Free The Prodigal Girl by Grace Livingston Hill Page B

up to lighten the burden! When Chester got better he would be back in business again and would soon right their fortunes. At least the change would not be bad for him now. She could see he was almost attracted by it! But the children! How would they take it? Such a shame to take them from their schools where they were doing so well and were so attached. Suddenly she voiced her trouble:
    “You don’t think, Chester, that maybe there would be some way to—well, to hold it off a little till the school year was up? Or maybe leave the children here with friends to finish? It’s going to be so embarrassing for them not to get their credits for the year’s work when they have been doing so well. Helen Winslow would take Betty, I’m sure, and maybe Jane. Of course it wouldn’t matter so much about the kiddies. They are young yet. But Chris and Betty ought to finish the grade and not miss a whole year or even six months.”
    “Eleanor!”
    Chester Thornton sat up abruptly, regardless of the bandage on his head.
    “Eleanor! You don’t understand! I wish you didn’t have to either, but you must. No, don’t try to stop me. I’ll have to explain now. Do you know where I found Betty tonight? Up at Todd’s Tavern at the side of the road, in a dark car, lying in the arms of the foulest-mouthed boy it has ever been my fate to hear speak, and she was smoking a cigarette!”
    “Oh, Chester!” cried Eleanor as if he had stabbed her, the tears flowing unguarded down her cheeks now. “Oh, Chester! Surely, surely you must be mistaken. Isn’t that awful ! Oh, but at least—I cannot think it was Betty’s fault! Someone else has—”
    “I’m not so sure!” said Betty’s father grimly. “Do you know what she said when I spoke with her? She called me an antique and said I had a Victorian complex! And when I tried to tell her what that little viper had said about her in the train she only laughed and said he was no worse than any other boy of their set, that everybody talked ‘frankly’ nowadays. People didn’t have foolish reserves the way they used to, and it was a great deal better. She even hinted that she thought that you and I had probably indulged in the same indecencies when we were young. And she added quite significantly, that I needn’t worry, that she knew how to take care of herself!”
    Eleanor gasped and sobbed brokenheartedly for a minute then pleaded sadly:
    “But Chester, really, Betty wouldn’t have meant all those things. She really wouldn’t . You know that kind of talk is a kind of fad nowadays. The girls put on that sort of thing, but they don’t really mean it all.”
    “Eleanor!” said Chester Thornton, and his voice was sternness itself. “Is it possible that you can excuse a thing like that?”
    “Oh, no, no, of course not,” said Eleanor quickly, stifling the great sob that seemed to engulf her. “No, I wouldn’t uphold it, of course not! Only really, I don’t think Betty had an idea of meaning all that. She must just have been copying some of the other girls—”
    “Well, we’ll put her where she won’t have any of that kind to copy, then,” said her father firmly. “Eleanor, where have we been? What have we been doing? Sleeping? That this thing could have burst upon us full fledged? Do you know our eldest son came in drunk tonight? Positively drunk? Do you know he had been in one of the lowest places in this city all the evening gambling? He told me so. He was drunk enough not to realize what he was revealing!”
    “Oh, Chester! Chester!” said Eleanor. “Surely someone else was to blame for that. Someone gave it to him without his realizing what he was drinking. I’m sure he wouldn’t drink—not really drink—our Chris! Or if he did I’m sure he never did it before—”
    “I’m afraid not,” said the father sadly, “I found a flask in his pocket with his initials on it from some fool of a girl, and it was not a new flask, either. Chris knew well enough what he was