“When you are cool again, Lorton,” he said to me, with an expression of amiability and mingled pity on his face, that made him look to me like Mephistopheles, “you will, I know, be sorry for what you’ve said; and when you learn good manners I will be glad to speak to you again!” and, he walked back to the church, with the air of a person who had been deeply injured, but who had yet the magnanimity to forgive if he could not forget—wishing adieu to our little party, of whom none but Min had overheard what I had said, with his usual cordiality, as if nothing had happened to disturb him.
“Oh, Frank!” exclaimed Min, when he had got out of sight and we were once more alone, “how could you be so rude and un-courteous—to a clergyman, too! I’m ashamed of you! I am hurt at any friend of mine acting like that!”
“But he was so provoking,” I stammered, trying to excuse myself. The tone of Min’s voice pained me. It was full of grief and reproach: I knew its every intonation. “He’s always worrying me and rubbing against me the wrong way!”
“That does not matter, Frank,” she replied in the same grave accents, as coldly as if she was speaking to a stranger—“a gentleman should be a gentleman always. I tell you what,”—she continued, turning away as she spoke—“I will never speak to you again, Frank, until you apologise to Mr Mawley for the language you have used!”
She then left my side, taking Miss Pimpernell’s arm and saying something about having a long chat with her.
The end of it was that she had her way.
I had to go back to search for the curate and ask his pardon, like a dog with its tail between its legs.
I was certain he would exult over it, and he did.
He had not the generosity to meet me half-way and accept my apology frankly at once.
He made me humble myself to the full, seizing the opportunity to read me a long homily on Christian forbearance, in which, I fervently believed at the time, he was almost as deficient as myself.