‘Oh yes, I shall be over before long,’ said Elizabeth cheerfully.  ’It’s so tremendously interesting what you’re doing.  And if you want anything I can help you in, you can always telephone.’

And she pointed smiling to the instrument on the table—­the first that had ever been allowed within the walls of Mannering.  And that the Squire might not be teased with it, Elizabeth had long since fitted an extra inner door, covered with green baize, to the door of the office.

The new tenant departed, and Elizabeth turned to the agent.

‘I really think we’ve caught a good man there,’ she said, with a smile.  ’Now will you tell me, please, about those timber proposals?  I hope to get a few words with the Squire to-night.’

And leaning back in her chair, she listened intently while Captain Dell, bringing a roll of papers out of his pocket, read her the draft proposals of a well-known firm of timber merchants, for the purchase of some of the Squire’s outlying woods of oak and beech.  Lights had been brought in, and Elizabeth sat shading her eyes from the lamp before her,—­a strong and yet agreeable figure.  Was it the consciousness of successful work—­of opening horizons, and satisfied ambitions, that had made a physical presence, always attractive, so much more attractive than before—­that had given it a magnetism and fire it had never yet possessed?  Pamela, who was developing fast, and was acutely conscious of Elizabeth, asked herself the question, or something like it, about once a week.  And during a short Christmas visit that Elizabeth had paid her own people, her gentle mother, much puzzled and a little dazzled by her daughter, had necessarily pondered the why and wherefore of a change she felt, but could not analyse.  One thing the mother’s insight had been clear about.  Elizabeth was not in love.  On the contrary, the one love-affair of her life seemed to be at last forgotten and put aside.  Elizabeth was now in love with efficiency; with a great task given into her hand.  As to the Squire, the owner of Mannering, who had provided her with the task, Mrs. Bremerton could not imagine him or envisage him at all.  Elizabeth’s accounts of him were so reticent and so contradictory....  ’Well, that’s very interesting’—­said Elizabeth thoughtfully, when Captain Dell laid down his papers—­’I wonder what Mr. Mannering will say to it?  As you know, I got his express permission for you to make these enquiries.  But he hates cutting down a single tree, and this will mean a wide clearance!’

’So it will—­but the country wants every stick of it.  And as to not cutting, one sees that from the woods—­the tragedy of the woods!’—­said the young man with emphasis.  ’There has been no decent forestry on this estate for half a century.  I hope you will be able to persuade him, Miss Bremerton.  I expect, indeed, it’s Hobson’s choice.’

‘You mean the timber will be commandeered?’

’Probably.  The Government have just come down on some of Lord Radley’s woods just beyond our borders—­with scarcely a week’s warning.  No “With your leave” or “By your leave”!  The price fixed, Canadians sent down to cut, and a light railway built from the woods to the station to carry the timber, before you could say “Jack Robinson."’