"Mr. Thayer is always dropping them about our house," put in the friendly Mrs. Thayer, in an effort to salve what she took to be his mortification at this public exposure, in her presence, of one of the necessary fastenings of his intimate apparel. Thinking that men were like women in that respect, and that if some safety pin or other similar clasp had been lost from her own undergarb, she too might very well have had that look of consternation on her face and confusedly sought support from the back of a chair, as she saw him do now.
"Hnh!" grunted Dollard, as if to say: I don't; only a sloven does.
But he returned to the rug, smoothing out its ripples now with strokes of his foot.
Durand thrust the token deep into his pocket. A burning sensation, coming through his clothes, stayed with it. He beheld them swayingly through thick-lensed, fear-strained eyes. He wondered if, to them, he appeared to 'sway, as they did to him. Apparently not, for their expressions showed no sudden attention nor undue concern whenever they were momentarily cast his way.
"I think I've shown you everything," Dollard said at last.
"Yes, I think you have," his prospective client agreed.
They sauntered now toward the front door, Durand like a wraith faltering beside them. He had the door at last to cling to, and any see-saw vagary of balance could be ascribed to the flux of its hinges.
Mrs. Thayer turned toward him, smiled. "Thank you very much; I hope we haven't disturbed you."
"Good day," said Dollard, with an economy of urbanity that, from his point of view, it would have been a waste to use on people who were about to cease being lessees of the property.
He escorted her down to the carriage, helped her in, talking assiduously the while in an effort to persuade her into concluding the transaction. He was just about to step in after her and drive off with her--to Durand's unutterable relief--when suddenly Bonny appeared, walking rapidly along the sidewalk, and turned in toward the house, glancing back toward them as she did so.
Durand widened the door, to admit her and close it after her, but she stopped there, blocking it.
"For God's sake," he said exhaustedly, "get in here--I'm halfdead."
"Just a moment," she said, immovable. "He can't rent this place unless we sign a release. Did you give him the keys yet ?"
"No."
"Good," she said crisply. To his horror, she raised her arm and beckoned Dollard back. She even called out his name. "Mr. Dollard! Just a moment, if you will!"
"Don't call him back," pleaded Durand. "Let him go, let him go. What are you thinking of ?"
"I know what I'm doing," she said firmly.
Durand, aghast, saw the agent reluctantly descend, come back toward them again. He chafed his hands propitiously. "I think I have the transaction concluded," he confided. "And at a considerably better figure. Her mind is all but made up."
The remark brought a shrewd glint of calculation into Bonny's eyes, Durand saw.
"Yes?" she said dulcetly. "But there are a couple of things you've forgotten, aren't there? The keys, and the signed release."
Dollard fumbled hastily for his pocket. "Oh, so I have. But I have the form right here on me, and if you'll give me the keys now, that will save me a trip back for them later--" He glanced around at the waiting carriage. He was as anxious to be off, or nearly so, as Durand was anxious to have him be.
Bonny, however, seemed to be in no hurry. She intercepted the paper, which Dollard had been extending toward Durand, and consulted it herself. She studiously ignored the mute, frantic appeal in Durand's dilated eyes. He mopped furtively at his forehead.
She raised her head; then with no sign of returning the paper to Dollard, tapped it questioningly against her arched pulse.
"And what of the unused portion of our rental fee? I see no mention here-"
"The unused--? I don't understand you."
She retained the paper against his tentatively extended hand seeking to reclaim it. "The rental for this month has already been paid."
"Naturally."
"But today is only the tenth. What of the three weeks we relinquish?"
"You forfeit that. I cannot return it to you once it has been paid."
"Very well," she said waspishly. "But then neither can you rent it to anyone else until after the thirtieth of the month. You had best go and tell the lady that, and spare her a disappointment."
Dollard's mouth dropped slack, astounded. "But you are not going to be here! You leave today. It was you yourself who came to me this morning to tell me so." He glanced helplessly at the carriage, where the waiting Mrs. Thayer was beginning to show ladylike signs of impatience. She looked over at him inquiringly, she coughed pantomimically--unheard at that distance--into the hollow of her hand. "Come, be reasonable, madam. You said yourself--"
Bonny was adamant. There was even a small smile etched into the corner of her mouth. Her eyes, as if guessing the surreptitious, agonized signs Durand was trying to convey to her from behind the turn of the agent's shoulder, refused to look across at him. "You be reasonable, Mr. Dollard. My husband and I are not going to make you a present of the greater part of a month's rental. Our departure can very well be postponed in such a case. Either you return it to us, or we stay until the first of the new month."
She deliberately turned and entered the hallway. She stopped before the mirror. In full view of Dollard, she raised hands to her bonnet, removed it. She adjusted her hair, to make sure it was not disturbed.
"Close the door, dear," she said to Durand. "And then come upstairs and help me unpack our things. Good day, sir," she added pointedly to Dollard.
The agent looked apprehensively at the carriage, to gauge how much longer he might dare keep it waiting. Then to her; she was now moving toward the stairs, as if about to ascend them. Then, more quickly, to the carriage. Then, more quickly still, to her once more. The carriage, at least, was standing still, but she wasn't.
At last he blundered into the house after her, past the-by this time-almost audibly moaning Durand. "Just a moment!" he capitulated. "Very well; seventy-five dollars by the month. I will give you the amount for the last two weeks. Thirty-seven, fifty."
Bonny turned, gave him a granite smile, shook her head. Then she continued, put her foot to the bottommost step, her hand to the newel-post. "Today is not the fifteenth of the month. Today is the tenth. We have had the use of this house for only one third of the time paid for. Therefore there is two thirds coming to us. Fifty dollars."
"Madam!" said Dollard, striking hand to his scalp, forgetful that there was no longer hair there to ruffle.
"Sir!" she echoed ironically.
A shadow darkened the open doorway behind the three of them and the coachman had appeared in it. "Excuse me, sir, but the lady says she can't wait any longer--"
"Here," said Dollard bitterly, grubbing money from his billfold, "Fifty dollars. Let me get out of here before you demand payment for having lived in the house at all!"
"Sign the paper, dearest," she said sweetly. "And give Mr. Dollard his keys. We must not detain him any longer."
Durand got the door closed behind the fuming figure. Then he all but collapsed against it on the inside. "How could you do it, knowing all the time what's lying under the very floor we-?" he gagged, tearing at his collar. "What have you for nerves, what have you for heart?"
She was standing on the stairs, triumphantly counting over the cabbagehead of money she held bunched in her hand.
"Ah, but he didn't know; and that's where the difference lay. You never played poker, did you, Lou?"