Isabel’s hand, pale and slender, upon the tablecloth, touched one of the fine silver candlesticks aimlessly: the fingers were seen to tremble. “Oh, he was hurt!” she murmured.
“I don’t see why he should be,” George said. “I didn’t say anything about him. He didn’t seem to me to be hurt—seemed perfectly cheerful. What made you think he was hurt?”
“I know him!” was all of her reply, half whispered.
The Major stared hard at George from under his white eyebrows. “You didn’t mean ‘him,’ you say, George? I suppose if we had a clergyman as a guest here you’d expect him not to be offended, and to understand that your remarks were neither personal nor untactful, if you said the church was a nuisance and ought never to have been invented. By Jove, but you’re a puzzle!”
“In what way, may I ask, sir?”
“We seem to have a new kind of young people these days,” the old gentleman returned, shaking his head. “It’s a new style of courting a pretty girl, certainly, for a young fellow to go deliberately out of his way to try and make an enemy of her father by attacking his business! By Jove! That’s a new way to win a woman!”
George flushed angrily and seemed about to offer a retort, but held his breath for a moment; and then held his peace. It was Isabel who responded to the Major. “Oh, no!” she said. “Eugene would never be anybody’s enemy—he couldn’t!—and last of all Georgie’s. I’m afraid he was hurt, but I don’t fear his not having understood that George spoke without thinking of what he was saying—I mean, with-out realizing its bearing on Eugene.”
Again George seemed upon the point of speech, and again controlled the impulse. He thrust his hands in his pockets, leaned back in his chair, and smoked, staring inflexibly at the ceiling.
“Well, well,” said his grandfather, rising. “It wasn’t a very successful little dinner!”
Thereupon he offered his arm to his daughter, who took it fondly, and they left the room, Isabel assuring him that all his little dinners were pleasant, and that this one was no exception.