“Oh yes, thank you. Very well. Well as a man can be who has such a great idle, useless son.”
Miss Clode shook her little curls at him reproachfully, and there was something very tender in her way as she cried, “You should not say that.” Then, in a quiet apologetic manner, she lowered her tone and said:
“You can’t help being so tall and strong and manly, and—and—and—I’m only an old woman, Mr Linnell,” she said, smiling in a deprecating way, “and I’ve known you since you were such a boy, so I shall say it—you won’t be vain—so handsome.”
“Am I?” he said, laughing. “Ah well, handsome is that handsome does, Miss Clode.”
“Exactly,” she said, laying her hand upon his arm and speaking very earnestly, “and I have three—three notes here.”
“For me?” he said, blushing like a woman, and then frowning at his weakness.
“Yes, Mr Linnell, for you.”
“Tear them up, then,” he said sharply. “I don’t want them.”
Miss Clode gave vent to a sigh of relief.
“Or no,” he said firmly. “They were given to you to deliver. Give them to me.”