“And,” I continued, regardless of his remark, “I mean that you shall run away with me.”
“I’ll do nothing of the sort,” he replied. “But come, Bob, my boy, you’re joking. Surely this is not the object for which you called me out of my room.”
“Indeed it is. Listen to me, Jack.” (I looked at him impressively. He returned the look, for Jack was earnest as well as gay.) “You know that my dear father positively refused to let me go abroad, although I have entreated him to do so again and again. Now I think that’s hard, you know. I love my dear father very much, but—”
“You love yourself better. Is that it?”
“Well, put it so if you choose. I don’t care. I’m going to run away, and if you won’t go with me you can stay at home—that’s all.”
“Come, come, Bob, don’t be cross,” said Jack, kindly; “you know you don’t mean it.”
“But I do; and I’m sure I don’t see what it is that prevents you from going too,” said I, testily.
“H’m! well, there is a small matter, a sort of moral idea, so to speak, that prevents.”
“And what is that?”
“Respect for my mother! Bob, my boy, I’ve been too deeply imbued with that in my babyhood to shake it off now, even if I wished to do so; but I don’t, Bob, I don’t. I’m proud of my mother, and, moreover, I remember her teachings. There’s one little verse I used to repeat to her every Sunday night, along with the rest of the ten commandments, ‘Honour thy father and thy mother,’ etcetera. It seems to me that running away is rather flying in the face of that. Doesn’t it strike you in that light, Bob?”