"If you will drink coffee, and keep on smoking those strong cigars"—
He eyed her so intently over the rim of his shaking cup that she left the sentence uncompleted. In spite of her tragic mood, his glare of resentment aroused within her an inclination to laugh.
"You see how your nerves are affected," she finished.
It was not the first time this subject had come up between them, but hitherto he had denied with urbane mendacity the ill results of his favourite indulgences. Now his control was gone.
"They are not affected," he retorted, while the rattling of the cup against the saucer disproved his declaration. It was with difficulty that he could extricate his fingers from the handle without breaking the delicate ware. "Or if they are," he went on, "you misstate the cause, deliberately, as I believe."
She opened her eyes incredulously, and pushing back his chair, he rose petulantly to his feet.
"Felicity, I am disappointed in you—more than disappointed—wounded—cut to the heart—scandalised!"
He turned away, then, coming back, he seized the morning paper, and with a parting glance of reproach went into his study and closed the door. His words, his manner of retreat, were a challenge to follow which she meant to accept. A few moments later, she flung back the door of her father's study and confronted him, intensely angry, and strikingly beautiful in her anger.
"Scandalised!" she echoed, as if no time had elapsed since he uttered the word. "What do you mean by that?"
The apparition was not unexpected, but the bishop, glancing over the top of his paper, managed to convey his surprise with the subtlety of which he was master. Chagrined by his conduct at the table, he had fortified himself in the interim against a renewal of the struggle.