Page:The Ivory Tower (London, W. Collins Sons & Co., 1917).djvu/300

THE IVORY TOWER of; therefore if the mass of money of the acquisition of which such a picture can be made is not pretty big, the force of the picture falls a good deal to the ground. The difficulty in that event, in view of the bigness, is that the conception of any act on Horton's part that amounts to a swindle practised on Gray to such a tremendous tune is neither a desirable nor a possible one. As one presses and presses light breaks—there are so many ways in which one begins little by little to wonder if one may not turn it about. There is the way in the first place of lowering the pitch altogether of the quantities concerned for either men. I see that from the moment ill-gotten money is concerned the essence of my subject stands firm whatever the amount of the same—whatever the amounts in either case. I haven't proposed from the first at all to be definite, in the least, about financial details or mysteries—I need hardly say; and have even seen myself absolutely not stating or formulating at all the figure of the property accruing to Gray. I haven't the least need of that, and can make the absence of it in fact a positively good and happy effect. That is an immense gain for my freedom of conduct; and in fine there glimmers upon me, there glimmers upon me! The idea, which was vaguely my first, of the absolute theft practised upon Gray by Horty, and which Gray's large appeal to his cleverness and knowledge, and large trust in his 286