Pamela looked the astonishment she felt.  For the moment she was tongue-tied.  Was she glad or sorry?  She did not know.  But the instinct of good manners came to her aid.

‘Can’t you stand us?’ she said bluntly.  ‘I expect you can’t.’

Elizabeth laughed uncomfortably.

’Why, you’ve all been so kind to me.  But I think perhaps’—­she paused, trying to find her words—­’I didn’t quite understand—­when I came—­how much I still wanted to be doing things for the war—­’

‘Why, you might do heaps of things!’ cried Pamela.  ’You have been doing them.  Taking an interest in the farms, I mean—­and all that.’

‘Well, but—­’ Elizabeth’s brow puckered.

Then she broke into a frank laugh—­’After all, that wasn’t what I was engaged for, was it?’

‘No—­but you seemed to like to do it.  And it’s war-work,’ said Pamela, inexorably.

Elizabeth was dismally conscious of her own apparent inconsistencies.  It seemed best to be frank.

’The fact is—­I think I’d better tell you—­I tried yesterday to get your father to give up his plans about the gates.  And when he wouldn’t, and it seemed likely that there might be legal proceedings and—­and a great fuss—­in which naturally he would want his secretary to help him—­’

‘You just felt you couldn’t?  Well, of course I understand that,’ said Pamela fervently.  ‘But then, you see,’ she laughed, ’there isn’t going to be a fuss.  The plough just walked in, and the fifty acres will be done in no time.’

Elizabeth looked as she felt—­worried.

’It’s very puzzling.  I wonder what happened?  But I am afraid there will be other things where your father and I shall disagree—­if, that is, he wants me to do so much else for him than the Greek work—­’

’But you might say that you wouldn’t do anything else but the Greek work?’

‘Yes, I might,’ said Elizabeth smiling, ‘but once I’ve begun—­’

‘You couldn’t keep to it?—­father couldn’t keep to it?’

Elizabeth shook her head decidedly.  A little smile played about her lips, as much as to say, ’I am a managing woman and you must take me at that.  “Il ne faut pas sortir de son caractere."’ Pamela, looking at her, admired her for the first time.  And now that there was to be no more question—­apparently—­of correspondence with Arthur Chicksands, her mood changed impulsively.

‘Well, I’m very sorry!’ she said—­and then, sincerely, ’I don’t know how the place will get on.’

‘Thank you,’ said Elizabeth.  Her look twinkled a little.  ’But you don’t know what I might be after if I stayed!’

Pamela laughed out, and the two walked home, better friends than they had been yet, Elizabeth asking that the news of her resignation of her post might be regarded as confidential for a few days.

When they reached the house, Pamela went into the morning-room to tell her sisters of the tame ending to all their alarms, while Elizabeth hurried to the library.  She was due there at half-past ten, and she was only just in time.  Would the Squire be there?  She remembered that she had to apologize for her absence of the day before.