A look of relief suffused itself over Wilson's broad face.
“Then they are still open to accept their offer to me?”
Miller laughed as if highly amused at the complication of the matter.
“They are bound, you remember, only so long as you hold their note.”
“Then I tell you what to do,” proposed Wilson. “Go back and tell them not to bother about payment, for a few days, anyway, and that we will soon tell them positively whether we will pay their price or not. That's fair, isn't it?”
“It might seem so to a man personally interested in the deal,” admitted Miller, as the introduction to another of his blows from the shoulder; “but as lawyer for my clients I can only obey orders, like the boy who stood on the burning deck.”
Wilson's face fell. The remote clicking of the typewriter seemed to grate upon his high-wrought nerves, and he went and slammed the partly opened door, muttering something like an oath. On that slight journey, however, he caught an idea.
“Suppose you wire them my proposition and wait here for a reply,” he suggested.
Miller frowned. “That would do no good,” he said. “I'm sorry I can' t explain fully, but the truth is this: I happen to know that they wish, for reasons of their own, to take up the note you hold, and that nothing else will suit them.”
At this juncture Wilson lost his grip on all self-possession, and degenerated into the sullen anger of sharp and unexpected disappointment.