“There’s nobbut one point, Mr. Mynors,” Tellwright said bluntly, “and that’s the interest on th’ capital, as must be deducted before reckoning profits. Us must have six percent.”
“But I thought we had settled it at five,” said Mynors with sudden firmness.
“We ’n settled as you shall have five on your fifteen hundred,” the miser replied with imperturbable audacity, “but us mun have our six.”
“I certainly thought we had thrashed that out fully, and agreed that the interest should be the same on each side.” Mynors was alert and defensive.
“Nay, young man. Us mun have our six. We’re takkin’ a risk.”
Mynors pressed his lips together. He was taken at a disadvantage. Mr. Tellwright, with unscrupulous cleverness, had utilized the effect on Mynors of his daughter’s presence to regain a position from which the younger man had definitely ousted him a few days before. Mynors was annoyed, but he gave no sign of his annoyance.
“Very well,” he said at length, with a private smile at Anna to indicate that it was out of regard for her that he yielded.
Mr. Tellwright made no pretence of concealing his satisfaction. He, too, smiled at Anna, sardonically: the last vestige of the morning’s irritation vanished in a glow of triumph.
“I’m afraid I must go,” said Mynors, looking at his watch. “There is a service at chapel at three. Our Revivalist came down with Mrs. Sutton to look over the works this morning, and I told him I should be at the service. So I must. You coming, Mr. Tellwright?”
“Nay, my lad. I’m owd enough to leave it to young uns.”
Anna forced her courage to the verge of rashness, moved by a swift impulse.
“Will you wait one minute?” she said to Mynors. “I am going to the service. If I’m late back, father, Agnes will see to the tea. Don’t wait for me.” She looked him straight in the face. It was one of the bravest acts of her life. After the episode of breakfast, to suggest a procedure which might entail any risk upon another meal was absolutely heroic. Tellwright glanced away from his daughter, and at Mynors. Anna hurried upstairs.
“Who’s thy lawyer, Mr. Mynors?” Tellwright asked.
“Dane,” said Mynors.
“That’ll be convenient. Dane does my bit o’ business, too. I’ll see him, and make a bargain wi’ him for th’ partnership deed. He always works by contract for me. I’ve no patience wi’ six-and-eight-pences.”
Mynors assented.
“You must come down some afternoon and look over the works,” he said to Anna as they were walking down Trafalgar Road towards chapel.
“I should like to,” Anna replied. “I’ve never been over a works in my life.”
“No? You are going to be a partner in the best works of its size in Bursley,” Mynors said enthusiastically.
“I’m glad of that,” she smiled, “for I do believe I own the worst.”
“What—Price’s do you mean?”
She nodded.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, and seemed to be thinking. “I wasn’t sure whether that belonged to you or your father. I’m afraid it isn’t quite the best of properties. But perhaps I’d better say nothing about that. We had a grand meeting last night. Our little cornet-player quite lived up to his reputation, don’t you think?”
“Quite,” she said faintly.
“You enjoyed the meeting?”
“No,” she blurted out, dismayed but resolute to be honest.
There was a silence.
“But you were at the early prayer-meeting this morning, I hear.”
She said nothing while they took a dozen paces, and then murmured, “Yes.”
Their eyes met for a second, hers full of trouble.
“Perhaps,” he said at length, “perhaps—excuse me saying this—but you may be expecting too much—”
“Well?” she encouraged him, prepared now to finish what had been begun.
“I mean,” he said, earnestly, “that I—we—cannot promise you any sudden change of feeling, any sudden relief and certainty, such as some people experience. At least, I never had it. What is called conversion can happen in various ways. It is a question of living, of constant endeavour, with the example of Christ always before us. It need not always be a sudden wrench, you know, from the world. Perhaps you have been expecting too much,” he repeated, as though offering balm with that phrase.
She thanked him sincerely, but not with her lips, only with the heart. He had revealed to her an avenue of release from a situation which had seemed on all sides fatally closed. She sprang eagerly towards it. She realised afresh how frightful was the dilemma from which there was now a hope of escape, and she was grateful accordingly. Before, she had not dared steadily to face its terrors. She wondered that even her father’s displeasure or the project of the partnership had been able to divert her from the plight of her soul. Putting these mundane things firmly behind her, she concentrated the activities of her brain on that idea of Christ-like living, day by day, hour by hour, of a gradual aspiration towards Christ and thereby an ultimate arrival at the state of being saved. This she thought she might accomplish; this gave opportunity of immediate effort, dispensing with the necessity of an impossible violent spiritual metamorphosis. They did not speak again until they had reached the gates of the chapel, when Mynors, who had to enter the choir from the back, bade her a quiet adieu. Anna enjoyed the service, which passed smoothly and uneventfully. At a Revival, night is the time of ecstasy and fervour and salvation; in the afternoon one must be content with preparatory praise and prayer.
That evening, while father and daughters sat in the parlour after supper, there was a ring at the door. Agnes ran to open, and found Willie Price. It had begun to rain, and the visitor, his jacket-collar turned up, was wet and draggled. Agnes
