“Well,” Roy admitted shamefacedly, “we did have a bottle but we didn’t drink enough of it to make any difference. Really, Grace, it was an accident; no one could have helped it.”
“I’m not so sure of that. I understand now why you didn’t want to show yourself at home. The day I left college you promised to behave yourself and put in your best licks on your work and already you’re mixed up in a nasty scrape. It would break mother’s heart if she knew it. Mother’s crazy about you; she’d sacrifice all the rest of us for you, and you evidently don’t appreciate it at all!”
“I understand all that, sis. I told you I’d be glad to quit and let you stay on and finish. My hanging on in the law school is all a mistake.”
“Well, don’t whimper! It’s too late to weaken now. You were old enough to know what you were doing when you took up the law. It begins to look as though you simply wanted to hang on at the university to loaf and have a good time. You don’t deserve any pity for getting into a mess like this. I suppose the story’s all over the campus.”
“I don’t think so,” he answered quickly, with hope lighting his eyes. “Thornton promised to keep his mouth shut if we’d pay his bill. And Harry and the girls won’t talk.”
“I imagine not! And you’re letting me into the secret merely in the hope of getting twenty-five dollars out of me.”
“Don’t be so hard on me, Grace! I know I’m a fool and haven’t sense enough to say no when anybody asks me to do things like that. But if you’ll help me out this time I swear never to bother you again.”
“All right, Roy. I haven’t the money here but I’ll walk over to the trust company with you and get it. But be sure this doesn’t happen again. I don’t want to rub it in but it may help you to keep straight if I tell you that it’s just about all we can do to get by at home. Father is earning nothing; the family’s clean busted. Mother’s pinching and denying herself to be ready to give you a start when you leave the law school. I’m not complaining; I’m only telling you this because I don’t think you mean to make it any harder for the rest of us than you can.”
“It’s all a silly mistake,” he said dully, “this trying to make a lawyer of me. I’ve a good notion to have it out with mother now and tell her I’ve come home to stay.”
“If you do you’re the rankest kind of quitter! You could have refused to take up the law when you graduated from college, but now that you have only a few more months you’ve simply got to make good. Mother would die of humiliation if you stopped. Come along; we’ve got to step lively.”