“Sylvia,” put in the Major, gravely, before Celeste could speak, “you must not say things like that. It is not because Frank Shirley is poor that we are objecting. The pride of the Castlemans is not simply a pride of worldly power.”
“She degrades us and degrades herself when she implies it!” exclaimed Aunt Nannie.
“It is a high and great pride,” continued the Major. “The pride of a race of men and women who have scorned ignoble conduct and held themselves above all dishonor. That is no weak or shallow thing, Sylvia. It is a thing which sustains and upholds us at every moment of our lives: that we are living, not merely for our individual selves, but for all the generations that are to be. It may seem a cruel thing that the sins of the fathers should be visited upon the children, but it is a law of God. It was something that Bob Shirley himself said to me, with tears in his eyes—that his children and his children’s children would have to pay for what had been done.”
“But, Papa!” cried Sylvia. “They don’t have to pay it, except that we make them pay it!”
“You are mistaken, my child,” said the Major, quietly. “It’s not we alone. It was the whole of society that condemned him. We cannot possibly wipe out the blot on the Shirley escutcheon.”
“We can only drag ourselves down with them!” exclaimed Aunt Nannie.
“Why, it’s just as if we said that going to prison was nothing!” cried Celeste.
“You must remember how many people there are looking up to us, Sylvia,” put in Uncle Mandeville, solemnly.
There they were, all in chorus; Sylvia gazed in anguish from one to another. She gazed at her mother, just at the moment that that good lady was preparing to express her opinion. For the particular thing which held the imagination of “Miss Margaret” in thrall was this vision of the Castlemans living their life as it were upon a stage, with the lower orders in the pit looking on, imbibing instruction and inspiration from the action of the lofty drama.
Sylvia had heard it all before, and she could not bear to listen to it now. The tears, which had long been in her eyes, suddenly began to roll down her cheeks; she sprang up, exclaiming passionately, “You are all against me! Everyone of you!”