'Must you, Robert?'
'I won't be beholden to that man for anything an hour longer than I can help,' he answered her.
When the packing was nearly finished he came up to where she stood in the open window.
'Things won't be as easy for us in the future, darling,' he said to her. 'A rector with both squire and agent against him is rather heavily handicapped. We must make up our minds to that.'
'I have no great fear,' she said, looking at him proudly.
'Oh, well—nor I—perhaps,' he admitted, after a moment. 'We can hold our own. But I wish—oh, I wish'—and he laid his hand on his wife's shoulder—'I could have made friends with the squire.'
Catherine looked less responsive.
'As squire, Robert, or as Mr. Wendover?'
'As both, of course, but specially as Mr. Wendover.'
'We can do without his friendship,' she said with energy.