“Go back to the chest,” she cried petulantly. “This isn’t the proper time for nonsense; we are talking business. You will give him the money at once, won’t you?”
“I must think it over. Two hundred pounds!”
“It is nothing to you—everything to us.”
“To him.”
“To him—that is what I meant. Open the bureau; get your check-book. It will only take a moment.”
“There is no hurry. I never rush things. I’ll talk the affair over with Edred to-morrow—no, on Wednesday, before I drive in to market. To-morrow I must see old Crisp, of the Flagon House, about that rye of his.”
He pulled a wan, white jasmine bloom to pieces slowly, put his head half out of the window into the damp, scented air, and said casually that a couple of bats had flown out of the ivy.
Her palms tingled with rage and despair. This matter of two hundred pounds was nothing to him. The clock in the dining-parlor struck nine very softly; on the hedge across the road a nightingale was performing a sad recitative. She jumped to her feet in a passion.
“If you don’t promise to give him the two hundred pounds to-morrow morning, I’ll go away—I won’t marry you,” she cried.
Jethro only laughed. He felt so secure. The wedding was to be in six weeks; workmen were coming out from Liddleshorn to-morrow to fit up the bathroom and paint the place. Nearly every day a young woman came with things from the draper’s at Liddleshorn. It was all settled. But she looked pretty in a passion. He rose heavily from the chest again.