Varduk had frowned a moment, as if perplexed, but he spoke decisively. "As a matter of fact, it's in the original. Byron undoubtedly meant it to be so, to show Mary's agitation."
Sigrid had been reading ahead. "Farther down in the same prayer, it says almost the same thing—'Thy will be done on earth as it was in heaven.' It should be, 'is in heaven.'"
I had found the same deviation in my own copy. "Byron hardly meant Mary's agitation to extend so far," I argued.
"Since when, Mr. Connatt," inquired Varduk silkily, "did you become an authority on what Byron meant, here or elsewhere in his writings? You're being, not only a critic, but a clairvoyant."
I felt my cheeks glowing, and I met his heavy, mocking gaze as levelly as I could. "I don't like sacrilegious mistakes," I said, "and I don't like being snubbed, sir."
Davidson stepped to Varduk's side. "You can't talk to him like that, Connatt," he warned me.
Davidson was a good four inches taller than I, and more muscular, but at the moment I welcomed the idea of fighting him. I moved a step forward.
"Mr. Davidson," I said to him, "I don't welcome dictation from you, not on anything I choose to do or say."
Sigrid cried out in protest, and Varduk lifted up a hand. He smiled, too, in a dazzling manner.
"I think," he said in sudden good humor, "that we are all tired and shaken. Perhaps it's due to the unintentional realism of that incident with the sword—I saw several faces grow pale. Suppose we say that the rehearsals won't include so dangerous-looking an attack hereafter; we'll save the trick for the public performance itself. And we'll stop work now; in any case, it's supposed to be unlucky to speak the last line of a play in rehearsal. Shall we all go and get some rest?"