Humphrey threw a glance at him. He was standing, looking down on the carpet, with his hands in the pockets of his jacket.
"Look here," he said, looking up suddenly. "We've had enough of this. I don't think you've acted straight, and I was bound to say so before I said anything else. And now I've said it, I've said it for the last time. Let's forget all about it. We've been pretty good pals up to now, and there's no reason why we shouldn't go on being good pals up to the end of the chapter."
Humphrey sat down and looked into the fire. "Perhaps I haven't behaved very well," he said slowly. "It's precious easy to behave well when you've got everything you want, as you've always had."
"It may be," said Dick. "Anyhow, you're not going to do so badly now. If you haven't got all you want, you'll have a good slice of it."
There was silence between them for a time, and then Humphrey said, "If you don't want to quarrel, I'm hanged if I do. Only, I must confess I feel a bit sore. The way the governor swings round from one position to another's enough to make anybody sick. You've had a dose of it yourself; you know how you felt before you made it up with him."
Dick's self-esteem received nourishment from the recollection that he had not behaved in the same way as Humphrey had, but he did not bring forward the statement in that form. "It was awkward," he admitted. "It made him think of doing things that he'd never thought of doing, and I don't think he'd any right to think of doing. That's why I haven't the slightest hesitation now in taking back whatever he may have made use of to offer to—to, well, let's say to you, as a means of getting his own way. They have always been looked on as coming to me eventually, and if this disturbance hadn't come about nobody would have thought of their being disposed of in any other way. So you're really no worse off than you were before; in fact, you're a good deal better off, and I'm quite agreeable, as far as it rests with me, that you should be. Can't you manage to settle it with yourself that what you're going to have is as much as you could have expected, and give up trying for the rest?"
"I dare say I can manage that feat," said Humphrey, "especially as I suppose I've got to. Still, when you look at it all round, there's a good deal of difference in my expectations and yours. Two thousand a year on the one side, and—well, I don't know what, but say ten thousand a year and a big property on the other."
"Oh, if you're going to kick against the law of primogeniture—!" said Dick. "Question is, would you kick at it if you happened to be the eldest son? If not, you oughtn't to bring it in."
Humphrey was silent. They had been talking quietly. Hostility had gone out of their talk, but friendliness had not yet come in.
Dick seated himself and began again. "Perhaps it isn't for me to say, now that I've got everything I want, but I do say it all the same, because I found it out when I didn't think I was going to have everything I wanted. Money isn't everything. If you have as much as you can live comfortably on, and something to do, you've just as much chance of happiness as the next fellow. 'Specially if you're going to marry the right woman."