But unfortunately, after dinner, in a corner of the dark drawing-room, he must needs try and play the schoolmaster a little, for her good of course; and then all went to pieces. 'I hear you ran away!' The voice that threw out this sudden challenge was half ironical, half affectionate; the grey eyes under their strong black brows looked at her with amusement. Pamela flushed at once. 'Aubrey told you, I suppose? What was the good of staying? I couldn't do anything right. I was only making things worse.' 'I can hardly believe that! Couldn't you just have kept Miss Bremerton's work going till she came back?' 'I tried,' said Pamela stiffly, 'and it didn't do.' 'Perhaps she attempts too much. But she seemed to me to be very sensible and human. And--did you hear about the ash trees?' 'No,' said Pamela shortly, her foot nervously beating the ground. 'It doesn't matter. Of course I know she's the cleverest person going. But I can't get on with her--that's all! I'm going to take up nursing--properly. I'm making enquiries about the London Hospital. I want to be a real Army nurse.' 'Will your father consent?' 'Fathers can't stop their daughters from doing things--as they used to do!' said Pamela, with her chin in the air. She had moved away from him; her soft gaiety had disappeared; he felt her all thorns. Yet some perversity made him try to argue with her. The war--pray the Lord!--might be over before her training as an Army nurse was half done. Meanwhile, her V.A.D. work at Mannering was just what was wanted at the moment from girls of her age--hadn't she seen the appeals for V.A.D.'s? And also, if by anything she did at home--or set others free for doing--she could help Captain Dell and Miss Bremerton to pull the estate round, and get the maximum amount of food out of it, she would be serving the country in the best way possible. 'The last ounce of food, mind!--that's what it depends on,' he said, smiling at her, 'which can stick it longest--they or we. You belong to the land--ought you desert it?' Pamela sat unmoved. She knew nothing about the land. Her father had the new agent--and Miss Bremerton. 'Your sister there,' said Chicksands, nodding towards the front drawing-room, where Strang and his wife were sitting Darby and Joan over the fire discussing rations and food prices, 'thinks Miss Bremerton already overdone.' 'I never saw the least sign of it!' 'But think!--your father never slackens his Greek work--and there is all the rest.' 'I suppose if it's too much for her she'll give it up,' said Pamela in her most obstinate voice. But even then a normally tactful man still held on.