A laugh went round the table. Sinclair joined in it. But the flush deepened on his forehead.
"My dear," interrupted Mr. MacAllister, "I am afraid that you are forgetting your father. I am practically a total abstainer."
"Oh, I know, father! But then you are an elderly man, and something of a preacher, too. Such virtue is to be expected in you. But Dr. Sinclair is a young man and—a medical doctor. To find such extraordinary rectitude in him is, as the Scotch would say, 'no canny.'"
Again the laugh went round at the doctor's expense. The fair tyrant was getting even with him. Mrs. Thomson, realizing the disadvantage he was at in this verbal passage at arms with a woman, spoke up in her fellow-countryman's behalf:
"You must remember, Miss MacAllister, that different countries have different customs. In your home surroundings it may have been a manly thing to use intoxicants. Where Dr. Sinclair comes from one of the highest standards of manliness is to be a total abstainer."
"And pray tell us where such lofty standards prevail?" asked Carteret. "Where was Dr. Sinclair reared?"
"On a Canadian farm." Sinclair's voice had a defiant ring.
"I shouldn't think that it would be the most up-to-date school of social usages in the world." Carteret's tone was a trifle more insolent than before.
"Perhaps not, Mr. Carteret. But there was one thing we did learn there. We learned——" A biting retort was on his tongue. His eyes met those of the hostess. He paused and softened it. "We learned to give to others the same liberty of opinion as we claimed for ourselves. You claim the liberty to use wine. I do not interfere with your liberty. I claim the liberty to abstain. I expect, Mr. Carteret, the same courtesy in return."
Carteret's face flushed a dark red. He, the son of an English peer, to be taught a lesson in courtesy by the son of a Canadian farmer. Before he had time to frame an answer Mrs. Beauchamp interposed: