“It won’t do,” she said. “What difference does it make to you whether you give it to me now or next year? I’ll give you a receipt for it. There won’t be any trouble about it. It’s as broad as it’s long. It’s simply an advance on the main sum.”
He looked moodily at her and then down. Her demand seemed reasonable enough, but he distrusted her.
“If you don’t believe me,” she insisted, “send out that clerk of yours to buy my ticket to New York. Tell him to go up to the flat and he’ll see my trunks all packed and ready. I tell you you’ve beaten me. You and Mrs. Ryan are one too many for me.”
He again looked at her, his lips pressed together, his eye coldly considering.
“I’ll give you thirty thousand dollars and it’s understood that you’re to leave the city to-night.”
She demurred, but with less show of vigor, and, for a space, they haggled over the sum till they finally agreed upon thirty-five thousand dollars.
As the old man drew the check she watched him with avid eagerness, restraining by force the hand that trembled in its anxiety to become possessed of the slip of paper. He noticed, as she bent over the desk to sign the receipt, that her fingers shook so they could hardly direct the pen. She remarked it herself, setting it down to her upset nerves, and laughing at the sprawling signature.
With the check in her hand she rose, something of the airy buoyancy of demeanor that had marked her on her entrance returning to her.
“Well,” she said, opening her purse, “this is the real beginning of our business relations. I feel as if we were partners.”
The old man gave a short, dry laugh. He could not rid his mind of suspicions of her and the whole proceeding, though he did not see just how she could be deceiving him.