“I think it is hardly worth your while to be other than civil.”
“You find no difficulty in tolerating him, then?—you have a respect for a political platitudinarian as insensible as an ox to everything he can’t turn into political capital. You think his monumental obtuseness suited to the dignity of the English gentleman.”
“I did not say that.”
“You mean that I acted without dignity, and you are offended with me.”
“Now you are slightly nearer the truth,” said Catherine, smiling.
“Then I had better put my burial-clothes in my portmanteau and set off at once.”
“I don’t see that. If I have to bear your criticism of my operetta, you should not mind my criticism of your impatience.”
“But I do mind it. You would have wished me to take his ignorant impertinence about a ‘mere musician’ without letting him know his place. I am to hear my gods blasphemed as well as myself insulted. But I beg pardon. It is impossible you should see the matter as I do. Even you can’t understand the wrath of the artist: he is of another caste for you.”
“That is true,” said Catherine, with some betrayal of feeling. “He is of a caste to which I look up—a caste above mine.”
Klesmer, who had been seated at a table looking over scores, started up and walked to a little distance, from which he said,