Miles Ingestre started and glanced loweringly at his brother-in-law's face. He suspected sarcasm, but Wolff's pitiless steel-grey eyes warned him that the time for retort had not yet come.
"Eh—no; I'm afraid I haven't," he stammered. "I am expecting a cheque from home, and of course will pay up at once. To tell you the truth——"
His thin, hesitating voice died away into silence. Perhaps he felt that Wolff had no desire to hear "the truth." He held his tongue, therefore, and let events drift as they might. Wolff had taken Frau von Arnim's envelope from his pocket. He opened it and counted twelve notes for a hundred marks each on to the table.
"Kindly give me your receipt," he said.
The Jew obeyed willingly, scratching an untidy signature across the bottom of the piece of paper which Wolff pushed towards him. With greedy, careful fingers he counted the notes and stuffed them in his pocket.
"It is a great pleasure to deal vid so great genelman," he said as he shuffled to the door.
Wolff waited until he was gone, then he threw open the window as though the atmosphere sickened him. When he turned again his expression was still calm, only the narrowed eyes revealed something of what was passing through his mind.
Miles did not look at him. He was playing with the paper-weight on the table, struggling to regain his dignity. It bit into his mean soul that he should be indebted to "this foreigner."
"It's awfully decent of you, Wolff," he broke out at last. "I'm really awfully grateful, and of course as soon as my money comes——"
Wolff cut him short with an abrupt and contemptuous gesture.