“I have, this morning,” said Mrs Glaire, and then, her voice trembling, and the judgelike tone giving way to one of appeal, she threw herself at the young man’s knees, clasping them with her arms, and then catching at and holding his hand. “Dick, my boy—my darling—I was obliged to speak—I am obliged to speak to you. You know how, since you became of age, I have delivered everything into your hands—how I have kept back from interfering—how I have been proud to see the boy I brought into the world rich and powerful. You know I have never stood in the way, though you have poured out like water on your betting and gambling the money your father and I saved by dint of scraping and saving.”
“Oh, that’s it, is it?” said Richard, with a sneer.
“No,” cried his mother, appealingly, “it is not, Dick, my boy; it is that I wish to make you see your danger before it is too late. You mad, infatuated boy, can you not see that by what you have done you have set all your workmen against you? You see how you are treated to-day!”
“Oh yes,” said Richard; “and I’ve got the marks upon me.”
“Who stood by you, faithfully and true, as he has always stood by our house in similar times of danger—danger not brought on by folly?—Banks, your father’s old fellow-workman—a man as true as steel.”
“Oh yes, Joe Banks is right enough,” muttered Richard.
“And yet you, Dick—oh, Dick, Dick, my boy, think what you are doing—you would reward him for his long services by doing him the greatest injury man could do to man. Are you mad?”
“If I’m not, you’ll drive me mad,” cried Richard, trying to shake off his mother’s tight embrace.
“No, no, Dick, you shall not leave me yet,” cried Mrs Glaire, in impassioned tones, as the tears now streamed down her cheeks. “You must—you shall listen to me. Can you not see that besides maddening the poor man by the cruel wrong you would do, you will make him your deadly enemy; that the works would be almost helpless without him; and that he is the strong link that holds the workpeople to our side? For they respect him, and—”
“Go on. They don’t respect me, you were going to say,” said Richard, petulantly. “Oh, mother, it’s too bad. You’ve got hold of some cock-and-bull bit of scandal, set about by one of the chattering fools of the place—old Bullivant, very likely—and you believe it.”