At any rate her father’s unpopularity had been lately acute, and Pamela herself felt it bitterly, and shrank from her neighbours and the cottage people.  When Desmond came home with a D.S.O., or a Victoria Cross, as of course he would, she supposed it would be all right.  But meanwhile not a single thing done for the war!—­not a sou to the Red Cross, or to any war funds!  And hundreds spent on antiquities—­thousands perhaps—­getting them deeper and deeper into debt.  For she was quite aware that they were in debt; and her own allowance was of the smallest.  Two hundred and fifty a year, too, for Miss Bremerton!—­when they could barely afford to keep up the garden decently, or repair the house.  She knew it was two hundred and fifty pounds.  Her father was never reticent about such things, and had named the figure at once.

’Why wasn’t Miss Bremerton doing something for the war? Greek indeed! when there was this fearful thing going on!’ And in the evening air, as the girl turned her face towards the moonrise, she seemed to hear the booming of the Flanders guns.

And now Miss Bremerton was to do the housekeeping, and to play tutor and chaperon to her.  Pamela resented both.  If she was not to be allowed to scrub in a hospital, she might at least have learnt some housekeeping at home, for future use.  As for the Greek lessons, it was not easy for her to be positively rude to any one, but she promised herself a good deal of passive resistance on that side.  For if nothing else was possible, she could always sew and knit for the soldiers.  Pamela was not very good at either, but they did something to lessen the moral thirst in her.

Ah, there was the library door.  Miss Bremerton coming out—­perhaps to propose a lesson!  Pamela took to flight—­noiseless and rapid—­among the bosky corners and walks of the old garden.

Elizabeth emerged, clearly perceiving a gleam of vanishing white in the far distance.  She sighed, but not at all sentimentally.  ’It’s silly how she dislikes me,’ she thought.  ‘I wonder what I can do!’

Then her eye was caught by the tea-table still standing out in the golden dusk, which had now turned damp and chilly.  Careless of Pamela not to have sent it away!  Elizabeth examined it.  Far too many cakes—­too much sugar, too much butter, too much everything!  And all because the Squire, who seemed to have as great a need of economy as anybody else, if not more, to judge from what she was beginning to know about his affairs, was determined to flout the Food Controller, and public opinion!  What about the servants? she wondered.

Perceiving a little silver bell on the table she rang it and waited.  Within a couple of minutes Forest emerged from the house.  Elizabeth hesitated, then plunged.

’Take away the tea, please, Forest.  And—­and I should like to consult you.  Do you think anybody wants as much tea and cakes in war-time?’ She pointed to the table.