“I think, mother,” said Ethel loftily, “that Grace should know. It may be possible that she can help us in our trouble. Roy has always been fonder of her than of me.”
Ethel’s tone was replete with intimations that this affection was not wholly complimentary to either her brother or sister. She entered upon a circumstantial account of Roy’s misbehavior which omitted nothing that could enhance its heinousness, Mrs. Durland interrupting occasionally to soften the harsh terms in which Ethel described Roy’s appearance on the snowy threshold at two o’clock, in the care of two young friends in little better condition than himself. It had been necessary to summon a doctor to relieve Roy’s stomach of the poison he had consumed.
“I’m sure it’s the first and last time for Roy,” said Mrs. Durland. “He’s terribly cut up over it; but of course at the holiday season, and meeting old friends and all, I suppose we must make allowances.”
“That’s the way to look at it, mother,” said Grace, sincerely grieved for her mother and anxious to restore her confidence in Roy. “I know Roy wouldn’t do anything to trouble you. We ought to be glad that stuff didn’t kill him! Roy isn’t the only boy who thinks it smart to drink now that it’s forbidden. I hear a lot about that, down town.”
“I suppose you do,” said Mrs. Durland, catching hopefully at the suggestion that her boy was not the only wanderer in the path that leads to destruction.
“Roy knows our hopes are centered in him; there’s not the slightest excuse for his conduct!” Ethel resumed, unwilling that Roy’s sin should be covered up in charitable generalizations. “Instead of running around with a lot of dissolute young men he ought to be making friends who can help him get a start in life. As for prohibition, it’s the law of the land and you’d think a young man who’s studying law would respect it. Only the other day Osgood gave me an article with statistics showing what’s being done to enforce the law and it will only be a short time until the rum power is completely vanquished.”
“It’s dying mighty hard,” remarked Grace cheerfully. “Anybody can get whiskey who has the price.”
“One would think—” began Ethel, moved at once to give battle.
“Oh, I’m not hankering for it myself,” Grace interrupted. “But they ought to enforce the law or repeal it. I’m only saying what everybody knows.”
“Well, of course, Grace, we don’t know just who your friends are,” Ethel retorted.