"Nobody's saying your figures aren't right," said Gwynne, with a weary patience. "The colonel owes the estate that much, and if you'll let things alone, it'll be paid."
"Oh, yes, it'll be paid. I'll make it my business to see that it's paid," said Steven, nodding. He turned to the doctor, confident of his support. "Ain't I right, John? Gwynne there won't do anything—won't lift his hand—just lets the rent keep on piling up and piling up. Calls himself a lawyer, and won't do anything—I've written him time and time again authorising him to—to sue—to sue for our rent—haven't I, Gwynne? Did I, or did I not write you, answer me that?"
"Oh, yes, you wrote me," said Gwynne drily.
"There, you see, you see, John," said Steven despairingly. "That's the way he acts—just that indifferent and shilly-shally. It's seven dollars and a half a month we ought each one to have been getting all this time—seven dollars and a half," his voice cracked again—"we haven't had a cent—not a cent, for over a year, and he won't do anything! He ought to sue, oughtn't he, John?"
"Why, Lord bless me, Steven, I don't know," said the doctor, at once relieved yet remotely disquieted to learn the cause of the trouble, worried over Steven, and slightly amused at this seven-dollar-a-month melodrama. "I'm not a lawyer, you know. I suppose there's some way of getting at tenants that won't pay their rent—some way other than evicting 'em bodily, I mean—you'd hardly like to do that, you know, to people like the Pallinders——"
"Don't see why not," said Steven, seizing upon this new idea with a very disconcerting readiness. "I'd bring 'em to time, if I had the doing of it." He directed a vindictive glance at Gwynne. "'Pay or quit,' that's what I'd say——"
"Oh, come now, Steven, you wouldn't want to see the Pallinders' bureaus and bedsteads out on the sidewalk. It would be a kind of discredit to the property—your property—Governor Gwynne's house," said the doctor, struggling with an inconvenient tendency to laugh, yet diplomatically approaching Steven on his most vulnerable side. "You wouldn't treat Mrs. Pallinder that way—she's a very polished lady—I've heard you say so a dozen times myself."
"There's no occasion to bring in Mrs. Pallinder's name at all, I think," said Gwynne, in so savage a voice that Doctor Vardaman started with astonishment. Their eyes met. "She has nothing to do with this," said the young man constrainedly, averting his gaze almost at the instant. "We're all gentlemen, I hope, and we don't have to talk about a woman."
Doctor Vardaman rubbed his chin. "Steven," he said thoughtfully, "I think maybe you'd better let Gwynne manage it his own way——"
"But I have—I have for a year, and look how he's managed it!" cried Steven; he looked from the doctor to Gwynne in an exasperated bewilderment. "We aren't as well off now as we were a year ago! There's that much more owing us—and he said just the same thing then, to let things alone. Damn it, we've let 'em alone, and see where we are!"