‘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.