Alice made a gesture of impatience.
"You can not," she said, "if you think more of the irritable words that a troubled mother may say to you than you do of a soul in peril; but I did not think you were of that sort."
Claire waited a moment before replying.
"I think I may be trusted to try to do what seems right, even though it were personally hard," she said at last, speaking very gently; "but, Alice, I do not understand how words of mine could do other than mischief."
"I can show you. This family, I have told you, is a continual snare to Louis. He simply can not go there without being led into great temptation, and mamma is responsible for the most of his visits. It would not be difficult for Louis to remain away, if mamma did not make errands for him. He would go abroad with the Husons next week, and be safe from this and many other temptations, or he would go to the Rocky Mountains with Harold Chessney—and he could not be in better society—if mamma would give her consent, and she would, if she could be made to realize his peril—if she knew that outsiders were talking about it. Don't you see?
"Now, who is going to enlighten her? I am not in favor—less so just at present than ever before; the girls, poor young things, do not know of our disgrace, and would have no influence with mamma if they did, and papa would like the alliance from a business point of view as well as mamma would from a romantic and fashionable one. Do you see the accumulation of troubles? and do you imagine, I wonder, what it is to me, when I have humbled myself to tell it all to you?"
"And this young lady?" said Claire, ignoring the personal questions. "Do you feel sure that there is no hope of help from that source? Is not her interest deep enough and her influence strong enough to come to the rescue if she fully understood?"
There was again that gesture of extreme impatience.
"That young lady! She has no more character than a painted doll! Claire Benedict, she is in as great danger to-day as Louis is, and from the same source! She dances every night, and buoys up her flagging strength by stimulants every day. I have seen her repeatedly when she was so excited with wine that I knew she did not know what she was saying."