“Oh, papa!” Lucy could not keep silence any longer. It was not the habit of the house to allow papa to have everything his own way. When Arthur’s youthful peccadilloes had been discussed hitherto, Lady Curtis, however she might object to his conduct, had always been his champion with his father, and one of the greatest marvels and most confusing circumstances of all was this silence on her part, and surrender as it were of Arthur to be crushed as Sir John pleased. Lucy could not be still and hear it all. “Oh, papa!” she cried, “you speak as if poor Arthur thought of nothing but his own interest; was he so selfish? you know that he never thought of what was for his interest at all. Cannot you believe that he loved her, and that this was his motive?”
“My dear,” said Sir John, “I was not speaking to you. You stand up for one another as is natural. But see, even your mother has not a word to say.”
This roused Lady Curtis from her depression. “I disapprove of it all as much as you can do, John; I am as unhappy; but still I do not think there was any calculation in Arthur’s mind; how should there have been? It was the height of foolishness and wicked hastiness, but he knew he could get nothing by it--he knew it was ruin, as you say.”
“Why did he do it then?” cried Sir John with outspread hands, appealing to heaven and earth, his eyebrows raised, shaking his head and looking about as if for an answer. Perhaps he felt his son’s defection the most of all of them, although when all was well with Arthur he was not one of the fathers who cultivate their sons unduly, but on the contrary was often impatient of Lady Curtis’s interest in anything connected with the boy, and her anxiety about him. “What could happen to him?” Sir John was in the habit of saying, when, as sometimes happened, there would be a commotion in the house because Arthur did not write often enough. “Depend upon it he is all right.” This had been his mood before; but now he seemed to miss Arthur wherever he turned. A thousand questions seemed to arise on which he would have liked to consult him; he wanted him to shoot a too-well preserved preserve, he wanted him to say what he thought about those new cottages which had to be built. Sir John did not see the need of new cottages; _he_ did not want a new house, he was contented with his old one; and why should not other people be content? but in case the cottages should be forced upon him he should have liked to know what Arthur thought. Now that he was gone, there seemed to arise some special reason for appealing to him almost every day. It was as if he had died.