—and we are saved—or broken!—the country that gave us birth—all we have—all we are!' Her words came short and thick, and she had turned very white. 'And in this house there is never, in your presence, a word of the war!—of the men who are dying by land and sea—dying, that you and I may sit here in peace—that you may talk to me about Greek poetry, and put spokes in the wheels of those who are trying to feed us—and defend us—and beat off Germany. Nothing for the wounded!—nothing for the hospitals! And you won't let Pamela do anything! Not a farthing for the Red Cross! You made me write a letter last week refusing a subscription. And then, when they only ask you to let your land grow food—that the German pirates and murderers mayn't starve us into a horrible submission—then you bar your gates—you make endless trouble, when the country wants every hour of every man's time—you, in your position, give the lead to every shirker and coward! No! I can't bear it any more! I must go. I have had happy times here—I love the work—I am very glad to earn the money, for my people want it. But I must go. My heart—my conscience won't let me stay!'

She turned from him, with an unconscious gesture which seemed to the Squire to be somewhat mingled with that of the great Victory towering behind her, and went quickly back to her table, where she began with trembling hands to put her papers together.

The Squire tried to laugh it off.

'And all this,' he said with a sneer, 'because I tied up a few gates!'

She made no reply. He was conscious of mingled dismay and fury.

'You will stay your month?' he inquired at last, coldly. 'You don't propose, I imagine, to leave me at a moment's notice?'

She was bending over her table, and did not look up.

'Oh yes, I will stay my month.'

He sat speechless, watching her. She very quickly finished what she was doing, and taking up her note-book, and some half-written letters, she left the room.

'A pretty state of things!' said the Squire, and thrusting his long hands into his pockets he began to pace the library, in the kind of temper that may be imagined—given the man and the circumstances.

The difference, however, between this occasion and others lay in the fact that the penalties of temper had grown so unjustly heavy. The Squire felt himself hideously aggrieved. Abominable!—that he should be hindered in his just rights and opinions by this indirect pressure from a woman, whom he couldn't wrestle with and floor, as he would a man, because of her sex. That was always the way with women. No real equality—no give and take—in spite of all the suffrage talk. Their weakness was their tyranny. Weakness indeed! They were much stronger than men. God help England when they got the vote! The Greeks said it—Euripides said it. But, of course, the Greeks have said everything! Hecuba to Agamemnon, for instance, when she is planning the murder of the Thracian King:

'Leave it to me!—and my Trojan women!'

And Agamemnon's scoffing reply—poor idiot!—'How can women get the better of men?'

And Hecuba's ghastly low-voiced 'In a crowd we are terrible!'—[Greek: deinon to plethos]—as she and her women turn upon the Thracian, put out his eyes, and tear his children limb from limb.

But one woman might be quite enough to upset a quiet man's way of living! The moral pressure of it was so iniquitous! Your convictions or your life! It was the language of a footpad.

To pull down the hurdles, and tamely let in Chicksands and his minions—how odious! To part with Elizabeth Bremerton and to be reduced again to the old chaos and helplessness—how still more odious! As to the war—so like a woman to suppose that any war was ever fought with unanimity by any country! Look at the Crimea!—the Boer War!—the Napoleonic Wars themselves, if it came to that! Why was Fox a patriot, and he a traitor? Let her answer that!

And all the time, Elizabeth's light touch upon his will was like the curb on a stubborn horse. Once as he passed her table angry curiosity took him to look at some finished work that was lying there. Perfection! Intelligence, accuracy, the clearest of scripts! All his hints taken—and bettered in the taking. Beside it lay some slovenly manuscripts of Levasseur's. He could see the corners of Miss Bremerton's mouth go up as she looked it through. Well, now he was to be left to Levasseur's tender mercies—after all he had taught her! And the accounts, and the estate, and these infernal rations, that no human being could understand!

The Squire's self-pity rose upon him like a flood. Just at the worst, he heard a knock at the library door. Before he could say 'Come in,' it was hurriedly opened, and his two married daughters confronted him—Pamela, too, behind them.

'Father!' cried Mrs. Gaddesden, 'you must please let us come and speak to you!'

What on earth was wrong with them? Alice—for whom her father had more contempt than affection—looked merely frightened; but Margaret's eyes were angry, and Pamela's reproachful. The Squire braced himself to endurance.

'What do you want with me?'

'Father!—we never thought you meant it seriously! And now Forest says all the gates are closed, and that the village is up in arms. The labourers declare that if the County plough is turned back to-morrow, they'll break them down themselves. And when we're all likely to be starving in six months!'

'You really can't expect working-folk to stand quietly by and see such a thing!' said Margaret in her intensest voice. 'Do, father, let me send Forest at once to tell the gardeners to open all the gates.'

The Squire defied her to do any such thing. What was all the silly fuss about? The County people could open the gates in half-an-hour if they wanted. It was a demonstration—a protest—a case to go to the Courts on. He had principles—if no one else had. And if they weren't other people's principles, what did it matter? He was ready to stand by them, to go to prison for them. He folded his arms magnificently.

Pamela laughed excitedly, and shook her head.

'Oh, no, father, you won't be a hero—only a laughing-stock! That's what Desmond minds so much. They won't send you to prison. Some tiresome old Judge will give you a talking-to in Court, and you won't be able to answer him back. And then they'll fine you—and we shall be a little more boycotted than we were before! That's all that'll happen!'

'"Boycotted"?—what do you mean?' said the Squire haughtily.

'Oh, father, can't you feel it?' cried Pamela.

'As if one man could pit himself against a nation!' said Mrs. Strang, in that manner of controlled emotion which the Squire detested. He rarely felt emotion, but when he did, he let it go.

Peremptorily he turned them all out, giving strict orders that nothing he had done should be interfered with. Then he attempted to go on with some work of his own, but he could not bring his mind to bear. Finally he seized his hat and went out into the park to see if the populace were really rising. It was a cold October evening, with a waxing moon, and a wind that was rapidly bringing the dead leaves to earth. Not a soul was to be seen! Only once the Squire thought he heard the sound of distant guns; and two aeroplanes crossed rapidly overhead sailing into the western sky. Everywhere the war!—the cursed, cursed obsession of it!

For the first time there was a breach in the Squire's defences, which for three years he had kept up almost intact. He had put literature, and art, and the joys of the connoisseur between himself and the measureless human ill around him. It had spoilt his personal life, had interfered with his travels, his diggings, his friendships with foreign scholars. Well, then, as far as he could he would take no account of it, would shut it out, and rail at the men and the forces that made it. He barely looked at the newspapers; he never touched a book dealing with the war. It seemed to him a triumph of mind and intelligence when he succeeded in shutting out the hurly-burly altogether. Only, when in the name of the war his private freedom and property were interfered with, he had flamed out into hysterical revolt. Old aristocratic instincts came to the aid of passionate will, and, perhaps, of an uneasy conscience.

And now in the man's vain but not ignoble soul there stirred a first passing terror of what the war might do with him, if he were forced to feel it—to let it in. He saw it as a veiled Presence at the Door—and struggled with it blindly.

He was just turning back to the house, when he saw a figure approaching in the distance which he recognized. It was that of a man, once a farmer of his, and a decent fellow—oh, that he confessed!—with whom he had had a long quarrel over a miserable sum of money, claimed by the tenant when he left his farm, and disputed by the landlord.

The dispute had gone on for two years. The Squire's law-costs had long since swallowed up the original money in dispute.

Then Miss Bremerton, to whom the Squire had dictated some letters in connection with the squabble, had quietly made a suggestion—had asked leave to write a letter on approval. For sheer boredom with the whole business, the Squire had approved and sent the letter.

Then, this very morning, a reply from the farmer. Grateful astonishment! 'Of course I am ready to meet you, sir—I always have been. I will get my solicitor to put what you proposed in your letter of this morning into shape immediately, and will leave it signed at your door to-night. I trust this trouble is now over. It has been a great grief to me.'

And now there was the man bringing the letter. One worry done with! How many more the same patient hand might have dealt with, if its exacting owner hadn't thrown up her work—so preposterously!

The Squire gave an angry sigh, slipped out of the visitor's way through a shrubbery, and returned to his library. Fires had begun, and the glow of the burning logs shone through the room. The return to this home of his chief studies and pursuits during many delightful years was always, at any hour of the day or year, a moment of pleasure to the Squire. Here was shelter, here was escape—both from the troubles he had brought upon himself, and from the world tumult outside, the work of crazy politicians and incompetent diplomats. But if there was any season when the long crowded room was more attractive than at any other, it was in these autumn evenings when firelight and twilight mingled, and the natural 'homing' instinct of the Northerner, accustomed through long ages to spend long winters mostly indoors, stirred in his blood.

His books, too, spoke to him; and the beautiful dim forms of bronzes and terra-cottas, with all their suggestions of high poetry and consummate art, breathing from the youth of the world. He understood—passionately—the jealous and exclusive temper of the artist. It was his own temper—though he was no practising artist—and accounted largely for his actions. What are politics—or social reform—or religion—or morals—compared to art? The true artist, it has been pleaded again and again, has no country. He follows Beauty wherever she pitches her tent—'an hourly neighbour.' Woe to the interests that conflict with this interest! He simply drives them out of doors, and turns the key upon them!

This, in fact, was the Squire's defence of himself, whenever he troubled to defend himself. As to the pettinesses of a domineering and irritable temper, cherished through long years, and flying out on the smallest occasions—the Squire conveniently forgot them, in those rare moments of self-vision which were all the gods allowed him. Of course he was master in his own house and estate—why not? Of course he fought those who would interfere with him, war or no war—why not?

He sat down to his table, very sorry for himself, and hotly indignant with an unreasonable woman. The absence of her figure from the table on the further side of the room worked upon his nerves. She had promised at least to stay her month. These were working hours. What was she doing? She could hardly be packing already!

He tried to give his attention to the notes he had been working at the day before. Presently he wanted a reference—a line from the Philoctetes. 'The Lemnian fire'—where on earth was the passage? He lifted his head instinctively. If only she had been there—it was monstrous that she wasn't there!—he would just have thrown the question across the room, and got an answer. Her verbal memory was astonishing—much better than his.

He must, of course, get up and look out the reference for himself. And the same with others. In an hour's time he had accomplished scarcely anything, and a settled gloom descended upon him. That was the worst of accustoming yourself to crutches and helps. When they were unscrupulously and unjustly taken away, a man was worse off than if he had never had them.

The evening post came in. The Squire looked through it with disgust. He perceived that several letters were answers to some he had allowed his secretary to draft and send in his name—generally in reply to exasperated correspondents who had been kept waiting for months, and trampled on to boot.

Now he supposed she would refuse to have anything to do with this kind of thing! She would keep to the letter of her bargain, for the few weeks that remained. Greek he might expect from her—but not business.

He opened one or two. Yes, there was no doubt she was a clever woman—unpardonably and detestably clever. Affairs which had been mountains for years had suddenly become mole-hills. In this new phase he felt himself more helpless than ever to deal with them. She, on the contrary, might have put everything straight—she might have done anything with him—almost—that she pleased. He would have got rid of his old fool of an agent and put in another, that she approved of, if she had wished.

But no!—she must try and dictate to him in public—on a matter of public action. She must have everything her own way. Opinionated, self-conceited creature!

When tea-time came he rang for Forest, and demanded that a cup of tea should be brought him to the library. But as the butler was leaving the room, he recalled him.

'And tell Miss Bremerton that I shall be glad of her company when she has finished her tea.'

Forest hesitated.

'I think, sir, Miss Bremerton is out.'

Out!—was she? Her own mistress already!

'Send Miss Pamela here at once,' he commanded.

In a minute or two a girl's quick step was heard, and Pamela ran in.

'Yes, father?'

'Where is Miss Bremerton?' The Squire was standing in front of the fire, angrily erect. He had delivered his question in the tone of an ultimatum.

'Why, father, you've forgotten! She arranged with you that she was to go to tea at the Rectory, and I've just got a note from Mrs. Pennington to ask if they may keep her for the evening. They'll send her home.'

'I remember no such arrangement,' said the Squire, in a fury.

'Oh, father—why, I heard her speak to you! And I'm sure she wanted a little break. She's been looking dead-tired lately, and she said she had a headache at lunch.'

'Very well. That'll do,' said the Squire, and Pamela departed, virtuously conscious of having stood by Elizabeth, though she disliked her.

The Squire felt himself generally cornered. No doubt she was now telling her story to the Penningtons, who, of course, would disapprove the gates affair, in any case. The long hours before dinner passed away. The Squire thought them interminable. Dinner was a gloomy and embarrassed function. His daughters were afraid of rousing a fresh whirlwind of temper, if the gates were mentioned; and nothing else was interesting. The meal was short and spare, and the Squire noticed for the first time that while meat was offered to him, the others fed on fish and vegetables. All to put him in the wrong, of course!

After dinner he went back to the library. Work was impossible. He hung over the fire smoking, or turning over the pages of a fresh section of the catalogue which Elizabeth had placed—complete—on his desk that morning.

It seemed to him that all the powers of mischief had risen against him. The recent investigation of his affairs made by Elizabeth at his express wish, slight and preliminary though it was, had shown him what he had long and obstinately refused to see—that the estate had seriously gone down in value during the preceding five years; that he had a dozen scraps and disputes on his hands, more than enough to rasp the nerves of any ordinary man—and as far as nerves were concerned, he knew very well that he was not an ordinary man; that, in short, he was impoverished and embarrassed; his agent was a scandal and must be dismissed, and his new lawyers, a grasping, incompetent crew. For a moment, indeed, he had had a glimpse of a clear sky. A woman, who seemed to have the same kind of business faculty that many Frenchwomen possess, had laid hands on his skein of troubles, and might have unravelled them. But she had thrown him over. In a little while he would have to let Mannering—for who would buy an estate in such a pickle?—sell his collections, and go and live in a flat in West Kensington. Then he hoped his enemies—Chicksands in particular—would be satisfied.

But these, to do him justice, were not the chief thoughts, not the considerations in his mind that smarted most. Another woman secretary or woman accountant—for, after all, clever women with business training are now as thick as blackberries—might have helped him to put his affairs straight; but she would not have been a Miss Bremerton, with her scholarship, her taste, her love of the beautiful things that he loved. He seemed to see her fair skin flushing with pleasure as they went through a Greek chorus together, or to watch her tenderly handling a bronze, or holding a Tanagra figure to the light.

Of course some stupid creatures might think he was falling in love with her—wanting to marry her. He laughed the charge to scorn. No! but he confessed her comradeship, her friendship, had begun to mean a good deal to him. For twenty years he had lived in loneliness. Now, it seemed, he had found a friend, in these days when the new independence of women opens a thousand fresh possibilities not only to them, but to men also.

Well, well, it was all over! Better make up his mind to it.

He went to the window, as it was nearing ten o'clock, and looked out. It was foggy still, the moon and stars scarcely visible. He hoped they would have at least the sense at the Rectory to provide her with a lantern, for under the trees the road was very dark.

Oh, far in the distance, a twinkling light! Good! The Squire hastily shut the window, and resumed his pacing. Presently he thought he heard the house door open and shut, and a little while after the library clock struck ten.

Now it would be only the natural thing to go and say good-night to his daughters, and, possibly, to inquire after a headache.

The Squire accordingly emerged. In the hall he found his three daughters engaged in lighting their candles at the Chippendale table, where for about a hundred and fifty years the ladies of Mannering had been accustomed to perform that rite.

The master of the house inquired coldly whether Miss Bremerton had returned safely. 'Oh yes,' said his daughter Margaret, 'but she went up to bed at once. She hasn't got rid of her headache.'

Mrs. Strang's stiff manner, and the silence of the others showed the Squire that he was deep in his daughters' black books. Was he also charged with Miss Bremerton's headache? Did any of them guess what had happened? He fancied from the puzzled look in Pamela's eyes as she said good-night to him that she guessed something.

Well, he wasn't going to tell them anything. He went back to the library, and presently Pamela, in her room upstairs, heard first the library bell, then the steps of Forest crossing the hall, and finally a conversation between the Squire and the butler which seemed to last some time.

* * * * *

It was in the very early morning—between four and five—that Elizabeth was wakened, first by vague movements in the house, and then by what seemed to be cautious voices outside. She drew a curtain back and looked out—a misty morning, between darkness and dawn, and trees standing on the grass in dim robes of amethyst and gold. Two men in the middle distance were going away from the house. She craned her neck. Yes—no doubt of it! The Squire and Forest. What could they be about at that hour of the morning? They were going, no doubt, to inspect the barricades! Yet Forest himself had told her that nothing would induce him to take a hand in the 'row.'

It was strange; but she was too weary and depressed to give it much thought. What was she going to do now? The world seemed emptily open before her once more, chill and lonely as the autumn morning.



CHAPTER IX

On the following morning the breakfast at Mannering was a very tame and silent affair. Forest was not in attendance, and the under housemaid, who commonly replaced him when absent, could not explain his non-appearance. He and his wife lived in a cottage beyond the stables, and all that could be said was that he 'had not come in.'

The Squire also was absent. But as his breakfast habits were erratic, owing to the fact that he slept badly and was often up and working at strange seasons of the night, neither of his daughters took any notice. Elizabeth did not feel inclined to say anything of her own observations in the small hours. If the Squire and Forest had been working at the barricade together, they were perhaps sleeping off their exertions. Or the Squire was already on the spot, waiting for the fray? Meanwhile, out of doors, a thick grey mist spread over the park.

So she sat silent like the other two—(Mrs. Gaddesden was of course in bed)—wondering from time to time when and how she should announce her departure.

Pamela meanwhile was thinking of the letter she would have to write to Desmond about the day's proceedings, and was impatient to be off as soon as possible for the scene of action. Once or twice it occurred to her to notice that Miss Bremerton was looking rather pale and depressed. But the fact only made Pamela feel prickly. 'If father does get into a row, what does it really matter to her. She's not responsible!—she's not one of us!'

Immediately after breakfast, Pamela disappeared. She made her way quietly through the park, where the dank mist still clung to the trees from which the leaf was dropping silently, continuously. The grass was all cobwebs. Every now and then the head of a deer would emerge from the dripping fern only to be swallowed up again in the fog.

Could a motor-plough work in a fog?

Presently, she who knew every inch of the ground and every tree upon it, became aware that she was close to the Chetworth gate. Suddenly the rattle of an engine and some men's voices caught her ear. The plough, sure enough! The sound of it was becoming common in the country-side. Then as the mist thinned and drifted she saw the thing plain—the puffing engine, one man driving and another following, while in their wake ran the black glistening furrow, where the grass had been.

And here was the gate. Pamela stood open-mouthed. Where were the elaborate defences and barricades of which rumour had been full the night before? The big gate swung idly on its hinges. And in front of it stood two men placidly smoking, in company with the village policeman. Not a trace of any obstruction—no hurdles, no barbed wire, only a few ends of rope lying in the road.

Then, looking round, she perceived old Perley, with a bag of ferrets in his hand, emerging from the mist, and she ran up to him breathlessly.

'So they've come, Perley! Was it they forced the gate?'

Perley scratched his head with his free hand.

'Well, it's an uncommon queer thing, Miss—but I can't tell yer who opened them gates! I come along here about seven o'clock this mornin', and the fog was so thick yo couldn't see nothin' beyond a yard or two. But when I got up to the gates, there they were open, just as you see 'em now. At first I thought there was summat wrong—that my eyes wasn't what they used to was. But they was all right.'

'And you saw the gates shut last night?'

'Barred up, so as you couldn't move 'em, Miss!—not without a crowbar or two, an' a couple of men. I thowt it was perhaps some village chaps larkin' as had done it. But it ain't none o' them. It beats me!'

Pamela looked at the two men smoking by the gate—representatives, very likely, of the Inspection Sub-Committee. Should she go up and question them? But some inherited instinct deterred her. She was glad the country should have the land and the corn. She had no sympathy with her father. And yet all the same when she actually saw Demos the outsider forcibly in possession of Mannering land, the Mannering spirit kicked a little. She would find out what had happened from some of their own people.

So after watching the County Council plough for a while as it clove its way up and down the park under the struggling sun which was gradually scattering the fog—her young intelligence quite aware all the time of the significance of the sight—she turned back towards the house. And presently, advancing to meet her, she perceived the figure of Elizabeth Bremerton—coming, no doubt, to get picturesque details on the spot for the letter she had promised to write to a certain artillery officer. A quick flame of jealousy ran through the girl's mind.

Miss Bremerton quickened her step.

'So they're open!' she said eagerly, as she and Pamela met. 'And there's nothing broken, or—or lying about!'

She looked in bewilderment at the unlittered road and swinging gate.

'They were open, Perley says, first thing this morning. He came by about seven.'

'Before the plough arrived?'

'Yes.'

They stood still, trying to puzzle it out. Then a sudden laugh crossed Elizabeth's face.

'Perhaps there were no barricades! Perhaps your father was taking us all in!'

'Not at all,' said Pamela drily. 'Perley saw the gates firmly barred with hurdles and barbed wire, and all tied up with rope, when he and his wife left the Lodge late last night.'

Elizabeth suddenly coloured brightly. Why, Pamela could not imagine. Her fair skin made it impossible for a flush to pass unnoticed. But why should she flush?

Elizabeth walked on rapidly, her eyes on the ground. When she raised them it was to look rather steadily at her companion.

'I think perhaps I had better tell you at once—I am very sorry!—but I shall be leaving you in a month. I told your father so last night.'

Pamela looked the astonishment she felt. For the moment she was tongue-tied. Was she glad or sorry? She did not know. But the instinct of good manners came to her aid.

'Can't you stand us?' she said bluntly. 'I expect you can't.'

Elizabeth laughed uncomfortably.

'Why, you've all been so kind to me. But I think perhaps'—she paused, trying to find her words—'I didn't quite understand—when I came—how much I still wanted to be doing things for the war—'

'Why, you might do heaps of things!' cried Pamela. 'You have been doing them. Taking an interest in the farms, I mean—and all that.'

'Well, but—' Elizabeth's brow puckered.

Then she broke into a frank laugh—'After all, that wasn't what I was engaged for, was it?'

'No—but you seemed to like to do it. And it's war-work,' said Pamela, inexorably.

Elizabeth was dismally conscious of her own apparent inconsistencies. It seemed best to be frank.

'The fact is—I think I'd better tell you—I tried yesterday to get your father to give up his plans about the gates. And when he wouldn't, and it seemed likely that there might be legal proceedings and—and a great fuss—in which naturally he would want his secretary to help him—'

'You just felt you couldn't? Well, of course I understand that,' said Pamela fervently. 'But then, you see,' she laughed, 'there isn't going to be a fuss. The plough just walked in, and the fifty acres will be done in no time.'

Elizabeth looked as she felt—worried.

'It's very puzzling. I wonder what happened? But I am afraid there will be other things where your father and I shall disagree—if, that is, he wants me to do so much else for him than the Greek work—'

'But you might say that you wouldn't do anything else but the Greek work?'

'Yes, I might,' said Elizabeth smiling, 'but once I've begun—'

'You couldn't keep to it?—father couldn't keep to it?'

Elizabeth shook her head decidedly. A little smile played about her lips, as much as to say, 'I am a managing woman and you must take me at that. "Il ne faut pas sortir de son caractere."' Pamela, looking at her, admired her for the first time. And now that there was to be no more question—apparently—of correspondence with Arthur Chicksands, her mood changed impulsively.

'Well, I'm very sorry!' she said—and then, sincerely, 'I don't know how the place will get on.'

'Thank you,' said Elizabeth. Her look twinkled a little. 'But you don't know what I might be after if I stayed!'

Pamela laughed out, and the two walked home, better friends than they had been yet, Elizabeth asking that the news of her resignation of her post might be regarded as confidential for a few days.

When they reached the house, Pamela went into the morning-room to tell her sisters of the tame ending to all their alarms, while Elizabeth hurried to the library. She was due there at half-past ten, and she was only just in time. Would the Squire be there? She remembered that she had to apologize for her absence of the day before.

She felt her pulse thumping a little as she opened the library door. There was undoubtedly something about the Squire—some queer magnetism—born perhaps of his very restlessness and unexpectedness—that made life in his neighbourhood seldom less than interesting. His temper this morning would probably be of the worst. Something, or some one, had defeated all his schemes for a magnificent assertion of the rights of man. His park was in the hands of the invaders. The public plough was impudently at work. And at the same moment his secretary had given warning, and the new catalogue—the darling of his heart—would be thrown on his hands. It would not be surprising to find him rampant. Elizabeth entered almost on tip-toe, prepared to be all that was meek and conciliating, so far as was compatible with her month's notice.

* * * * *

A tall figure rose from the Squire's table and made her a formal bow.

'Good-morning, Miss Bremerton. I expected your assistance yesterday afternoon, but you had, I understand, made an engagement?'

'I asked you—a few days ago,' said Elizabeth, mildly confronting him. 'I am sorry if it inconvenienced you.'

'Oh, all right—all right,' said the Squire hastily. 'I had forgotten all about it. Well, anyway, we have lost a great deal of time.' His voice conveyed reproach. His greenish eyes were fierily bent upon her.

Elizabeth sat down at her table without reply, and chose a pen. The morning's work generally consisted of descriptions of vases and bronzes in the Mannering collection, dictated by the Squire, and illustrated often by a number of references to classical writers, given both in Greek and English. The labour of looking out and verifying the references was considerable, and the Squire's testy temper was never more testy than when it was quarrelling with the difficulties of translation.

'Kindly take down,' he said peremptorily.

Elizabeth began:

'"No. 190. Greek vase, from a tomb excavated at Mitylene in 1902. Fine work of the fifth century B.C. Subject: Penelope's Web. Penelope is seated at the loom. Beside her are the figures of a young man and two females—probably Telemachus and two hand-maidens. The three male figures in the background may represent the suitors. Size, 23 inches high; diameter, 11 inches. Perfect, except for a restoration in one of the handles."

'Have you got that?'

'Yes.'

'Go on please. "This vase is of course an illustration of the well-known passage in the Odyssey, Book 21. 103. I take Mr. Samuel Butler's translation, which is lively and modern and much to be preferred to the heavy archaisms of the other fellows."'

Elizabeth gave a slight cough. The Squire looked at her sharply.

'Oh, you think that's not dignified? Well, have it as you like.'

Elizabeth altered the phrase to 'other translators.' The Squire resumed. '"Antinous, one of the suitors, is speaking: 'We could see her working on her great web all day long, but at night she would unpick the stitches again by torchlight. She fooled us in this way for three years, and we never found her out, but as time wore on, and she was now in her fourth year, one of her maids, who knew what she was doing, told us, and we caught her in the act of undoing her work, so she had to finish it, whether she would or no....' I tell you, we never heard of such a woman; we know all about Tyro, Alcmena, Mycene, and the famous women of old, but they were nothing to your mother—any one of them."—And yet she was only undoing her own work!—she was not forcing a grown man to undo his!' said the Squire, with a sudden rush of voice and speech.

Elizabeth looked up astonished.

'Am I to put that down?'

The Squire threw away the book he was holding. His shining white hair seemed positively to bristle on his head, his long legs twined and untwined themselves.

'Don't pretend, please, that you don't know what part you've been playing in this affair!' he said with sarcasm. 'It took Forest and me three good hours this morning to take down as fine a barricade as ever I saw put up. I'm stiff with it still. British liberties have been thrown to the dogs—[Greek: gynaikos houneka]—all because of a woman! And there you sit, as though nothing had happened! Yet I chanced to see you just now, coming back with Pamela!'

Elizabeth's flush this time dyed her all crimson. She sat, pen in hand, staring at her employer.

'I don't understand what you mean, Mr. Mannering.' At which her conscience whispered to her sharply, 'You guessed it already—in the park!'

The Squire jumped to his feet, and came to stand excitedly in front of her, his hands thrust into the high pockets of his waistcoat.

'I am extremely sorry!' he said, with that grand seigneur politeness he could put on when he chose—'but I am not able to credit that statement. You make it honestly, of course, but that a person of your intelligence, when you saw those gates, failed to put two and two together, well!'—the Squire shook his head, and shrugged his shoulders, became, in fact, one protesting gesture—'if you ask me to believe it,' he continued, witheringly, 'I suppose I must, but—'

'Mr. Mannering!' said Elizabeth earnestly, 'it would really be kind of you to explain.'

Her blush had died away. She had fallen back in her chair, and was meeting his attack with the steady, candid look that betrayed her character. She was now entirely self-possessed—neither nervous nor angry.

The Squire changed his tone. Folding his arms, he leant against a pedestal which supported a bust of a Roman emperor.

'Very well, then—I will explain. I told you yesterday of a step I proposed to take by way of testing how far the invasion of personal freedom had gone in this country. I was perfectly justified in taking it. I was prepared to suffer for my action. I had thought it all out. Then you came in—and by force majeure compelled me to give it all up!'

Elizabeth could not help laughing.

'I never heard any account of an incident which fitted less with the facts!' she said with vivacity.

'It exactly fits them!' the Squire insisted. 'When I told you what I meant to do, instead of sympathy—instead of simple acquiescence, for how the deuce were you responsible!—you threatened to throw up the work I cannot now possibly accomplish without you—'

'Mr. Levasseur?' suggested Elizabeth.

'Levasseur be hanged!' said the Squire, taking an angry pace up and down. 'Don't please interrupt me. I have given you a perfectly free hand, and you have organized the work—your share of it—as you please. Nobody else is the least likely to do it in the same way. When you go, it drops. And when your share drops, mine drops. That's what comes of employing a woman of ability, and trusting to her—as I have trusted to you!'

Was there ever any attack so grotesque, so unfair? Elizabeth was for one moment inclined to be angry—and the next, she was conscious of yieldings and compunctions that were extremely embarrassing.

'You rate my help a great deal too high,' she said after a moment. 'It is you yourself who have taught me how to work in your way. I don't think you will have any real difficulty with another secretary. You are'—she ventured a smile—'you are a born teacher.'

Never was any compliment less successful. The Squire looked sombrely down upon her.

'So you still intend to leave us,' he said slowly, 'after what I have done?'

'What have you done?' said Elizabeth faintly.

'Made myself a laughing-stock to the whole country-side!—and thrown all my principles overboard—to content you—and save my book!' The reply was given with an angry energy that shook her. 'I have humbled myself to the dust to meet your sentimental ideas—and there you sit—as stony and inaccessible as this fellow here!'—he brought his hand down with vehemence on the Roman emperor's shoulder. 'Not a word of gratitude—or concession—or sympathy! I was indeed a fool to take any trouble to please you!'

Elizabeth was silent. They surveyed each other. 'No agitation!' said Elizabeth's inner mind; 'keep cool!'

At last she withdrew her own eyes from the angry tension of his—dropped them to the table where her right hand was mechanically drawing nonsense figures on her blotting-paper.

'Did you really yourself take down that barricade?' she said gently.

'I did! And it was an infernal piece of work!'

'I'm awfully glad!' Her voice was very soft.

'I daresay you are. It suits your principles, and your ideas, of course—not mine! And now, having driven me to it—having publicly discredited and disgraced me—you can still sit there and talk of throwing up your work.'

The growing passion in the irascible gentleman towering above her warned her that it was time to bring the scene to an end.