“O!” he said, rising apoplectic, and with a quivering lip. “I’m sure I give you joy, old boy. I could never quite believe, you know, in your indifference. Who could, with such a prize before him? It’s all in the right order of things, you know; like—like the honi soit, and quis separabit and the rest of them. I hope Lord Skene approves?”
“Not he.”
“Then he’s no gentleman.”
“He’s no fool, perhaps. Johnny, I’ve come primed with an enormous budget of news to explode on you.”
“Explode away, then.”
Whether it was the sobering effect of my first astounding stroke, or the absence of emotional distractions, I don’t know; but he received my story from beginning to end this time with a grasp and understanding that were positively pathetic.
“I’ll tell you,” he said, when I had reached a finish. “You must come with me to-morrow and see Shapter. He’s our family solicitor, and as sharp as flints. This thing’s got beyond the private and personal note—don’t you agree with me?”
“I’m afraid I must, Johnny.”
“Now, look here, Dicky; you’re giving me my first chance at what I have always pined for and never had the luck nor the figure to get—a personal part in a real, picturesque, mystery-and-murder romance. I’m not going to be excused out of it, nor forbidden to engineer it as lavish as I please. It’s the great opportunity of my life, and I shall take it unkind if you refuse me a free hand to work it. You’re not to have a share at all in the financing of the venture—you understand that. If I allowed you one, it would rub all the gilt off my own make-believe.”
I understood him, and his fine delicacy. This was his way of assuring me the practical help which I could not but need.