"So I do. God knows I do. I would tell you everything. I would indeed. As to screwing a hard bargain, I'm the last man in London who would do it. I thought that your father might be willing to buy half the property."
"He won't do that. You see the great thing is the house and park. We should both want that;—shouldn't we? Of course it must be yours; and I feel—I don't know how I feel in asking you whether you want to sell it."
"You needn't mind that, Ralph."
"If you don't think the sum the lawyers and those chaps fixed is enough,—"
Then Ralph the heir, interrupting him, rose from his chair and spoke out. "My uncle has never understood me, and never will. He thinks hardly of me, and if he chooses to do so, I can't help it. He hasn't seen me for fourteen years, and of course he is entitled to think what he pleases. If he would have seen me the thing might have been easier."
"Don't let us go back to that, Ralph," said the Squire's son.
"I don't want to go back to anything. When it comes to a fellow's parting with such prospects as mine, it does come very hard upon him. Of course it's my own fault. I might have got along well enough;—only I haven't. I am hard up for money,—very hard up. And yet,—if you were in my place, you wouldn't like to part with it."
"Perhaps not," said the Squire's son, not knowing what to say.
"As to bargaining, and asking so much more, and all the rest of it, that's out of the question. Somebody fixed a price, and I suppose he knew what he was at."
"That was a minimum price."