Robert Ferguson listened, frowning. "You'll give him money to spend in ways you don't approve of?"
She nodded sullenly. "I have to."
"You don't have to!" he broke out; "for God's sake, Mrs. Maitland, stop!"
"What do you mean, sir?"
"I mean . . . this isn't my business, but I can't see you—Mrs.
Maitland, if I get to talking on this subject, we'll quarrel."
The glare of anger in her face died out. She leaned back in her chair and looked at him. "I won't quarrel with you. Go on. Say what you think. I won't say I'll take your advice, but I'll listen to it."
"It's what I have always told you. You are squeezing the life out of Blair by giving him money. You've always done it, because it was the easy thing to do. Let up on him! Give him a chance. Let him earn his money, or go without. Talk about making him independent—you've made him as dependent as a baby! I don't know my Bible as well as you do, but there is a verse somewhere—something about 'fullness of bread and abundance of idleness.' That's what's the trouble with Blair. 'Fullness of bread and abundance of idleness.'"
"But he's been at college; he couldn't work while he was at college," she said, with honest bewilderment.
"Of course he couldn't. But why did you let him dawdle round at college, pretending to special, for a year after he graduated? Of course he won't work so long as he doesn't have to. The boy wouldn't be human if he did! You never made him feel he had to get through and to go to work. You've given him everything he wanted, and you've exacted nothing in return; not scholarship, nor even decent behavior. He's gambled, and gone after women, and bought everything on earth he wanted—the only thing he knows how to do is to spend money! He has never done a hand's turn of work in his life. He is just as much a dead beat as any beggar who gets his living out of other people's pockets. That he gets it out of your pocket doesn't alter that; that he doesn't wear rags and knock at back doors doesn't alter it. He's a dead beat! Any man is, who takes and doesn't give anything in return. It's queer you can't see that, Mrs. Maitland."
She was silent.