Then Miss Bremerton, to whom the Squire had dictated some letters in connection with the squabble, had quietly made a suggestion—­had asked leave to write a letter on approval.  For sheer boredom with the whole business, the Squire had approved and sent the letter.

Then, this very morning, a reply from the farmer.  Grateful astonishment!  ’Of course I am ready to meet you, sir—­I always have been.  I will get my solicitor to put what you proposed in your letter of this morning into shape immediately, and will leave it signed at your door to-night.  I trust this trouble is now over.  It has been a great grief to me.’

And now there was the man bringing the letter.  One worry done with!  How many more the same patient hand might have dealt with, if its exacting owner hadn’t thrown up her work—­so preposterously!

The Squire gave an angry sigh, slipped out of the visitor’s way through a shrubbery, and returned to his library.  Fires had begun, and the glow of the burning logs shone through the room.  The return to this home of his chief studies and pursuits during many delightful years was always, at any hour of the day or year, a moment of pleasure to the Squire.  Here was shelter, here was escape—­both from the troubles he had brought upon himself, and from the world tumult outside, the work of crazy politicians and incompetent diplomats.  But if there was any season when the long crowded room was more attractive than at any other, it was in these autumn evenings when firelight and twilight mingled, and the natural ‘homing’ instinct of the Northerner, accustomed through long ages to spend long winters mostly indoors, stirred in his blood.

His books, too, spoke to him; and the beautiful dim forms of bronzes and terra-cottas, with all their suggestions of high poetry and consummate art, breathing from the youth of the world.  He understood—­passionately—­the jealous and exclusive temper of the artist.  It was his own temper—­though he was no practising artist—­and accounted largely for his actions.  What are politics—­or social reform—­or religion—­or morals—­compared to art?  The true artist, it has been pleaded again and again, has no country.  He follows Beauty wherever she pitches her tent—­’an hourly neighbour.’  Woe to the interests that conflict with this interest!  He simply drives them out of doors, and turns the key upon them!

This, in fact, was the Squire’s defence of himself, whenever he troubled to defend himself.  As to the pettinesses of a domineering and irritable temper, cherished through long years, and flying out on the smallest occasions—­the Squire conveniently forgot them, in those rare moments of self-vision which were all the gods allowed him.  Of course he was master in his own house and estate—­why not?  Of course he fought those who would interfere with him, war or no war—­why not?

He sat down to his table, very sorry for himself, and hotly indignant with an unreasonable woman.  The absence of her figure from the table on the further side of the room worked upon his nerves.  She had promised at least to stay her month.  These were working hours.  What was she doing?  She could hardly be packing already!