"My dear Tussie," said his mother quickly, "we will not keep Mr. Neumann-Schultz. I'm sure his time must be quite as valuable as mine is."
"Oh madam," said Fritzing with a vast politeness, settling himself yet more firmly in his chair, "nothing of mine can possibly be of the same value as anything of yours."
Lady Shuttleworth stared—she had stared a good deal during the last halfhour—then began to laugh, and got up. "If you see its value so clearly," she said, "I'm sure you won't care to take up any more of it."
"Nay, madam," said Fritzing, forced to get up too, "I am here, as I explained, in your own interests—or rather in those of your son, who I hear is shortly to attain his majority. This young gentleman is, I take it, your son?"
Tussie assented.
"And therefore the owner of the cottages?"
"What cottages?" asked Tussie, eagerly. He was manifestly so violently interested in Mr. Neumann-Schultz that his mother could only gaze at him in wonder. He actually seemed to hang on that odd person's lips.
"My dear Tussie, Mr. Neumann-Schultz has been trying to persuade me to sell him the pair of cottages up by the church, and I have been trying to persuade him to believe me when I tell him I won't."
"But why won't you, mother?" asked Tussie.
Lady Shuttleworth stared at him in astonishment. "Why won't I? Do I ever sell cottages?"