"What is so wrong with Mr. Siward?" she asked.
"Nothing. There was an affair--"
"This spring in town. I know it. Is that all?"
"Yes--for the present," replied Grace Ferrall uncomfortably; then: "For goodness' sake, Sylvia, don't cross examine me that way! I care a great deal for that boy--"
"So do I. I've made him take my dog."
There was an abrupt pause, and presently Mrs. Ferrall began to laugh.
"I mean it--really," said Sylvia quietly; "I like him immensely."
"Dearest, you mean it generously--with your usual exaggeration. You have heard that he has been foolish, and because he's so young, so likable, every instinct, every impulse in you is aroused to--to be nice to him--"
"And if that were--"
"There is no harm, dear--" Mrs. Ferrall hesitated, her grey eyes softening to a graver revery. Then looking up: "It's rather pathetic," she said in a low voice. "Kemp thinks he's foredoomed--like all the Siwards. It's an hereditary failing with him,--no, it's hereditary damnation. Siward after Siward, generation after generation you know--" She bit her lip, thinking a moment. "His grandfather was a friend of my grand-parents, brilliant, handsome, generous, and--doomed! His own father was found dying in a dreadful resort in London where he had wandered when stupefied--a Siward! Think of it! So you see what that outbreak of Stephen's means to those whose families have been New Yorkers since New York was. It is ominous, it is more than ominous--it means that the master-vice has seized on one more Siward. But I shall never, never admit it to his mother."
The younger girl sat wide-eyed, silent; the elder's gaze was upon her, but her thoughts, remote, centred on the hapless mother of such a son.
"Such indulgence was once fashionable; moderation is the present fashion. Perhaps he will fall into line," said Mrs. Ferrall thoughtfully. "The main thing is to keep him among people, not to drop him. The gregarious may be shamed, but if anything, any incident, happens to drive him outside by himself, if he should become solitary, there's not a chance in the world for him. … It's a pity. I know he meant to make himself the exception to the rule--and look! Already one carouse of his has landed him in the daily papers!"
Sylvia flushed and looked up: "Grace, may I ask you a plain question?"
"Yes, child," she answered absently.
"Has it occurred to you that what you have said about this boy touches me very closely?"
Mrs. Ferrall's wits returned nimbly from woolgathering, and she shot a startled, inquiring glance at the girl beside her.
"You--you mean the matter of heredity, Sylvia?"