Hawtrey smiled. "I really don't think I deserve a very great deal of pity. As I have said, I'll probably come out all right next year if I can only keep expenses down."
Then Agatha remembered the task she had in hand. It was a very inauspicious moment to set about it, but that could not be helped, and even for the man's own sake she felt that she must win him over.
"There is one way, Gregory, in which I don't think it ought to be done," she said. "You took over Wyllard's obligations when you took the farm, and I think you should keep the two Morans on."
Hawtrey started. "Ah!" he said, "Mrs. Hastings has been setting you on; I partly expected it."
"She told me," Agatha admitted. "Unless you will look at the thing as I do, I could almost wish she hadn't. The thought of that woman shut up in the woods all winter only to find that what she must have to bear has all been thrown away troubles me. Wyllard promised to keep those men on, didn't he?"
"There was no regular engagement so far as I can make out."
"Still, Moran seems to have understood that he was to be kept on."
"Yes," admitted Hawtrey, "he evidently does. If the market had gone with us I'd have fallen in with his views. As it hasn't, every man's wages count."
Agatha was conscious of a little thrill of repugnance. Of late Gregory's ideas had rather frequently jarred on hers.
"I'll keep those men on if you want me to," he said.
Agatha winced at this. She had discovered that she must not look for too much from Gregory, but to realise that he had practically no sense of moral obligation, and could only be influenced to do justice by the expectation of obtaining her favour positively hurt her.
"I want them kept on, but I don't want you to do it for that reason," she said. "Can't you grasp the distinction, Gregory?"
A trace of darker colour crept into Hawtrey's face, but while she was a little astonished at this he looked at her steadily. He had not thought much about her during the last month, but now the faint scorn in her voice had stirred him.
"Now," he said, "there are just three reasons, Aggy, why you should have troubled yourself about this thing. You are, perhaps, a little sorry for Moran's wife, but as you haven't even seen her that can hardly count for much. The next is, that you don't care to see me doing what you regard as a shabby thing; perhaps it is a shabby thing in some respects, but I feel it's justifiable. Of course, if that's your reason there's a sense in which, while not exactly complimentary--it's consoling."