“No, I don’t mean that. I mean—people in the world: he is so much better out of the world, and seeing nobody he ever knew before.”
“Among the natives,” said Archie with a laugh.
Rosamond did not contradict him or look as if he had made any mistake. She said with a sigh, “Eddy wants a great deal of looking after. I wish I could find some one to pay a little attention to him. He will be good for a few days, and then he will go all wrong, as if he had never pulled up before.” She sighed, and added, “keep him safe for me to-day. Don’t let him go and roam about spending money.”
“I will do my best.”
“Are you a man that spends money yourself, Mr. Rowland. People don’t do that in Scotland, do they? They are different.”
“They cannot do that,” said Archie, with a laugh, “when they have nothing in their pockets to spend.”
“I beg your pardon. I thought you had quantities of money,” Rosamond said.
CHAPTER XXX.
There was not very much conversation between the two young men as they went to Glasgow. Eddy, indeed, would talk for a few minutes from time to time in his usual way, but presently would fall into silence, from which he roused up feverishly with suppressed excitement in his eyes, to rattle on once more for a brief time, asking hasty and often absurd questions, and making fun of the answers which Archie in puzzled seriousness made. Humour had not much share in Archie’s constitution. He had been light-hearted enough in his earlier development, and joked like the rest in the rather noisy fun of the class to which he belonged; but his father’s return, and the revolution that had taken place in his existence, had taken all the fun out of Archie, and made life very serious to him. Eddy’s “chaff,” the light art of turning everything into ridicule, which, when there is no sympathetic ear to hear, falls so flat and sounds so dreary, perplexed his grave companion. Archie concluded charitably and not untruly that it was excitement that produced this varying behaviour, the dead silence and the chatter of speech. He believed that Eddy’s troubles about money and the relief he was himself about to bring to them were the cause. He himself thought that a hundred and fifty pounds was an immense sum, and that there was scarcely any embarrassment possible to a youth of his own age which could not be amply covered by that. Archie had known “fellows in debt” often enough, but a ten-pound note, or twenty at the outside, would have made their hearts dance. And he thought with a sense that he himself was acting the part of providence, that a complete and perfect deliverance must result in this case. He said to himself, that when Eddy had actually the money in his hands—which he intended to draw out himself and hand over in notes to his companion—his mind would be more calm.
The transaction at the bank was managed quite satisfactorily. Archie would not even permit Eddy to accompany him inside, but left him gazing vacantly into the shop-windows while he accomplished his business. Very little passed between them when it was completed. Archie thrust the little packet of notes into Eddy’s hand. “They’re small one’s,” he said, “I thought that was best.” And Eddy grasped Archie’s hand and gave him a look in which gratitude was blended with what Archie imagined to be joy—in his salvation so to speak: but which was in reality a delightful consciousness of the possession of money, and of the great joke involved in his benefactor’s conviction that he was doing a great thing. Eddy did not think so much of the hundred and fifty pounds. He concluded that it was the merest trifle to the millionaire’s son, who, of course, had only got to ask his father for more if he wanted it. Eddy put it into his pocket carelessly, though with much pleasure. It did not mean the payment of debt, which to him was but a mediocre satisfaction; it meant various things much more agreeable—the spending of money, which is an inexhaustible pleasure so long as the wherewithal lasts.