This unique toleration would have refreshed him under any other circumstances. But at such a moment, and in such a quarter, it disconcerted him. When, with some idea of softening the judgment of Hero’s father, Alistair attempted a plea that he had sown his wild oats, he was taken aback by the answer:
“The evil is sometimes not in sowing wild oats, but in sowing tame oats among them. Mixed oatmeal is good for neither horse nor man.”
“I am not sure that I understand you,” Stuart faltered.
“I mean that it is a dangerous idea that the really diseased can become good members of society. In my experience a man who tries to change his nature often changes it for the worse. The reformed drunkard is apt to become an insane teetotaller, and the reformed rake makes the worst possible father.”
Alistair dared not pursue the subject. He had some ground for hoping that Sir Bernard’s practice might be less inexorable than his principles.
Soon after their meeting, the Duchess, overcoming her dread of the scientist for Alistair’s sake, ventured to ask him what he thought of her boy. Vanbrugh, with his habitual bluntness, had terrified her by responding:
“I think he drinks too much. You ought to try to stop him.”
The poor mother had already noticed, and tried to shut her eyes to, this weakness of Alistair’s, new in her experience of him. It was due, she told herself, to the influence of Molly Finucane, and would pass away now that he had escaped from that evil atmosphere.
Something of this she tried to plead to Sir Bernard.
“He never used to take too much,” she said. “But he is easily influenced by his companions. He needs someone to watch over and strengthen him.”