“I want to speak to you about my Walter, Arthur. A mother, alas! cannot know her son as his friend knows him; and you, I believe, are Walter's truest friend”----
“One moment, Lady Lisgard,” interrupted the young man gravely; “everybody is Walter's friend, but some are his flatterers. I must tell you at once that he is displeased with me at present because I am not one of those.”
“Yes; you have warned him of some danger, and he is piqued because he thinks that is treating him as a child.”
“Since you know that, _ma mère_, you know all that is necessary to be said. Go on.”
“What is the bond, Arthur, that links my Walter to this person Derrick? I pray you, do not hesitate to tell me. There is more depends upon your answer than you can possibly guess.”
“Really, Lady Lisgard,” returned the young man hesitatingly, “you ask a difficult thing, and, in truth, a delicate. There are some things, as you say, which a son does not tell his mother, and far less wishes to have told to her by another. Women and men take such different views of the same matter. If men are vicious--which I do not deny--in their love of horse-racing, for instance, women reprobate it in an exaggerated way.”
“Horse-racing!” murmured Lady Lisgard, clasping her hands. “Does my Walter bet? Is he a gambler?”
“I did not say that,” answered the young man with irritation. “If you insist upon making me a tale-bearer, Lady Lisgard, do not at least heighten the colour of my scandals.”
“I beg your pardon, Arthur; I was wrong. Perhaps this eagerness to suspect the worst is the cause of that distrust which the young entertain of the old. And yet _he_ might have told me all, and been sure of forgiveness.”
“Doubtless, _ma mère_; but then we don't tell our mothers all. Now, pray, be reasonable, and assure yourself that Walter is no worse than other young men, because he makes up a book upon the Derby.”
“_You_ do not do so, Arthur. Why should Walter?”
“_I_ do not, _ma mère_, because my taste does not lie in that direction. My vices--and I have plenty--are of another sort. I unsettle my mind with heterodox publications. I entertain opinions which are subversive of the principles of good government as believed in by your Ladyship's family. You know in what sort of faith I have been brought up. Moreover, I live in town among a slow, hard-working set, who have neither time nor inclination for going to race-courses; and, indeed, I am now getting a little practice at the bar myself. If I were a handsome young swell in a regiment of Light Dragoons, then, instead of publishing that amusing work upon the _Law of Entail_, which, with a totally inexcusable pang, I saw lying upon your library-table to-day _uncut_, I should without doubt be making a betting-book. Having no call towards that sort of employment, however, I am very severe upon it. I term it waste of time, loss of money, &c.; and in the case of your son, I have even been so foolish as to remonstrate with him on that very account--an interference which, I fear, has cost me his friendship.”