“Have a glass of port, Vigil; it's the '47. My father laid it down in '56, the year before he died. Can't drink it myself— I've had to put down two hogsheads of the Jubilee wine. Paramor, fill your glass. Take that chair next to Paramor, Vigil. You know Barter?”
Both Gregory's face and the Rector's were very red.
“We're all Harrow men here,” went on Mr. Pendyce. And suddenly turning to Mr. Paramor, he said: “Well?”
Just as round the hereditary principle are grouped the State, the Church, Law, and Philanthropy, so round the dining-table at Worsted Skeynes sat the Squire, the Rector, Mr. Paramor, and Gregory Vigil, and none of them wished to be the first to speak. At last Mr. Paramor, taking from his pocket Bellew's note and George's answer, which were pinned in strange alliance, returned them to the Squire.
“I understand the position to be that George refuses to give her up; at the same time he is prepared to defend the suit and deny everything. Those are his instructions to me.” Taking up the vase again, he sniffed long and deep at the rose.
Mr. Pendyce broke the silence.
“As a gentleman,” he said in a voice sharpened by the bitterness of his feelings, “I suppose he's obliged——”
Gregory, smiling painfully, added:
“To tell lies.”
Mr. Pendyce turned on him at once.