The Daughter of Brahma | Page 7

has inherited that much at least. And
he adores me."
"Yes." The judge linked his hands loosely together and stared at the
carpet. "I know."
"He thinks me a sort of supreme being," she went on rapidly, "and I
suppose I kept him with me out of a kind of selfish weakness. I dislike
scenes. But there was another reason." She broke off again. Her white,
strong fingers tightened on the arm of her chair. "You have heard of my
brother and my husband's cousin, Sir Lawrence Hurst?"
"Yes. In this part of the world we don't forget."
For the first time the faintest possible colour showed itself in her
impassive face.
"He has an only son. The son takes after his father and his grandfather.
He is handsome and he is clever. He is a boy who will carry on the
traditions of our family. My brother wrote to me and suggested that he
and David should be educated together."
"An admirable idea."
She did not move, but he felt that she had shrunk inwardly as though
from the touch of fire.
"You think so? But there is one thing which you must take into
consideration. I am ashamed of my son."
"Jean--Mrs. Hurst!"
"Do not force me to repeat what I have said. It is not pleasant for me to
say or for you to hear, and you know I am not given to speaking lightly.
Look me straight in the face, old friend. Forget all silly, sentimental,
maternal feeling, and answer as you would answer a stranger. What is

my son?"
The judge's face was scarlet, but he rose valiantly to the challenge.
"A decent little chap not like the others, I know--delicate, nervous, a bit
of a dreamer, but a thorough upright fellow a--"
"Don't! You will be calling him a gentleman next. And you are not
being honest. You say he is not like the others. That is true. You say he
is delicate--he is a weakling. You say he is a dreamer--he is merely
stupid. You say he is nervous--he is a coward. He is ugly into the
bargain, and a cripple. I hate my son."
The judge almost bounded from his chair. He put his hand to his collar
as though he were choking.
"Mrs. Hurst sometimes you you are rather terrible."
"No, I am merely sincere. Perhaps that comes to the same thing in this
world."
The judge nodded. "Yes, I think it does sometimes."
"You blame me. You think me wicked and heartless. Perhaps I am
according to the modern code of sentimentalities. But we our family
has never cared much for that kind of thing. We have Spartan blood in
our veins. Only the fittest can survive among us. Instinctively we cast
out everything that is weak and useless. You cannot blame us for that
instinct, any more than you can blame David for being as he is. It is just
the destiny of our characters if you like to put it in that way." She
paused, and then went on quietly. "At the bottom we are not very
different from the rest of our fellow-creatures. You are looking aghast
at me because I have dared to express a general but unaccepted truth.
You all shrink instinctively from every form of deformity, and, if the
Spartan method of dealing with such cases is out of fashion it is simply
because you have become cowards and look upon life no matter how
worthless and debased, as the highest good."

"But hatred!" The judge broke in as though it had been the last word
she had spoken. His goodnatured face was still white with distress, but
she was not looking at him. She held herself, if possible, more erect,
and her voice became sonorous with strongly repressed feeling.
"I hate my son with the same right as that with which I should hate him
if he were burdened with some hideous moral vice. The one thing is as
much an infirmity as the other. I hate him as I might hate a friend on
whom I had built my life and who had betrayed my trust. I gave my
soul for my son. On the night that my husband was murdered I killed
myself, everything in me, in order that he might live. I meant that he
should not suffer through my weakness. You understand me? He was
not to be handicapped through any fault of mine. I meant him to carry
on the traditions of our family and the race as my husband would have
done. He was to be a strong man who would serve his country, perhaps
a great man, but at least strong. As it is, he is nothing, and can be
nothing." She got up and stood stately and