* * * * *

The twins had long left the subject of the embargo on Chetworth, and were wrangling and chaffing over the details of Desmond’s packing, when there was a knock at the door.

Pamela stiffened at once.

‘Come in!’

Miss Bremerton entered.

‘Are you very busy?’

‘Not at all!’ said Desmond politely, scurrying with his best Eton manners to find a chair for the newcomer.  ’It’s an awful muddle, but that’s Pamela!’

Pamela aimed a sponge-bag at him, which he dodged, and Elizabeth Bremerton sat down.

‘I want to hold a council with you,’ she said, turning a face just touched with laughter from one to the other.  ‘Do you mind?’

‘Certainly not,’ said Desmond, sitting on the floor with his hands round his knees.  ‘What’s it about?’ And he gave Pamela’s right foot a nudge with his left by way of conveying to her that he thought her behaviour ungracious.  Pamela hurriedly murmured, ‘Delighted.’

‘I want to tell you about the servants,’ said Elizabeth.  ’I can’t do anything unless you help me.’

‘Help you in what?’ said Desmond, wondering.

’Well, you know, it’s simply scandalous what you’re all eating in this house!’ exclaimed Elizabeth, with sudden energy.  ’You ought to be fined.’  She frowned, and her fair Dutch complexion became a bright pink.

‘It’s quite true,’ said Pamela, startled.  ’I told father, and he laughed at me.’

‘But now even the servants are on strike,’ said Elizabeth.  ’It’s Forest that’s been preaching to them.  He and Cook have been drawing up a week’s menu, according to the proper scale.  But—­’

‘Father won’t have it,’ said Pamela decidedly.

‘An idea has occurred to me,’ was Elizabeth’s apologetic reply.  ‘Your father doesn’t come in to lunch?’

‘Happy thought!’ cried Desmond.  ’Send him in a Ritz luncheon, while the rest of you starve.  Easy enough for me to say as I’m off—­and soldiers aren’t rationed!  We may be as greedy pigs as we like.’

‘What do you say?’ Elizabeth looked at Pamela.  The girl was flattered by the deference shown her, and gradually threw herself into the little plot.  How to set up a meatless day for the household, minus the Squire, and not be found out; how to restrict the bread and porridge allowance, while apparently outrunning it—­knotty problems! into which the twins plunged with much laughter and ingenuity.  At the end of the discussion, Elizabeth said with hesitation, ‘I don’t like not telling Mr. Mannering, but—­’

‘Oh no, you can’t tell him’ said Pamela, in her most resolute tone.  ‘Besides, it’s for the country!’

‘Yes, it’s the country!’ echoed Elizabeth.  ’Oh, I’m so glad you agree with me.  Forest’s splendid!’

‘I say, Broomie’s not bad,’ thought Desmond.  Aloud he said, ‘Forest’s a regular Turk in the servants’ hall—­rules them all with a rod of iron.’