"Mr. Boult, if you would spare me!" she pleaded with a pitiful kind of dignity. "We owe you a great deal, I know; not one of us is ungrateful. But I beg you to be so considerate as to spare me complaints of my son."
"I don't forget you are his mother, ma'am. I don't forget it for a moment.
Otherwise—"
"What Bernard has done is the cause of the greatest grief to me—grief I do not really know how to support. I was coming to see you, Mr. Boult. Coming to ask you—to beg of you—"
He lifted his square-looking hand, clad in the new orange-coloured glove, to silence her. "Don't ask it," he said. "I know what you want me to do. Gibbon prepared me. You wish me to buy off this ungain-doing son. Not a penny of my money shall go to do it. Not a penny!"
He brought the hand down smartly upon the counter, to emphasize the words.
Mrs. Day, gazing sad-eyed at him, said nothing.
"The boy has behaved like an ill-conditioned, ignorant cub—Well! I'll spare you. We know how he's behaved. Let him pay for it. He'll get a sickener, I don't doubt. Serve him right. Serve him well right."
"But, Mr. Boult—he is my son."
"What difference does that make, my dear lady? Every ungain-doing boy is some mother's son."
"If Bernard could have one more chance!"
"He's got it. By buying him off you are trying to do away with his chance. The boy's been brought up too soft. Give him hardships; it's the best physic for him."