A Knight of the Nineteenth Century

"I should think my heart was sufficiently crushed and broken already," Mrs. Haldane sobbed, "without your adding to its burden by charging me with being an unnatural mother. I cannot understand how a boy brought up as religiously as you have been can show such strange depravity. The idea that a child of mine could do anything which would bring him to such a place as this!"

His mother's words and manner seemed to exasperate her son beyond endurance, and he exclaimed passionately: "Well, curse it all! I am here. What's the use of harping on that any longer? Can't you listen when I say I want to retrieve myself? As to my religious bringing up, it never did me a particle of good. If you had whipped my infernal nonsense out of me, and made me mind when I was little--There, there, mother," he concluded more considerately, as she began to grow hysterical under his words, "do, for God's sake, be more composed! We can't help what has happened now. I'll either change the world's opinion of me, or else get out of it."

"How can I be composed when you talk in so dreadful a manner? You can't change the world's opinion. It never forgives and never forgets. It's the same as if you had said, I'll either do what is impossible or throw away my life!"

"My dear Mrs. Haldane," said Mrs. Arnot, gently but firmly, "your just and natural grief is such that you cannot now judge correctly and wisely concerning this matter. The emergency is so unexpected and so grave that neither you nor your son should form opinions or make resolves until there has been time for calmer thought. Let me take you home with me now, and as soon as Egbert is released he can join you there."

"No, Mrs. Arnot," said Haldane decidedly; "I shall never enter your parlor again until I can enter it as a gentleman--as one whom your other guests, should I meet them, would recognize as a gentleman. Your kindness is as great as it is unexpected, but I shall take no mean advantage of it."

"Well, then," said Mrs. Arnot with a sigh, "nothing can be gained by prolonging this painful interview. We are detaining Mr. Melville, and delaying Egbert's release. Come, Mrs. Haldane; I can take you to the private entrance of a quiet hotel, where you can be entirely secluded until you are ready to return home. Egbert can come there as soon as the needful legal forms are complied with."

"No," said the young man with his former decision, "mother and I must take leave of each other here. Mother wants no jail-birds calling on her at the hotel. When I have regained my social footing--when she is ready to take my arm and walk up Main street of this city--then she shall see me as often as she wishes. It was my own cursed folly that brought me to the gutter, and if mother will pay the price of my freedom, I will alone and unaided make my way back among the highest and proudest."