"No"--Ralph also considered: "not in a single morning!" This exchange,
none the less, seemed really to further him, and under the aid of it
Ralph kept his stand. "But you like me so."
"_I_ like you----?" Perry rather growled it, but it was as if he
wondered.
"I mean you all do, and you will, you'll see,--especially if you find
you can assist me. It's there," Ralph explained, "that your goodnature
will be touched."
"Oh but I thought it was yours we were so much to look to. Wasn't it
you," Perry asked, "that was to come so prodigiously to _our_
assistance?"
"So I take it," Ralph irresistibly smiled; "and what else in the world
is it then that I'm so ready for?"
Perry could still mind his steps. "I don't know that you've been
striking me as quite so ready!"
"Not so ready as you expected?" It made Ralph's vision jump. "Do you
mean that you want money?"
"Indeed I do, by God!"
Ralph stared in fair elation--such an oddity of relief. "Will you have
some now?"
"'Now'----?" Something, at this, looked out of Perry's face as not
before--a happier, easier Perry, though still embarrassed and divided
and with an awkwardness of wonder that made his kinsman laugh out.
"I mean at this very moment"--and Ralph, with the happy thought, clapped
his hand to the right pocket of his trousers. It was under the same sort
of prompting with which in the earlier part of his talk there with Molly
he had appealed to another pocket for that verified possession of his
mistress's portrait which so beautifully hadn't failed him; and he
consequently beamed all his renewal of support at Perry on feeling his
fingers quite plunge into gold. Also he shone, after this fashion, he
seemed to know, without undue surprise. The guineas, or whatever they
were, literally chinked to his ear, and he saw, the next thing, that
they chinked to his companion's as well--which circumstance somehow made
them on the instant a perfect mine of wealth. "How much, how much will
you have?" he was accordingly justified in gaily asking--and that even
while it also played into his exquisite agitation that the Midmores in
general had probably ever held the rattle of one's resources in any
pocket a vulgar mode of allusion to them. He was so brightly in earnest
with his offer, and so interesting it grew and grew each instant to
himself, that he would have been willing they should take it for an
American freedom caught in the fact. So if it was one it should be a
great one, and Ralph kept this up. "You've only to say, you know!"
Perry, his head half bent with his trouble, gazed with a bovine air as
from over a fence and under his brows--while Ralph felt such surprise,
after an instant, at the degree of his difficulty, which suggested
positive physical pain, that superlative soothing seemed none too much.
His personal confidence moreover had at the first fine touch of his
fortune shot straight up, and he rose with it to an extraordinary
height. "I want you to understand, you see, that there's really no sum
you mayn't name----!" And he chinked and chinked.
Perry's breath, as it had more than once done before, came shorter and
shorter, but he still stood off. "You carry all your fortune about you?"
"Not all--only a goodish handful, but a clutch can follow a clutch." And
he so liked his clutch that he drew it forth and held it high, shaking
it in the air and laughing. "Guess what this alone comes to."
Perry glared up at the hidden treasure--the effort of Ralph's hand
completely contained it, but as our young man was about to say, "Mayn't
I count it down to you?" the wondering eyes shifted, resting at once,
Ralph saw, on another object. He heard nothing, and his back was to the
door from the hall, which Perry would have seen noiselessly opened and
with the effect of an appeal for admission. Ralph watched his face, but
waited before turning, waited as if something hung on it, and only
advised somehow by what he noted to lower his fist and restore it slowly
to his pocket. And then Perry had spoken. "If you've come up for your
share, my dear, he vows he's all ready to put it on the table, and you
can be served first if you like."
The whole passage, however, was otherwise so soundless that Ralph
listened a full minute for the answer to this remark before facing
about.