They had lingered over the breakfast table that morning, discussing certain questions that had been discussed before.
"Mamma," the boy had said as he served her to fruit, "how came you to have pronounced ideas about all sorts of things? Were you always so?"
"What a definite question for a lawyer to ask!" for Erskine had already announced his intention of being a lawyer like his father and grandfather.
"What 'things' are supposed to be under consideration?"
"I was thinking aloud then," he said. "It often seems to me as though you and I knew each other's thoughts. But just now I am thinking of one of our argumentative subjects. In spite of the horror in which you have brought me up of those bits of pasteboard called cards, I find that I cannot feel precisely as you would like to have me, concerning them. I used to. As a child nobody could be fiercer than I in their denunciation; but I find that that was merely a reflex influence, and not judgment. In spite of me nowadays they look meek and harmless; and I was wondering how you and they came to be in such fierce antagonism. Was my father of that mind?"
He gave her a half-quizzical, wholly loving smile as he said gayly:--
"That of course is not the word to apply to the most charming of women, but you know, dearest, that you are very much in earnest about all such matters. Were you brought up in that way?"
"No, when I was of your age, and younger, we played cards at home; and I went to card-parties in our set very often. It was your Aunt Flossy who set a number of us to thinking and studying and praying about such matters."
Erskine shook his head with pretended gravity.
"I might have known it, mamma. Aunt Flossy isn't like people; in fact she always seems to me a trifle out of place on earth."
"I thought you were very fond indeed of your Aunt Flossy."
"So I am; and I think I should be very fond of an angel from heaven; but you see, when a fellow has to live on the earth, it is a trifle more convenient to be like the other earth worms. All of which was suggested by the fact that the Mitchells are to give a card-party next week. Very select, you understand, only the choice few are bidden and I happen to be one of them."
Then, although his mother shrank from it, feeling that it did harm rather than good to go again over ground that was familiar to both and that was so clear to her and did not convince her son, he persisted in arguing, and in trying to prove that her position was narrow and untenable in these days. Throughout the interview he had been courteous and winsome, as he always was with her, and had laughingly complimented her more than once on her skill in argument; but for all that, she knew he was entirely unconvinced, and felt that her hold on him was weaker than when they had gone over the same ground before. The fact was, and this mother knew it well, that the world and all the allurements for which that phrase stands was making a hard fight for her handsome son even so early in life, and there were times when she felt fearful that in a sense it would win. It was not that she believed he would ever be sorely tempted by any of the amusements or frivolities of life; he was strong-principled and strong-willed, and certain, that might be called main, points had been settled by him once for all. Yet none knew better than did this woman of long and peculiar experience that it was possible to maintain a high standing in the world and in the church and yet have almost as little knowledge of that life hid with Christ in God which was the Christian's rightful heritage as did the gay world around him. She craved this separated life for Erskine, yet he was social in his tastes and fond of being looked upon as a leader, and his mother knew it already irked him to feel that in certain social functions he must always be counted out.