"Haven't we agreed to call him original?" said Mary. "Don't let's bother about the hereditary side of his misbehavior. You and I between us must be responsible for him, and we ought to shoulder our responsibility. I really am worried about his future."
They were sitting in the garden of High Corner on a fine afternoon at the end of September, and surely never had the phloxes been finer than they were this Autumn. If Richard admired them last year, what would he have said if he could have seen them now?
Muriel had already gone back to school, so that Geoffrey, as the only child at home, became for the time the chief object of his parents' solicitude.
"You've always taken his part when I've tried to be severe with him," the father pointed out.
"Yes, I know I have, and I think rather foolishly. But I suppose it's natural for a mother. It's what remains of the instinct to defend one's young. I wish he were a little boy again. I believe I should bring him up quite differently, if I had another chance."
Jemmie shook his head.
"Ah, if," he murmured sapiently. "If if's were horses, old lady, beggars might ride."
"Yes, and I think I've been rather foolish," Mary continued, "in keeping from you certain things about Geoffrey. You know, three times already since he went to Oxford I've lent him comparatively large sums for him to pay his debts. Gambling debts, I'm afraid."
"Gambling debts?" Jemmie echoed. "You don't mean to tell me that the young fool has been gambling? Gambling debts at nineteen? Why, the notion is ridiculous. Think of me. There was I, my own master from the time I left school. But I never had any gambling debts. I never had any debts at all. Why, when I was not much older than Geoffrey, my poor old father died and I was left in sole charge of the business. Suppose I had had gambling debts? A pretty stockbroker I should have made."
"There's no need for you to imagine that I'm trying to defend Geoffrey for running into debt," Mary observed.