Tom came in as Blackman went out, and something in the manner of the latter gave him a feeling that he had been the subject of conversation between the lawyer and his uncle. He went directly to his room, and debated within himself whether or not he should go down and interrupt by a frank and full confession the discussion which he thought was probably taking place between Mr. and Mrs. Grayson. But knowing his uncle's power of passive resistance, he debated long—so long that it came to be too late, and he went to bed, resolved to have the first of it with his uncle in the morning.
There was a very serious conference between the two members of the Grayson firm that evening. Mrs. Grayson again presented to her husband the consideration that, if Tom should go away, she didn't see what she was to do with Janet. The child would cry her eyes out, and there'd be no managing her. Grayson sat for some time helpless before this argument.
"I don't see," he said at length, "but we've got to face Janet. We might as well teach her to mind first as last." It was a favorite theory with both of them that some day Janet was to be taught to mind. So long as no attempt was made to fix the day on which the experiment was to begin, the thought pleased them and did no harm. But this proposition to undertake the dreadful task at once was a spurt of courage in Thomas Grayson that surprised his wife.
"Well, Mr. Grayson," she said, with some spirit, "the child's as much yours as she's mine; and if she's to be taught to mind to-morrow, I only hope you'll stay at home and begin."
To this suggestion the husband made no reply. He got up and began to look under the furniture for the boot-jack, according to his custom of pulling off his boots in the sitting-room every night before going to bed.
"You see, Charlotte," he said deprecatingly, when he had fished his boot-jack out from under the bureau, "I don't know what to do. If I keep Tom, Lockwood'll have him before the squire, and I'll have to pay costs and go bail for him."
"I wouldn't do it," said Mrs. Grayson promptly. "We can't afford to have the little we've got put in danger for him. I think you'll have to send him home, and we'll have to get on with Janet. I'm sure we haven't any money to waste. People think we're rich, but we don't feel rich. We're always stinted when we want anything."
The consideration of the risk of the bail settled the matter with both of them. But, like other respectable people, they settled such questions in duplicate. There are two sets of reasons for any course: the one is the real and decisive motive at the bottom; the other is the pretended reason you impose on yourself and fail to impose on your neighbors. The minister accepts the call to a new church with a larger salary; he tells himself that it is on account of opportunities for increased usefulness that he changes. The politician accepts the office he didn't want out of deference to the wishes of importunate friends. A widower marries for the good of his children. These are not hypocrites imposing on their neighbors; that is a hard thing to do, unless the neighbors really wished to be humbugged in the interest of a theory. But we keep complacency whole by little impostures devised for our private benefit. It is pleasant to believe that we are acting from Sunday motives, but we always keep good substantial week-day reasons for actual service. These will bear hard usage without becoming shiny or threadbare, and they are warranted not to lose their colors in the sunshine.
"I'm sure," said Grayson, "Tom gets no good here. If anything will do him any good, it will be sending him to the country to shift for himself. It'll make a man of him, maybe." No better Sunday reason for his action could have been found.
"I think it's your duty to send him home," said his wife, who was more frightened the more she thought of the possible jeopardy of a few hundred dollars from the necessity her husband would be under of going Tom's bail. "A boy like Tom is a great deal better off with his mother," she went on; "and I'm sure we've tried to do what we could for him, and nobody can blame us if he will throw away his chance."