“I suppose,” said Archie, “it’s the natural thing, because a man is a little behind in his company manners, and all that, and can’t ride, or shoot, or dance, or anything as well as you; that you should make sure he is a cad all round, as you say.”
“What do you mean?” cried Eddy, with his sharp eyes doing all he knew to read a face, to him altogether inscrutable in the simplicity of its single-mindedness.
“So long as you don’t ask me to discuss what you mean,” said Archie, with a careless disdain which stung the other: for, indeed, the lad was desperate in the feeling of being unable to get himself understood, whether from one side or another. “I’ve been thinking,” he said, “the best way of getting that money without compromising—any person. It’s a transaction between ourselves that nobody has anything to do with. My father might ask to see my bank book. I am perhaps doing him the same injustice that I think you are doing me; but he might, for my own good, if he thought I was spending too much. Now, I don’t want him to poke into this, and find perhaps your name, or—— Therefore I was thinking, suppose we go up to Glasgow, you and me? There’s these things that you want for the ball—that would be a very good excuse. And then I can draw out the money myself, in notes or gold, or whatever you please, which will leave no record on the books, so that I will be in it alone if there should be any remarks, and not you. Do you see? Here’s the cheque for the other fifty pounds. You can have it that way if you like, of course; but I can’t help thinking it would be better my way.”
“Rowland,” said Eddy, giving him one glance, then withdrawing his eyes quickly, as from an inspection he could not bear; “do you do all this for my sake?”
“I don’t know that it’s for any one’s sake. It’s just the easiest way—not to compromise any one. If I’m asked for an explanation, I can give it in my own way—about myself. But if I am asked for an explanation about you, I neither could give it, nor would I: you see the difference. It’s just a plain business view.”
“It is not a common kind of business,” said Eddy; “it’s the first time I ever heard that sort of thing called business. You’re a queer fellow, Rowland; but I think you must be about the best fellow I ever knew.”
“Nothing of the sort,” said Archie. “I have something I don’t want, and you want something you haven’t got. We niffer, that’s all. Oh, I suppose you don’t understand that word, it’s Scotch. We exchange, that’s what it means.”
“And what do I give in exchange?” said Eddy. The question was asked rather of himself than of Archie, who made no reply, except a little shame-faced laugh. Young Saumarez reflected a little, with working eyebrows and twitching mouth. He said at last, “I’ll take you at your word, Rowland; this will make it a debt of honour. I’ll take you at your word. A thing that’s got no evidence, that you couldn’t recover, is the only thing that presses on a man’s conscience. I’ll take you at your word.”
Archie again gave vent to a little laugh of embarrassment, and confused relief. He did not enter into the reasoning. Debts of honour, or debts of any kind, were unknown to him. It had driven him almost distracted to think how he was to pay for the two little puppies from Rankin—the doggies which he always thought of with a little bitterness, who had abandoned him and gone over to the enemy. No more than Eddy could have understood that difficulty, could Archie understand how it might be supposed he was securing himself against loss by astutely giving the character of a debt of honour to the money he was bestowing upon his fellow-creature who was in need. He said simply, “We will consider this as settled, then; and we’ll run up to Glasgow to-morrow. I can show you the place: it is not like London, perhaps; but there’s things in it you couldn’t see in London. There’s a boat about ten o’clock.”
“Oh, I say! that means getting up in the middle of the night.”