“Your coldness scorches me, if I may use a seeming paradox. In the most literal sense I will give them to you. Permit me to present you with six fringe-nets, for the use of Miss Doris O’Brady.”
“My sister tells me that you charge her a shilling each for them. Here is half-a-sovereign. Please give me the change.”
“I will not give you the change, nor will I take your half-sovereign. Do you wish to grind me beneath your heel—to insult me?”
“Insult you!”
“The fringe-nets are a present to you for your sister, since you will accept nothing for yourself—unless, at the eleventh hour, you will permit me to add the manicure set and the handglass.”
“I think, Mr Morrel, that you must be suffering from something this afternoon. Do you suppose, for one single instant, that either my sister or I wishes you to give us our fringe-nets? I insist upon paying for them.”
“You cannot. It is impossible. I decline to allow you to pay for them.”
“What’s that you decline to allow?”
Mrs Morrel’s appearance in the shop I hailed with a sensation of real relief.
“Mrs Morrel, I want six fringe-nets, and, for some reason or other, Mr Morrel won’t let me pay for one. They’re six shillings, and I want him to take for them out of this half-sovereign, and he won’t.”