He tried to make his tone casual and seemingly courteous, but failed.
“What makes you suppose that?” asked Erica, in a cool, quiet voice.
Her perfect self-control, and her exceedingly embarrassing counter-question, quite took him aback. At that very minute, too, there was the pause, and the slight movement, and the glance from Lady Caroline which reminded him that he was the only clergyman present, and had to return thanks. He bent forward, and went through the usual form of “For what we have received,” though all the time he was thinking of the “counter-check quarrelsome” he had received from his next-door neighbor. When he raised his head again he found her awaiting his answer, her clear, steady eyes quietly fixed on his face with a look which was at once sad, indignant, and questioning.
His question had been an insulting one. He had meant it to prick and sting, but it is one thing to be indirectly rude, and another to give the “lie direct.” Her quiet return question, her dignity, made it impossible for him to insult her openly. He was at her mercy. He colored a little, stammered something incoherent about “thinking it possible.”
“You are perfectly right,” replied Erica, still speaking in her quietly dignified voice. “I have known Herr Haeberlein since I was a baby, so you will understand that it is quite impossible for me to speak with you about him after hearing the opinions you expressed just now.”
For once in his life Mr. Cuthbert felt ashamed of himself. He did not feel comfortable all through dessert, and gave a sigh of relief when the ladies left the room.
As for Erica's other neighbor, he could not help reflecting that Luke Raeburn's daughter had had the best of it in the encounter. And he wondered a little that a man, whom he had known to do many a kindly action, should so completely have forgotten the rules of ordinary courtesy.
CHAPTER XXVI. A Friend
Then, my friend, we must not regard what the many say of us;
but what he, the one man who has understanding of just and
unjust, will say, and what the truth will say. And
therefore you begin in error when you suggest that we should
regard the opinion of the many about just and unjust, good
and evil, honorable and dishonorable.—Plato.