“And so home is being spoilt for you too?” said Jack.
“I see,” returned Cheriton, “that it won’t do. If Alvar is left to himself here, he will fight his way now, I think, to some means of managing proper to himself.”
“Or improper,” said Jack.
“Well, to be honest, I am afraid he will make a great many mistakes, and do a great deal of mischief. But if I were here—I mean if this place were still to be home to me so that I still felt—as I should feel—a personal concern in all the old interests, Alvar would quarrel with me. I might prevent individual evils; but in the long run I should do harm. He thought at first that I should guide him. Perhaps I thought so too; but it is a false and impossible relation, and it must be put a stop to.”
“But, Cherry, I think father looked to you to keep things straight.”
“Yes,” said Cherry, “but not to make them more crooked, by such disputes as we have had lately.”
Cheriton spoke resolutely, though with a quiver of the lip, and Jack could guess well enough at the pain the resolve was costing him. “Alvar is quite changed to you!” he said, savagely.
“Yes, because he himself is changing. He is different in many ways, and conscious of all sorts of difficulties.”
“But what do you mean to do?”
“Oh, nothing desperate, nothing till the winter is over. Probably I shall go to the sea with Alvar, as he suggests. Then if I am pretty well, I shall go and see granny. I have a notion that I should be better here in the cold weather than in London. I want to try.”