"
"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."
Ralph leaned over his father's pillows and gently smoothed them;
he was aware their talk had been unduly prolonged. "I shall get just
the good I said a few moments ago I wished to put into Isabel's reach-
that of having met the requirements of my imagination. But it's
scandalous, the way I've taken advantage of you!"
CHAPTER 19
As Mrs.
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