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.")