And something like this last was the father's choice.
He listened, and was long silent; and then he said slowly, "Pause before you decide."
"I have paused long; my decision is made! This is the last time we meet. I see before me now the way to fortune, fairly, honorably; you can aid me in it only in the way I have said. Reject me now, and the option may never come again to either!"
And then Roland said to himself, "I have spared and saved for this son: what care I for aught else than enough to live without debt, creep into a corner, and await the grave? And the more I can give, why, the better chance that he will abjure the vile associate and the desperate course." And so, out of his small income Roland surrendered to the rebel child more than the half.
Vivian was not aware of his father's fortune,—he did not suppose the sum of two hundred pounds a year was an allowance so disproportioned to Roland's means; yet when it was named, even he was struck by the generosity of one to whom he himself had given the right to say, "I take thee at thy word: 'Just enough not to starve!'"
But then that hateful cynicism, which, caught from bad men and evil books, he called "knowledge of the world," made him think, "It is not for me, it is only for his name;" and he said aloud, "I accept these terms, sir; here is the address of a solicitor with whom yours can settle them. Farewell forever."
At those last words Roland started, and stretched out his arms vaguely like a blind man. But Vivian had already thrown open the window (the room was on the ground floor) and sprung upon the sill. "Farewell," he repeated; "tell the world I am dead."
He leaped into the street, and the father drew in the outstretched arms, smote his heart, and said: "Well, then, my task in the world of man is over! I will back to the old ruin,—the wreck to the wrecks; and the sight of tombs I have at least rescued from dishonor shall comfort me for all!"
CHAPTER VII.
The Results.—Perverted Ambition.—Selfish Passion.—The Intellect
Distorted by the Crookedness of the Heart.