“She’s as good as her best opportunities,” Ralph returned.
“Well,” Mr. Touchett declared, “she ought to get a great many opportunities for sixty thousand pounds.”
“I’ve no doubt she will.”
“Of course I’ll do what you want,” said the old man. “I only want to understand it a little.”
“Well, dear daddy, don’t you understand it now?” his son caressingly asked. “If you don’t we won’t take any more trouble about it. We’ll leave it alone.”
Mr. Touchett lay a long time still. Ralph supposed he had given up the attempt to follow. But at last, quite lucidly, he began again. “Tell me this first. Doesn’t it occur to you that a young lady with sixty thousand pounds may fall a victim to the fortune-hunters?”
“She’ll hardly fall a victim to more than one.”
“Well, one’s too many.”
“Decidedly. That’s a risk, and it has entered into my calculation. I think it’s appreciable, but I think it’s small, and I’m prepared to take it.”
Poor Mr. Touchett’s acuteness had passed into perplexity, and his perplexity now passed into admiration. “Well, you have gone into it!” he repeated. “But I don’t see what good you’re to get of it.”