Geordie was surprised to see how quietly his mother awaited her unwelcome guests. He was alone in the room with Mrs. Law, as Crosby and Margaret had gone into the garden just before.
It rather astonished George to find that Mr. Crosby, when he came in the next moment, was not a cruel, miserly-looking man, for he had depicted him in his imagination as a little, thin, and eager-faced man, with hungry eyes and bird-like claws. Old Crosby was small, to be sure, and had thin, tightly pursed-up lips, but the general expression of his face was kindly, almost benign. His voice, when he spoke, matched it, for it was smooth, insinuating, and false in every tone of it. He came in smiling and settling his yellow, unwholesome-looking neck in his limp shirt collar. His friend followed close behind him.
"Very sorry to have to come on unpleasant business, ma'am. Perhaps you expected us? It gives me great pain to have to resort to extreme measures, great pain, I assure you. I hope you have the money ready," said Crosby, hypocritically.
Here he tried to smile, and wiped his flushed and swollen looking face, for he lied, and he knew that he did it clumsily, and he felt the contemptuous eyes of Mrs. Law and Geordie upon him. It was the one wish of his heart to get Wandaroo into his greedy clutches, and he felt that it was his already. Still Mrs. Law did not speak, and, feeling the silence very confusing, old Crosby continued—
"You see I'm in sad want of money, sad want, or I should never dream of foreclosing. No one but a friend would have lent you so much on the place."
"No one but a friend, like you, would have extorted 15 per cent. upon the sum that was lent us," said Mrs. Law, quietly.
"Oh, it's a sad business, a sad business. Women never understand these things. Women ought never to meddle in business."
"Men ought never to take advantage of them if they do," said Geordie, hotly.
"Who's that?" said the old man sharply. "Oh I see; very like his father, very. Just what he would have said. What do you make the time, Mr. Tuckle?" said Crosby, nervously fingering his watch, which he had pulled from his pocket with a shaky hand.
"Twenty minutes to twelve, sir."