The westerly sun was coming strongly into the library, and shone full on the face and figure of the Squire's new secretary as she stood in the door-way. He expected an apology for an absence just five minutes over the two hours; but she offered none. 'Pamela asked me to tell you, Mr. Mannering, that tea was ready under the verandah.' 'Afternoon tea is an abominable waste of time!' said the Squire discontentedly, facing her with a Greek pot under each arm. 'Do you think so? To me it's always the pleasantest meal in the day.' The voice was musical and attractive, but its complete self-possession produced a vague irritation in the Squire. With his two former secretaries, a Cambridge man and a spectacled maiden with a London University degree, he had been accustomed to play the tyrant as must as he pleased. Something had told him from the very beginning that he would not be able to tyrannize over this newcomer. But his quick masterful temper was already trying to devise ways of putting her down. He beckoned her towards the table where she had left her work, and she went obediently. 'You've got that line wrong.' He pointed to a quotation from the _Odyssey_. 'Read it, please!' She read it. He stopped her triumphantly. 'No, no, you can't make that long!' He pointed to one of the Greek words. Her fair skin flushed. 'But indeed you can!' she said eagerly. 'Merry quotes three parallel passages. I have them in one of my notebooks.' And she began to search her table. Mannering stopped her ungraciously. 'Of course there's always some learned fool behind every bad reading. Anyway, what do you say to those accents?' He pointed severely to another line of her Greek. This time Miss Bremerton's countenance changed. 'Oh dear, what a blunder!' she said in distress, as she bent over her pages. 'I assure you I don't often do anything as bad as that.' Mannering was secretly delighted. His manner became at once all politeness. 'Don't worry yourself, please. We all make mistakes.... You have a beautiful Greek handwriting.' Miss Bremerton took the compliment calmly--did not indeed seem to hear it. She was already scratching out the offending words with a sharp penknife, and daintily rewriting them. Then she looked up. 'Pamela asked me to go back to her. And I was to say, will you come, or shall she send tea here?' 'Oh, I'll come, I'll come. I've got something to say to Pamela,' said the Squire, frowning. And he stalked in front of her along the library passage, his brilliant white hair gleaming in its shadows. It was well perhaps that he did not see the amusement which played round Elizabeth Bremerton's handsome mouth as she pursued him. * * * * *