"Oh, no!" she said, without conviction. "Besides, you can't go till I 've paid you."
It was on the tip of his tongue to say: "Oh! don't bother about that, now!" But he restrained himself. There was a notable core of common-sense in Denry. He had been puzzling how he might neatly mention the rent while departing in a hurry so that she might lie down. And now she had solved the difficulty for him.
She stretched out her arm, and picked up a bunch of keys from a basket on a little table.
"You might just unlock that desk for me, will you?" she said. And further, as she went through the keys one by one to select the right key: "Each quarter I 've put your precious Mr. Herbert Calvert's rent in a drawer in that desk.... Here 's the key." She held up the whole ring by the chosen key, and he accepted it. And she lay back once more in her chair, exhausted by her exertions.
"You must turn the key sharply in the lock," she said weakly, as he fumbled at the locked part of the desk.
So he turned the key sharply.
"You 'll see a bag in the little drawer on the right," she murmured.
The key turned round and round. It had begun by resisting but now it yielded too easily.
"It does n't seem to open," he said, feeling clumsy.
The key clicked and slid, and the other keys rattled together.