“I don’t know,” Mrs. Colston broke in. “Considered all round, it’s an excellent rule that if you won’t do what everybody in your station does, you must take the consequences.”
Colston nodded.
“I agree. One must think of the results to society as a whole.”
“Cyril Jernyngham seems to have taken the consequences,” Muriel pointed out. “Isn’t there something to be said for the person who does so uncomplainingly? I understand he never recanted or asked for help.”
Mrs. Colston shot a quick glance at her. She did not wish her sister’s sympathy to be enlisted on the black sheep’s behalf.
“I believe that’s true,” she replied. “Perhaps it’s hardly to his credit. His father is an old man who had expected great things of him. If he had come home, he would have been forgiven and reinstated.”
“Yes,” said Colston, “though Jernyngham seldom shows his feelings, I know he has grieved over his son. There can be no question that Cyril should have returned; I’ve told him so in my letters.”
“I suppose they’d have insisted on a full and abject surrender?”
“Not an abject one,” answered Colston. “He would have been expected to fall in with the family ideas and plans.”
“And he wouldn’t?” suggested Muriel with a mischievous smile. “I think he was right.” Reading disapproval in her sister’s expression, she continued: “You dear virtuous people are a little narrow in your ideas; you can’t understand that there’s room for the greatest difference of opinion even in a harmonious family, and that it’s very silly to drive the nonconformer into rebellion. Variety’s a law of nature and tends to life.”