Chapter 34

The means of raising the requisite amount of money became, during the
next few weeks, the anxious theme of all Ralph's thoughts. His lawyers'
enquiries soon brought the confirmation of Clare's surmise, and it
became clear that--for reasons swathed in all the ingenuities of legal
verbiage--Undine might, in return for a substantial consideration, be
prevailed on to admit that it was for her son's advantage to remain with
his father.

The day this admission was communicated to Ralph his first impulse was
to carry the news to his cousin. His mood was one of pure exaltation; he
seemed to be hugging his boy to him as he walked. Paul and he were to
belong to each other forever: no mysterious threat of separation could
ever menace them again! He had the blissful sense of relief that the
child himself might have had on waking out of a frightened dream and
finding the jolly daylight in his room.

Clare at once renewed her entreaty to be allowed to aid in ransoming
her little cousin, but Ralph tried to put her off by explaining that he
meant to "look about."

"Look where? In the Dagonet coffers? Oh, Ralph, what's the use of
pretending? Tell me what you've got to give her." It was amazing how
his cousin suddenly dominated him. But as yet he couldn't go into the
details of the bargain. That the reckoning between himself and Undine
should be settled in dollars and cents seemed the last bitterest satire
on his dreams: he felt himself miserably diminished by the smallness of
what had filled his world.

Nevertheless, the looking about had to be done; and a day came when
he found himself once more at the door of Elmer Moffatt's office. His
thoughts had been drawn back to Moffatt by the insistence with which the
latter's name had lately been put forward by the press in connection
with a revival of the Ararat investigation. Moffatt, it appeared, had
been regarded as one of the most valuable witnesses for the State;
his return from Europe had been anxiously awaited, his unreadiness to
testify caustically criticized; then at last he had arrived, had gone on
to Washington--and had apparently had nothing to tell.

Ralph was too deep in his own troubles to waste any wonder over this
anticlimax; but the frequent appearance of Moffatt's name in the morning
papers acted as an unconscious suggestion. Besides, to whom else could
he look for help? The sum his wife demanded could be acquired only by "a
quick turn," and the fact that Ralph had once rendered the same kind of
service to Moffatt made it natural to appeal to him now. The market,
moreover, happened to be booming, and it seemed not unlikely that so
experienced a speculator might have a "good thing" up his sleeve.