All this was the result of deliberate reflection.  In the beginning of the trouble, at the first news of his uncle’s death, his sympathy with Lucia had been free from any sordid anxiety for the future which he then conceived to be inseparably bound up with his own.  Rickman’s letter was the first intimation that anything had gone wrong.  It was a shock none the less severe because it was not altogether a surprise.  It was just like his uncle Frederick to raise money on the Harden Library.  The shock lay in Rickman’s assumption that he, Jewdwine, was prepared, instantly, at ten days’ notice, to redeem it.  It was what he would have liked to have done; what, if he had been a rich man, he infallibly would have done; what even now, with his limited resources, he might do if it were not for the risk.  Rickman had assured him that there was no risk, had implied almost that it was an opportunity, a splendid investment for his money.  He could see for himself that it was his chance of doing the beautiful thing for Lucia.  Looking back upon it all afterwards, long afterwards, he found consolation in the thought that his first, or nearly his first, impulse had been generous.

At first, too, he had not given a thought to Rickman except as the medium, the unauthorized and somewhat curious medium, of a very startling communication.  Enough that he was expected to produce at ten days’ notice a sum which might be anything you pleased over one thousand two hundred pounds.  It was not until he realized that he was seriously invited to contend with Rickman’s in a private bid for the Harden library that he began to criticize Rickman’s movement in the matter.  Everything depended on Rickman’s estimate of the risk, and Rickman was not infallible.  In denying Rickman’s infallibility he had not as yet committed himself to any harsh judgement of his friend.  His first really unpleasant reflection was that Rickman’s information was unsatisfactory, because vague; his next that Rickman was giving him precious little time for deliberation.  He was excessively annoyed with Rickman upon both these heads, but chiefly upon the latter.  He was being hurried; he might almost say that pressure was being put on him.  And why?

It was at this point he found himself drawn into that dangerous line, the attributing of motives.

He perceived in Rickman’s suggestion a readiness, an eagerness to stand back and, as it were, pass on the Harden library.  Rickman was a sharp fellow; he knew pretty well what he was about.  Jewdwine’s mind went back to the dawn of their acquaintance, and to a certain Florio Montaigne.  Rickman had got the better of him over that Florio Montaigne.  Hitherto, whenever Jewdwine had thought of that little transaction he had smiled in spite of himself; he really could not help admiring the smartness of a young man who had worsted him in a bargain.  Jewdwine was a terror to all the second-hand booksellers in London and Oxford; he would waste so much of their good time