"I shall have to let things take their course," said Denry with a genial
smile.

"All right, then," Ruth Earp responded. "If you choose to mix yourself
up with people like Mr Herbert Calvert, you must take the consequences!
It's all the same to me, after all."

"Then it isn't convenient for you to pay anything on account?" said
Denry, more and more affable.

"Convenient!" she cried. "It's perfectly convenient, only I don't care
to. I won't pay a penny until I'm forced. Let Mr Herbert Calvert do his
worst, and then I'll pay. And not before! And the whole town shall hear
all about Mr Herbert Calvert!"

"I see," he laughed easily.

"Convenient!" she reiterated, contemptuously. "I think everybody in
Bursley knows how my _clientele_ gets larger and larger every
year!... Convenient!"

"So that's final, Miss Earp?"

"Perfectly!" said Miss Earp.

He rose. "Then the simplest thing will be for me to send round a bailiff
to-morrow morning, early." He might have been saying: "The simplest
thing will be for me to send round a bunch of orchids."

Another man would have felt emotion, and probably expressed it. But not
Denry, the rent-collector and manager of estates large and small. There
were several different men in Denry, but he had the great gift of not
mixing up two different Denrys when he found himself in a complicated
situation.

Ruth Earp rose also. She dropped her eyelids and looked at him from
under them. And then she gradually smiled.

"I thought I'd just see what you'd do," she said, in a low, confidential
voice from which all trace of hostility had suddenly departed. "You're a
strange creature," she went on curiously, as though fascinated by the
problems presented by his individuality. "Of course, I shan't let it go
as far as that. I only thought I'd see what you'd say. I'll write you
to-night."

"With a cheque?" Denry demanded, with suave, jolly courtesy. "I don't
collect postage-stamps."

(And to himself: "She's got her stamps back.")

She hesitated. "Stay!" she said. "I'll tell you what will be better. Can
you call to-morrow afternoon? The bank will be closed now."

"Yes," he said, "I can call. What time?"

"Oh!" she answered, "any time. If you come in about four, I'll give you
a cup of tea into the bargain. Though you don't deserve it!" After an
instant, she added reassuringly: "Of course I know business is business
with you. But I'm glad I've told you the real truth about your precious
Mr H