“A bargain? Oh nonsense, now, Mr. Ferris. This is merely a note of mutual understanding.”
“Yes, that’s one way of looking at it. The Civil Tribunal would call it a binding agreement of the closest tenure,—if you want to go to law about it.”
“I will go to law about it.”
“Oh no, you won’t—unless you mean to spend your remaining days and all your substance in Venice. Come, you haven’t done so badly, Mrs. Vervain. I don’t call four rooms, completely furnished for housekeeping, with that lovely garden, at all dear at eleven francs a day. Besides, the landlord is a man of excellent feeling, sympathetic and obliging, and a perfect gentleman, though he is such an outrageous scoundrel. He’ll cheat you, of course, in whatever he can; you must look out for that; but he’ll do you any sort of little neighborly kindness. Good-by,” said Ferris, getting to the door before Mrs. Vervain could intercept him. “I’ll come to your new place this evening to see how you are pleased.”
“Florida,” said Mrs. Vervain, “this is outrageous.”
“I wouldn’t mind it, mother. We pay very little, after all.”
“Yes, but we pay too much. That’s what I can’t bear. And as you said yesterday, I don’t think Mr. Ferris’s manners are quite respectful to me.”
“He only told you the truth; I think he advised you for the best. The matter couldn’t be helped now.”
“But I call it a want of feeling to speak the truth so bluntly.”
“We won’t have to complain of that in our landlord, it seems,” said Florida. “Perhaps not in our priest, either,” she added.