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Come here and sit down, Arthur."
Arthur slowly crossed the room and sat down on
the bed. "Yes?" he said wearily.
Mr. Burton coughed, cleared his throat,
smoothed his already immaculate beard, and began
the carefully prepared speech over again:
"I feel it to be my duty--my painful duty--to
speak very seriously to you about your extraordinary
behaviour in connecting yourself with--a--
law-breakers and incendiaries and--a--persons of
disreputable character. I believe you to have been,
perhaps, more foolish than depraved--a----"
He paused.
"Yes?" Arthur said again.
"Now, I do not wish to be hard on you," James
went on, softening a little in spite of himself
before the weary hopelessness of Arthur's manner.
"I am quite willing to believe that you have been
led away by bad companions, and to take into
account your youth and inexperience and the--a--
a--imprudent and--a--impulsive character which
you have, I fear, inherited from your mother."
Arthur's eyes wandered slowly to his mother's
portrait and back again, but he did not speak.


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