“Yes.”
Miss Vane rose from the chair which she had mechanically sunk into while waiting for him to speak, and ceased to be the kindly, generous soul she was, in asserting herself as a gentlewoman who had a contumacious servant to treat with. “You will wait here a moment, please.”
“All right,” said Lemuel. She had asked him not to receive instructions from her with that particular answer, but he could not always remember.
She went upstairs, and returned with some banknotes that rustled in her trembling hand. “It is two months since you came, and I've paid you one month,” she said, and she set her lips, and tried to govern her head, which nevertheless shook with the vehemence she was struggling to repress. She laid two ten-dollar notes upon the table, and then added a five, a little apart. “This second month was to be twenty instead of ten. I shall not want you any longer, and should be glad to have you go now—at once—to-night! But I had intended to offer you a little present at Christmas, and I will give it you now.”
Lemuel took up the two ten-dollar notes without saying anything, and then after a moment laid one of them down. “It's only half a month,” he said. “I don't want to be paid for any more than I've done.”
“Lemuel!” cried Miss Vane. “I insist upon your taking it. I employed you by the month.”
“It don't make any difference about that; I've only been here a month and a half.”
He folded the notes, and turned to go out of the room. Miss Vane caught the five-dollar note from the table and intercepted him with it. “Well, then, you shall take it as a present.”
“I don't want any present,” said Lemuel, patiently waiting her pleasure to release him, but keeping his hands in his pockets.
“You would have taken it at Christmas,” said Miss Vane. “You shall take it now.”