Cornelia shivered, and bit hard on her lower lip. She slipped her hand into an inside pocket of the white coat, and, coming a step nearer, dropped a coin into the man’s hand. He cast down his eyes, started, and flushed a deep red.
“Thank you, miss. Beg pardon, but you’ve made a mistake!”
A sovereign lay brightly on his grimy palm; he stared at it with respectful awe, scarcely regretful, since it did not enter his mind to conceive that such a munificent gift could seriously have been offered for his acceptance. It had seldom happened that he had had the handling of such a fortune, since his whole weekly earnings reached a total of eighteen shillings, but Cornelia in her turn looked abashed and discomfited, thrusting her hand once again into the tightly-buttoned little pocket.
“I’m sorry! I ken’t get used to your money over here. Will that make it enough?”
To the man’s utter stupefaction she placed a second sovereign beside the first in his outstretched palm. He stared at it with distended eyes, thrilled by the discovery that she had meant it after all, awed by the revelation of such munificence.
“Beg pardon, miss, I was thinking as you’d mistook it for a shilling, not making so bold as to complain. I thank your ladyship kindly! I’m sure I can’t rightly say what I ought—”
He stuttered, incoherent with excitement, but even as he spoke he held out the second sovereign, and Cornelia understood that his good feeling permitted him to accept only what had been originally offered. She would have felt the same in his place, and realising as much, took back the coin without a demur.
“Well! it’s waiting for you next time I come, if you’ve done your duty by that mare.”
She turned, and walked slowly back to where the two men were standing talking together, some eight or ten yards away. Their backs were turned towards her, and her assailant of a few minutes past was evidently answering an appeal from his friend. She caught the last words as she drew near: “I will go to the stable and look after the mare. ... You can take them up to the house without my help. I can’t stand any more of that girl—”
He wheeled round as he spoke, and found himself face to face with Cornelia. They stared each other full in the eyes, like two combatants measuring strength before a battle.