When it first reached her ears that her only son, of boundless hopes and dreams, was continually with the actress Lorraine Vivian, she was horrified beyond words.
Undoubtedly the story had been much magnified and embroidered, and accepted as a scandalous liaison or entanglement without any inquiry. To make matters worse, Mrs. Hermon belonged so thoroughly to the old school that she could not even distinguish between a clever celebrated actress and a chorus girl.
The stage, to her, was a synonym which included all things theatrical in one comprehensive ban of immorality and vice, with degrees, of course, but in no case without deserving censure from the eminently respectable, well-born British matron. She could not have been more upset had the heroine of the story been the under housemaid; and indeed she placed actressess and housemaids in much the same category.
Of course the friendship must be stopped, and stopped instantly. What a mercy of mercies she had discovered it so soon, and that now it might be nipped in the bud. Just at the very outset of his career, too, which had so astonishingly developed of late, and caused her such proud delight.
That that surprising development, both in the career and the beloved son, might have anything to do with this dreadful entanglement was not to be thought of for a moment; and when Alymer’s father ventured to suggest thoughtfully and a little wonderingly that the friendship had certainly not harmed the boy, she turned on him with bitterness, ending up with the dictum that men were all alike when there was a woman in the case, and could not possibly form an unbiased opinion.
After which, she went off to church to a week-day service, partly to pray for guidance in a matter in which she had already firmly decided what line to take, and partly to unburden her mind to her pet clergyman. Of course she must speak to Alymer that very evening. How fortunate that it was one of the nights he almost always came to Sevenoaks.
If only he had lived at home it would never have happened. It was all that hateful little flat where he lived with Bruce and St. Quintin. She ought never to have given way so easily. If his father had docked his allowance, in order to compel him to live at home, he would soon have got used to the daily train journey, and it would have been far better for him.
Now, of course, he was not likely to hear of it; and since he was making such good headway in his profession, it certainly did seem a pity to risk upsetting him. But no doubt a little quiet talk would convince him of the unwisdom of allowing his name to be associated with an actress just now; and once more she congratulated herself that she had heard in time.
The Rev. Hetherington listened to her story with all the sympathetic horror she could wish, and she felt buoyed up in her adamantine decision, although she still harped on the intention of praying for guidance.
The Rev. Hetherington, of morbid and woeful countenance, was one who looked across a world glorious with spring sunshine, as if he saw nothing but the earwigs, and black-beetles, and creepy, crawly things of existence, and he promised readily to pray also: and perhaps God smiled the smile He keeps for the good people who so often ask to be guided by His Will, when they have long before decided exactly what that Will shall be.