‘A mere bit of weakness!’ grumbled the Squire.  ’Either you keep out of the war, or you go into it.  You’d better go off to a camp now, and get trained—­and shot—­as quickly as possible—­get done with it.’

‘Oh no,’ laughed the other.  ’I’m all for middle courses.  If they’ll let me go on with my book, I don’t mind driving a few poor fellows now and then!’

The Squire looked at him critically.

’The fact is you’re too well fed, Levasseur, or you look it.  That annoys people.  Now I might gorge for a month, and shouldn’t put on a pound.’

‘I suppose your household is rationed?’

’Not it!  We eat what we want.  Just like the labourers.  I found an old labourer eating his dinner under a hedge yesterday.  Half a pound of bread at the very least, and he gets as much for his supper, and nearly as much for his breakfast.  “I shall eat it, Squire, as long as I can get it.  There’s nowt else packs ye like bread.”  And quite right too.  Good word “pack."’

‘What’ll he do when he can’t get it?’ laughed Levasseur, taking up his hat.

’Stuff!  This food business is all one big blague.  Anyway the Government got us into the war; they’re jolly well bound to feed us through it.  They will, for their own necks’ sake.  Well, good-night.’

Levasseur nodded in response, with the same silent, aimless grin, and disappeared through the garden door of the library.

‘Queer fellow!’ thought the Squire.  ’But he’s useful.  I shall get him to help catalogue these things as he did the others.  Ah, there you are!’

He turned with a reproachful air as the door opened.

The westerly sun was coming strongly into the library, and shone full on the face and figure of the Squire’s new secretary as she stood in the door-way.  He expected an apology for an absence just five minutes over the two hours; but she offered none.

’Pamela asked me to tell you, Mr. Mannering, that tea was ready under the verandah.’

‘Afternoon tea is an abominable waste of time!’ said the Squire discontentedly, facing her with a Greek pot under each arm.

’Do you think so?  To me it’s always the pleasantest meal in the day.’

The voice was musical and attractive, but its complete self-possession produced a vague irritation in the Squire.  With his two former secretaries, a Cambridge man and a spectacled maiden with a London University degree, he had been accustomed to play the tyrant as must as he pleased.  Something had told him from the very beginning that he would not be able to tyrannize over this newcomer.

But his quick masterful temper was already trying to devise ways of putting her down.  He beckoned her towards the table where she had left her work, and she went obediently.

‘You’ve got that line wrong.’  He pointed to a quotation from the Odyssey.  ‘Read it, please!’

She read it.  He stopped her triumphantly.