But Ansley went on again. "It's a choice between you and a tutor. My wife would like a tutor. Guy wants you. So do I. You'd have your traveling expenses, of course—do everything the same as Guy—and, let us say, five hundred dollars for your time. Would that suit you?"
He didn't know how to answer. Excitement, gratitude, and a sense of insufficiency churned together and choked him. It was only by spluttering and stammering that he could say at last:
"If—if Mrs. Ansley—d-doesn't w-want me—"
"Oh, she'd give in. Simply feels that Guy'd get more good out of it if he had some one to point out moral lessons as he went along. I don't. Two young fellows together, if they're at all the right kind, 'll do each other more good than all the law and the prophets."
"But would you mind telling me, sir, something of what you'd expect from me?"
"Oh, nothing! Just play round with him, and have a good time. You seem to chum up with him all right."
Tom was distressed. "Yes, sir, but if I'm to be—to be paid for chumming up with him I should have to—"
"Forget it. I want Guy to take the trip. It's not the kind of trip anyone wants to take alone, and you're the fellow he'd like to have with him. I'd like it too. You understand him."
He turned round to knock the ash from his cigar into the dying fire.
"Trouble with Guy is that he has no sense of values. Thing he needs to learn is what's worth while and what's not. I don't want you to teach him. I just want him to see. What do you say?"