“Mother,” said Lily, “it’s like this. I can’t help forgiving him. We two must forgive him, whatever he does. We love him, you see, that’s what it is.”
“Yes, dear, yes.”
“It isn’t the poor, tipsy boy we love, but the real boy—the clever boy behind. We must forgive him. But”—her lips quivered—“I cannot marry him. Do not ask me to do that unless—what will never happen—he reforms altogether.”
“If you would, dear, I think he might keep straight. If you were always with him to watch him.”
“I could not be always with him. 445 And besides, mother, think what might happen as well. Would you have me bring into the world children whose lives would make me wretched by a drunken father? And how should we live? Because, you see, if I marry I must give up my place.”
The mother sighed. “Charley is in his own room,” she said, “I will send him to you.”
Lily sat down and buried her face in her hands. Alas! to this had her engagement come. But she loved him. When he came into the room and stood before her and she looked up, seeing him shamefaced and with hanging head, she was filled with pity as well as love—pity and shame, and sorrow for the boy. She took his hand and pressed it between her own and burst into tears. “Oh, Charley, Charley!” she cried.
“I am a brute and a wretch,” he said. “I don’t deserve anything. But don’t throw me over—don’t, Lily!”
He fell on his knees before her, crying like a little school-boy. A tendency to weep readily sometimes accompanies the consumption of strong drink.
Then he made confession, such confession as one makes who puts things as prettily as their ugliness allows. He had given way once or twice; he had never intended to get drunk; he had been overtaken yesterday. The day was close, he had a headache in the morning. To cure his headache he took a single glass of beer. When he went back to the office he felt giddy. They said he was drunk. They bundled him out on the spot without even the opportunity of explaining.