The next morning his preposterous displeasure lay like a curse on the house; Anna was silent, and Agnes moved on timid feet. In the afternoon Willie Price called in answer to the note. The miser was in the garden, and Agnes at school. Willie's craven and fawning humility was inexpressibly touching and shameful to Anna. She longed to say to him, as he stood hesitant and confused in the parlour: 'Go in peace. Forget this despicable rent. It sickens me to see you so.' She foresaw, as the effect of her father's vindictive pursuit of her tenants, an interminable succession of these mortifying interviews.
'You're rather hard on us,' Willie Price began, using the old phrases, but in a tone of forced and propitiatory cheerfulness, as though he feared to bring down a storm of anger which should ruin all. 'You'll not deny that we've been doing our best.'
'The rent is due, you know, Mr. William,' she replied, blushing.
'Oh, yes,' he said quickly. 'I don't deny that. I admit that. I--did you happen to see Mr. Tellwright's postscript to your letter?'
He drew the letter, soiled and creased, from his pocket, and displayed it to her. At the foot of the page she read, in Ephraim's thick and clumsy characters: 'P.S. This is final.'
'My father,' said Willie, 'was a little put about. He said he'd never received such a letter before in the whole of his business career. It isn't as if----'
'I needn't tell you,' she interrupted, with a sudden determination to get to the worst without more suspense, 'that of course I am in father's hands.'
'Oh! Of course, Miss Tellwright; we quite understand that--quite. It's just a matter of business. We owe a debt and we must pay it. All we want is time.' He smiled piteously at her, his blue eyes full of appeal. She was obliged to gaze at the floor.
'Yes,' she said, tapping her foot on the rug. 'But father means what he says.' She looked up at him again, trying to soften her words by means of something more subtle than a smile.
'He means what he says,' Willie agreed; 'and I admire him for it.'
The obsequious, truckling lie was odious to her.
'I wish you would,' Anna said, sincerely. 'Father, you're wanted,' she called curtly through the window.
'I've got a proposal to make to him,' Price continued, while they awaited the presence of the miser, 'and I can't hardly think he'll refuse it.'