Cragg looked him over carefully. He wanted a good rent, but also he wanted not to lose a tenant. Not that he was by nature grasping; but business was slack in Putworth, and Cragg had an extravagant wife. Her extravagant ways had grown upon her gradually, and Cragg had hardly yet begun trying to check her. Yet he knew that there was need, for embarrassments were increasing upon him, unknown to his friends. At the same time he had a stronger motive to make money and to save than ever in past years.
This motive was consideration for his daughter rather than his wife. He had not ceased to feel affection for his wife, though he found her a growing trial; but his very heart-strings were wound around the child. Each moment that he could spare from business was devoted to Dot.
The building of a new house had been a sudden notion, no long time back, awakened by the sight of a slip of waste land, outside the town, put up for sale. The price asked had been merely nominal,— "dirt-cheap," he said to himself, though not to the seller,—and having a passion for bricks and mortar, he had been unable to resist the temptation; even though that passion had already landed him in difficulties. It was by no means the first speculation of the kind on which he had ventured.
Bricks and mortar are expensive, no matter how cheaply they may be put together. Now that the house was ready for an occupant, even to the extent of being painted and papered, which some said he should have delayed till he had found a tenant, he was naturally anxious to get it off his hands as early as might be.
"Depends on the length of lease," he made answer cautiously.
"I don't want a lease. I want a house by the year,—yours, if it suits. Not much doubt that it will. I have had a lot of trouble, and I want a quiet corner to rest in. May as well say at once that I can't give more than twenty pounds. That's enough for a poor man to pay. Will it do?"
Cragg knew that he was not likely to obtain a larger sum. The house had been run up very cheaply, and it lacked modern conveniences. He had recently let another house, of very much the same size, only in a prettier position, for eighteen pounds; but that was on a lease. Twenty pounds for this, taken by the year, would be as much as he had any right to demand. Yet, with the instincts of a business man, he hesitated. It would not do to snatch at the proposal.
"Perhaps you would like to come and see the place."
"Yes, I should. But I must know your terms first. We don't want a long trudge for nothing, do we, Pattie?"
The girl lifted her face in response, and a thrill of surprise shot through Cragg, seasoned though he was in varieties of faces. Hers was not a common countenance. It could hardly be called beautiful in the full sense, but it was full of goodness and purity; the features were small and colourless; the eyes were of a deep and wistful blue; the sensitive lips were sad. She looked older than Cragg had expected.