was
she, to look after accounts and farms? and yet here she is, taking
everything on. He'll grow more and more dependent upon her, and
you'll see!--I believe he's been inclined for some time to marry
again. He wants somebody to look after Pamela, and set him free for
his hobbies. He'll very soon find out that this woman fills the
part, and that, if he marries her, he'll get a classical secretary
besides.'

Mrs. Strang's voice--a deep husky voice--interposed.

'Miss Bremerton's not a woman to be married against her will, that
you may be sure of, Alice.'

'No, but, my dear,' said the other impatiently, 'every woman over
thirty wants a home--and a husband. She'd get that here anyway,
however bad father's affairs may be. And, of course, a _position_.'

The voices passed on out of hearing. Elizabeth remained transfixed.
Then with a contemptuous shake of the head, and a bright colour, she
returned to her work.

But now, as she sat meditating on the hill-side, this absurd
conversation recurred to her. Absurd, and not absurd! 'Most women of
my sort can do what they have a mind to do,' she thought to herself,
with perfect _sang-froid_. 'If I thought it worth while to marry
this elderly lunatic--he's an interesting lunatic, though!--I
suppose I could do it. But it isn't worth while--not the least. I've
done with being a woman! What interests me is the bit of
_work_--national work! Men find that kind of thing enough--a great
many of them. I mean to find it enough. A fig for marrying!'

All the same, as she returned to her schemes both for regenerating
the estate and managing the Squire--schemes which were beginning to
fascinate her, both by their difficulty and their scale--she found
her thoughts oddly interfered with, first by recollections of the
past--bitter, ineffaceable memories--and then by reflections on the
recent course of her relations with the Squire.

He had greeted her that morning without a single reference to the
incidents of the night before, had seemed in excellent spirits, and
before going up to town had given her in twenty minutes, _a propos_
of some difficulty in her work, one of the most brilliant lectures
on certain points of Homeric archaeology she had ever heard--and she
was a connoisseur in lectures.

Intellectually, as a scholar, she both admired and looked upon
him--with reverence, even with enthusiasm. She was eager for his
praise, distressed by his censure. Practically and morally,
patrioti