"Yes," Challoner said, jocosity waning somewhat. "Exactly, Mrs. Gwynnie. How quick you are! I do want to get rid of you, for your own good, and my good, and Beattie's good as well—principally for hers. This gossip must be stopped. I cannot have it. It is unpleasant for me, but for you it is disastrous. At Marychurch Beattie has the Quartermains and plenty of other friends. It will be handy for her young man, too, when his vessel is at Southampton. You would see ever so much more society there than you do here. And I can give you an uncommonly nice house, very superior in every respect to this one—Sunnyside, the white house with a veranda, opposite the new Borough Recreation Ground in Wilmer Road. Nominally it belongs to old Manby, but actually it belongs to me. It has been standing empty since Christmas, and Manby will think himself only too lucky to let it to any client of mine at a low rent—which I pay, of course. No one need know anything about that."
Challoner talked on, swinging his leg jauntily, though every nerve in his big body was strained with the effort to apprehend and follow the workings of his hearer's mind. So far, save for that passing outbreak, she had received his admonitions and propositions more reasonably than he had anticipated. So he must exercise patience, must not rush her; but give the idea time to sink in.
"Manby's property is mortgaged up to the hilt," he went on, "and he is more than half a year behind with the interest. If he doesn't come into my terms I shall threaten to foreclose. He knows I have got him between my finger and thumb, poor old chap, and he goes in terror of the time I may begin to squeeze. I admit it does seem rather rough on him, for he is in this hole through no fault of his own. His family has owned the property for three generations. But his business has dwindled to nothing, and that compelled him to raise money. The co-operative stores at Stourmouth and Southampton are crushing him and old-fashioned, jog-along, retail tradesmen like him out of existence. The same thing is happening all over the country. Men of his type have neither enterprise nor capital to compete with those large company concerns."
She sat so still, listening with such apparent docility, that Challoner judged it safe to quit generalities.
"Sunnyside shall be properly done up and the sanitation inspected," he said. "I am willing to spend from seventy to a hundred on the place. It is bound to be my own sooner or later, so any money I lay out on it will come back to me in the end. Too, I want to do the thing handsomely for you, Mrs. Gwyn. You and Beattie could go out by tram to-morrow, or next day, and have a look at the place. I'll advise Manby by telephone to-morrow, first thing, I have found him a very desirable tenant, so that he may open the house. Better make a list of any little odds and ends you may think need doing. If you like, you can choose the wall-papers yourself."
"That's awfully sweet of you. But supposing I don't like the house when I see it? I know I am rather fanciful and particular," she put in, with her little neighing laugh.
"I'll guarantee you'll like it," he returned. "It's just the sort of house to appeal to your taste. Really high class, nothing cheap or tawdry about it, built somewhere in the early seventies, tip-top style in its own line, quite a gentlewoman's house."
Mrs. Spencer fingered the lace and ribbons of her tea-gown negligently, advanced her left foot, studied the pointed toe of her beaded slipper, then looked up archly in Challoner's face.
"But supposing," she said, "I really don't want a house at Marychurch at all—what then? Supposing I really prefer to remain at Stourmouth? Supposing I am really determined to stay on here at our dear old Robin's Rest?"
Challoner's expression darkened. He descended from his graceful perch and stood behind the sofa, towering above her.