“Then I shall not join,” said Andrew across the table; and the officer on his right laughed.
Sir Robert and Captain Murray were too much occupied now to pay any attention to their young guests, who found the officers below them eager to make up for this, and they began chatting freely, so that this was the pleasantest part of the evening. But at the upper part of the table matters were getting more strained. The colonel and his friends, whom he had placed with the foreign guests, after trying hard all through to make themselves agreeable and to entertain the visitors, had received so many rebuffs that they became cold and silent, while the Germans grew more and more loud in their remarks across the table to each other. Many of these remarks were broad allusions to the country in which they were and its people, and the annoyance he felt was plainly marked on Sir Robert’s brow in deeply cut parallel lines.
Ignoring their hosts, the visitors now began to cut jokes about what they had seen, and from a word here and there which, thanks to his mother, Frank was able to grasp, they were growing less and less particular about what they said.
Baron Steinberg had had a great deal to say in a haughtily contemptuous manner, and Frank noticed that whenever he spoke his friends listened to him with a certain amount of deference, as if he were the most important man present. He noted, too, that when the baron was speaking his father looked more and more stern, but whenever it fell to his lot to interpret something said by the colonel he was most studiously courteous to the guest.
Frank had grown interested in an anecdote being related for his and Andrew’s benefit by one of the young officers below, and as it was being told very humorously his back was half turned to the upper part of the table, and he was leaning forward so as not to miss a word. At the same time, though, he was half-conscious that the baron on the colonel’s right was talking loudly, and saying something which greatly amused his compatriots, when all at once Sir Robert Gowan sprang to his feet, and Captain Murray cried across the table to him:
“Gowan! for Heaven’s sake take no notice.”
Frank’s heart began to throb violently, as he saw his father dart a fierce look at his brother-officer, and then take a couple of strides up the side of the table to where the baron sat on the colonel’s right.
“Gowan, what is the matter?” cried the colonel. “What has he said?”
“I’ll interpret afterwards, sir,” said Sir Robert, in a deep, hoarse voice, “when we are alone;” then fiercely to the baron in German: “Take back those words, sir. It is an insult—a lie!”
The baron sprang to his feet, his example being followed by his brother-officers, and, leaning forward, he seemed about to strike, but with a brutally contemptuous laugh he bent down, caught up his glass, and threw it and its contents in Sir Robert’s face.