ly helped she had been generally
cast for such parts as 'Nausicaa among her maidens,' 'Athene
lighting the way for Odysseus and Telemachus,' 'Dante's Beatrice,'
or any other personage requiring dignity, even a touch of majesty.
Flowing skirts, indeed, at once made a queen of her. It was evident
that she was not at her ease with her father; nor, as yet, with her
father's new secretary.

The contrast between this lady and Pamela Mannering was obvious at
once. If Pamela suggested romance, Elizabeth Bremerton suggested
efficiency, cheerfulness, and the practical life. Her grandmother
had been Dutch, and in Elizabeth the fair skin and yellow-gold hair
(Rembrandt's 'Saskia' shows the type) of many Dutch forebears had
reappeared. She was a trifle plump; her hair curled prettily round
her temples; her firm dimpled chin and the fair complexion of her
face and neck were set off, evidently with intention, by the plain
blouse of black silky stuff, open at the neck, and showing a modest
string of small but real pearls. The Squire, who had a wide
knowledge of jewels, had noticed these pearls at once. It seemed to
him--vaguely--that lady secretaries should not possess real pearls;
or if they did possess them, should carefully keep them to
themselves.

He accepted a cup of tea from his daughter, and drank it absently
before he asked:

'Where's Desmond?'

'He went to lunch at Fallerton--at the camp. Captain Byles asked
him. I think afterwards he was going to play in a match.'

The same thought passed through the minds of both father and
daughter. 'This day week, Desmond will be gone.' In Pamela it
brought back the dull pain of which she was now habitually
conscious--the pain of expected parting. In her father it aroused an
equally habitual antagonism--the temper, indeed, of ironic
exasperation in which all his thinking and doing were at the moment
steeped. He looked up suddenly.

'Pamela, I have got something disagreeable to say to you.'

His daughter turned a startled face.

'I have had a quarrel with Sir Henry Chicksands, and I do not wish
you, or Desmond, or any of my children, to have any communication
henceforth with him, or with any of his family!'

'Father, what _do_ you mean?'

The girl's incredulous dismay only increased the Squire's
irritation.

'I mean what I say. Of course your married sisters and Aubrey will
do what they please, though I have warned Aubrey how I shall view it
if he takes sides against me. B