or thinks he couldn’t.  So that his position is, as you may say, strongly entrenched, and counter-attacks are useless.

’The married daughters—­Mrs. Gaddesden, who, I think, is an Honourable, and Mrs. Strang—­are coming to-morrow to see their brother before he goes into camp.  The Squire doesn’t want them at all.  Ah, there he comes!  I’ll finish later...’

* * * * *

The Squire came in—­to use one of the Homeric similes of which he was so fond—­’like a lion fresh from a slain bull, bespattered with blood and mire.’  He had gone out pale, he returned crimson, rubbing his hands and in great excitement.  And it was evident that he had by now formed the habit of talking freely to his secretary.  For he went up to her at once.

‘Well, now they know what to expect!’ he said, his eyes glittering, and all his thick hair on his small peaked head standing up in a high ridge, like the crest of a battle-helmet.

‘Who are “they"?’ asked Elizabeth, smiling, as she quietly pushed her letter a little further under the blotting-paper.

’The County Council idiots—­no, the Inspector fellow they’re sending round.’

‘And what did you tell him?’

’That I should resist their entry.  The gates of the park will be locked.  And my lawyers are already preparing a case for the High Court.  Well—­eh!—­what?’—­the speaker wound up impatiently, as though waiting for an immediate and applauding response.

Elizabeth was silent.  She bent over the Greek book in front of her, as though looking for her place.

‘You didn’t think I was going to take it lying down!’ asked the Squire, in a raised voice.  Her silence suggested to him afresh all the odious and tyrannical forces by which he felt himself surrounded.

Elizabeth turned to him with a cheerful countenance.

‘I don’t quite understand what “it” means,’ she said politely.

‘Nonsense, you do!’ was the angry reply.  ’That’s so like a woman.  They always want to catch you out; they never see things simply and broadly.  You’d like to make yourself out a fool—­[Greek:  nepia]—­and you’re not a fool!’

And with his hands in his pockets he made two or three long strides up to the Nike, at the further end of the room, and back, pulling up beside her again, as though challenging her reply.

‘I assure you, sir, I wasn’t trying to catch you out,’ Elizabeth began in her gentlest voice.

‘Don’t call me “sir.”  I won’t have it!’ cried the Squire, almost stamping.

Then Elizabeth laughed outright.

’I’m sorry, but when I was working in the War Trade Department I always called the head of my room “sir."’

’That’s because women like kow-towing—­[Greek:  doulosunen anechesthai]!’ said the Squire.  Then he threw himself into a chair.  ‘Now let’s talk sense a little.’

Elizabeth’s attentive look, and lips quivering with amusement which she tried in vain to suppress, and he was determined not to see, showed her more than willing.