I
When Grace reached home that evening her absence of the preceding night was barely mentioned by her mother, and Ethel did not refer to it at all. The conduct of another member of the family had aroused grave apprehensions in the domestic circle and any suspected derelictions of her own were suffered to pass, or were accepted in a spirit of resignation, as a part of a visitation of an inscrutable providence upon the house of Durland.
Roy had turned up in the early hours of the morning much the worse for dalliance with a contraband beverage that had served him ill. There was gloom in the kitchen where she found her mother and Ethel preparing supper and after satisfying herself that she was not the cause of the depression she summoned courage to ask her mother what had happened.
“I think, mother,” said Ethel loftily, “that Grace should know. It may be possible that she can help us in our trouble. Roy has always been fonder of her than of me.”
Ethel’s tone was replete with intimations that this affection was not wholly complimentary to either her brother or sister. She entered upon a circumstantial account of Roy’s misbehavior which omitted nothing that could enhance its heinousness, Mrs. Durland interrupting occasionally to soften the harsh terms in which Ethel described Roy’s appearance on the snowy threshold at two o’clock, in the care of two young friends in little better condition than himself. It had been necessary to summon a doctor to relieve Roy’s stomach of the poison he had consumed.
“I’m sure it’s the first and last time for Roy,” said Mrs. Durland. “He’s terribly cut up over it; but of course at the holiday season, and meeting old friends and all, I suppose we must make allowances.”
“That’s the way to look at it, mother,” said Grace, sincerely grieved for her mother and anxious to restore her confidence in Roy. “I know Roy wouldn’t do anything to trouble you. We ought to be glad that stuff didn’t kill him! Roy isn’t the only boy who thinks it smart to drink now that it’s forbidden. I hear a lot about that, down town.”
“I suppose you do,” said Mrs. Durland, catching hopefully at the suggestion that her boy was not the only wanderer in the path that leads to destruction.
“Roy knows our hopes are centered in him; there’s not the slightest excuse for his conduct!” Ethel resumed, unwilling that Roy’s sin should be covered up in charitable generalizations. “Instead of running around with a lot of dissolute young men he ought to be making friends who can help him get a start in life. As for prohibition, it’s the law of the land and you’d think a young man who’s studying law would respect it. Only the other day Osgood gave me an article with statistics showing what’s being done to enforce the law and it will only be a short time until the rum power is completely vanquished.”
“It’s dying mighty hard,” remarked Grace cheerfully. “Anybody can get whiskey who has the price.”
“One would think—” began Ethel, moved at once to give battle.
“Oh, I’m not hankering for it myself,” Grace interrupted. “But they ought to enforce the law or repeal it. I’m only saying what everybody knows.”
“Well, of course, Grace, we don’t know just who your friends are,” Ethel retorted.
“Oh, they probably wouldn’t amuse you even if you knew them!” Grace flung back.
Whereupon Mrs. Durland, who was arranging a tray with coffee and toast to carry up to Roy, announced that enough had been said on the subject.