To take it
for granted was the surest way of extinguishing it. The pity was that
Mrs Lovatt, in the haste of her zeal for the amelioration of divine
worship at Bursley Chapel, had overlooked this fact. Peake's manner was
final. His wife threw a swift glance at Ella, who stood behind her
father's chair, and received a message back that she too had discerned
finality in the tone.
Sneyd got up, and walking slowly to the fireplace emitted the casual
remark: "Yes, you will, Peake."
He was a man of considerable education, and though in neither force nor
astuteness was he the equal of James Peake, it often pleased him to
adopt towards his friend a philosophic pose--the pose of a seer, of one
far removed from the trivial disputes in which the colliery-owner was
frequently concerned.
"Yes, you will, Peake," he repeated.
"I shanna', Sneyd."
"I can read you like a book, Peake." This was a favourite phrase of
Sneyd's, which Peake never heard without a faint secret annoyance. "At
the bottom of your mind you mean to give that hundred. It's your duty to
do so, and you will. You'll let them persuade you."
"I'll bet thee a shilling I don't.
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