As she was walking to and fro, she glanced out of the window and saw Offitt approaching from the direction of the shop.  She knew instantly what his errand would be, though he had never before said a word to her out of the common.  “I wonder if father has sent him to me—­and how many more has he got in reserve there in the shop?  Well, I will make short work of this one.”

But when he had come in and taken his seat, she found it was not so easy to make short work of him.

Dealing with this one was very different from dealing with the other—­ about the difference between handling a pig and a panther.  Offitt was a human beast of prey—­furtive, sly, and elusive, with all his faculties constantly in hand.  The sight of Maud excited him like the sight of prey.  His small eyes fastened upon her; his sinewy hands tingled to lay hold of her.  But he talked, as any casual visitor might, of immaterial things.

Maud, while she chatted with him, was preparing herself for the inevitable question and answer.  “What shall I say to him?  I do not like him.  I never did.  I never can.  But what shall I do?  A woman is of no use in the world by herself.  He is not such a dunce as poor Sam, and is not such a gawk as Bott.  I wonder whether he would make me mind?  I am afraid he would, and I don’t know whether I would like it or not.  I suppose if I married him I would be as poor as a crow all my days.  I couldn’t stand that.  I won’t have him.  I wish he would make his little speech and go.”

But he seemed in no hurry to go.  He was talking volubly about himself, lying with the marvellous fluency which interest and practice give to such men, and Maud presently found herself listening intently to his stories.  He had been in Mexico, it seemed.  He owned a silver mine there.  He got a million dollars out of it, but took it into his head one day to overturn the Government, and was captured and his money taken; barely escaped the garrote by strangling his jailer; owned the mine still, and should go back and get it some day, when he had accomplished certain purposes in this country.  There were plenty of people who wished he was gone now.  The President had sent for him to come, to Washington; he went, and was asked to breakfast; nobody there but them two; they ate off gold plates like he used to in Mexico; the President then offered him a hundred thousand to leave, was afraid he would make trouble; told the President to make it a million and then he wouldn’t.  His grandfather was one of the richest men in Europe; his father ran away with his mother out of a palace.  “You must have heard of my father, General Offitt, of Georgy?  No?  He was the biggest slaveholder in the State.  I have got a claim against the Government, now, that’s good for a million if it’s worth a cent; going to Washington next winter to prosecute it.”