Pennycherry. “If you are bent on paying more, you can go elsewhere. You’ll find plenty to oblige you.”
Her vehemence must have impressed the stranger. “We will not contend further,” he smiled. “I was merely afraid that in the goodness of your heart—”
“Oh, it isn’t as good as all that,” growled Mrs. Pennycherry.
“I am not so sure,” returned the stranger. “I am somewhat suspicious of you. But wilful woman must, I suppose, have her way.”
The stranger held out his hand, and to Mrs. Pennycherry, at that moment, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to take it as if it had been the hand of an old friend and to end the interview with a pleasant laugh—though laughing was an exercise not often indulged in by Mrs. Pennycherry.
Mary Jane was standing by the window, her hands folded in front of her, when Mrs. Pennycherry re-entered the kitchen. By standing close to the window one caught a glimpse of the trees in Bloomsbury Square and through their bare branches of the sky beyond.
“There’s nothing much to do for the next half hour, till Cook comes back. I’ll see to the door if you’d like a run out?” suggested Mrs. Pennycherry.
“It would be nice,” agreed the girl so soon as she had recovered power of speech; “it’s just the time of day I like.”
“Don’t be longer than the half hour,” added Mrs. Pennycherry.
Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square, assembled after dinner in the drawing-room, discussed the stranger with that freedom and frankness characteristic of Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square, towards the absent.
“Not what I call a smart young man,” was the opinion of Augustus Longcord, who was something in the City.
“Thpeaking for mythelf,” commented his partner Isidore, “hav’n’th any uthe for the thmart young man. Too many of him, ath it ith.”
“Must be pretty smart if he’s one too many for you,” laughed his partner.
There was this to be said for the repartee of Forty-eight Bloomsbury Square: it was simple
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