“Did he say that? Did he think that of it?”
Seymour Michael's opinion still had value in her eyes.
“Yes,” the reply came slowly; “he said that we might almost look upon Jem as a dead man.”
Mother and son looked at each other and said nothing. Heredity is a strange thing, and one alternately aggrandised and slighted. Blood is a very powerful force, but the little lessons taught in childhood's years bear a wondrous crop of good or evil fruit in later days.
Left alone, Arthur Agar's natural tendency was towards good. Probably because he was timid, and goodness seems the safer course. There are many who have not the courage to forsake goodness, even for a moment. But under the influence of a stronger will—that is to say, under the influence of four out of every five persons crossing his path—Arthur was liable to be led in any direction. He would rather have sinned in company than have cultivated virtue in the solitude usually accorded to that state.
Somehow, in his mother's presence it did not seem so very wrong to keep back the truth respecting Jem and to turn it to his own ends. It did not seem either mean or cowardly to take advantage of a rival's absence and gain his object, by deception. So, perhaps, it was in the beginning, when the world was young. In those days also a mother and son helped each other in deception, and so since then have many thousands of mothers (incompetent or vicious) led their children to ruin.
“Of course,” said Mrs. Agar, “if Jem goes and does things of that description he must take the consequences.”
Arthur said nothing in reply to this. The thought had been his for some months, but he had never put it into shape.
“We are perfectly justified,” she went on, “in acting as if Jem were dead until he deigns to advise us to the contrary.”
This also was putting a long-cherished thought into form.