“Then why fling away your chances and be impossible and useless and an enemy to society, when society only wants to be your friend?  What is the good?  What do you gain?  And what do I lose?  You’re not hurting me; but you’re hurting and distressing your mother.  You’re old enough to understand all this, and if your mother can feel as I know she feels and ask you to consider your own future and look forward in a sensible spirit, instead of looking back in a senseless one, then surely, for her sake alone, you ought to be prepared to meet me and turn over a new leaf.

“For you won’t tire out my patience, or break my heart.  I never know when I’m beat, and since my wish is only your good, neither you, nor anybody, will choke me off it.  I ask you now to promise that, if I send you to another school, you’ll work hard and complete your education and qualify yourself for a useful place in the world afterwards.  That’s what you’ve got to do, and I hope you see it.  Then your future will be my affair, for, as my son, I shall be glad and willing to help you on in whatever course of life you may choose.

“So that’s the position.  You see I’ve given you the credit of being a sane and reasonable being, and I want you to decide as a sane and reasonable being.  You can go on hating me as much as you please; but don’t go on queering your own pitch and distressing your mother and making your future dark and difficult, when it should be bright and easy.  Promise me that you’ll go back to a new school and work your hardest to atone for this nonsense and I’ll take your word for it.  And I don’t ask for my own sake—­always remember that.  I ask you for your own sake and your mother’s.”

With bent head the boy scowled up under his eyebrows during this harangue.  He answered immediately Raymond had finished and revealed passion.

“And what, if I say ’no’?”

“I hope you won’t be so foolish.”

“I do say ‘no’ then—­a thousand times I say it.  Because if you bring me up, you get all the credit.  You shan’t get credit from me.  And I’ll bring myself up without any help from you.  I know I’m different from other boys, because you didn’t marry my mother.  And that’s a fearful wrong to her, and you’re not going to get out of that by anything I can do.  You’re wicked and cowardly to my mother, and she’s Mister Churchouse’s servant, instead of being your wife and having servants of her own, and I’m a poor woman’s son instead of being a rich man’s son, as I ought to be.  All that’s been told me by them who know it.  And you’re a bad man, and I hate you, and I shall always hate you as long as you live.  And I’ll never be beholden to you for anything, because my life is no good now, and my mother’s life is no good neither.  And if I thought she was taking a penny of your money, I’d—­”

His temper upset him and he burst into tears.  The emotion only served to increase his anger.

“I’m crying for hate,” he said.  “Hate, hate, hate!”