“Nonsense. I am not going to let you pay.”
“This time it is a present,” she said; “and when you wish to pay for the next you will have to send me in a bill for the work you have done.”
But he was annoyed.
“Look here, I have fifteen hundred francs down in the cellar.”
“Very well, you shall give me ten presently, if you promise not to argue every time. Don’t you see that I wish to make some return?”
Brent’s face softened.
“I am sorry,” he said; “it is like you to put it in that way.”
He opened the tin, filled his pipe, lit it and puffed with immense relish.
“Now, what about this prize bully, Monsieur Blanc? Do you mean to say that he may come along and try to frighten me out of Beaucourt?”
“That is just what I do mean,” said Manon; “you do not know Bibi as I do.”