Denry sighed: "I expect I come and see you all about once a fortnight fairly regular. That makes two hundred and fifty times in ten years. Yes...."
"A couple of thou'," said Cotterill reflectively.
"Two hundred and fifty into two thousand—eight. Eight pounds a visit. A shade thick, Cotterill, a shade thick! You might be half a dozen fashionable physicians rolled into one."
Never before had he called the Councillor "Cotterill" unadorned.
Mr. Cotterill flushed and rose.
Denry does not appear to advantage in this interview. He failed in magnanimity. The only excuse that can be offered for him is that Mr. Cotterill had called him "young man" once or twice too often in the course of ten years. It is subtle.
III
"No," whispered Ruth, in all her wraps. "Don't bring it up to the door. I 'll walk down with you to the gate, and get in there."
He nodded.
They were off, together. Ruth, it had appeared, was actually staying at the Five Towns Hotel, at Knype, which at that epoch was the only hotel in the Five Towns seriously pretending to be "first-class" in the full-page advertisement sense. The fact that Ruth was staying at the Five Towns Hotel impressed Denry anew. Assuredly she did things in the grand manner. She had meant to walk down by the Park to Bursley Station and catch the last loop line train to Knype, and when Denry suddenly disclosed the existence of his motor-car, and proposed to see her to her hotel in it, she in her turn had been impressed. The astonishment in her tone as she exclaimed: