Raymond had feigned unconsciousness of the stranger’s insolent tone thus far, though he had detected it from the first, and was only too deeply possessed by other thoughts to resent it or to care a straw for what this stranger or any human being thought of him or said to him. But the persistency of the attack forced him to notice it at last, if not to repel it; he was not sufficiently interested in the thing for that. But he was roused from the kind of stinging lethargy in which he had hitherto sat there, nibbling at one thing or another, oftener playing with his knife and fork, and touching nothing. He laid them down now, and pushed aside his glass, which had been emptied to-night oftener than was his wont.
“You mean to ask,” he said, “if, according to our low French code of morals, we consider it justifiable to commit a crime for the sake of some good to ourselves or others?”
“I don’t go quite that length,” replied Mr. Plover; “but I assume from what you have already said that you look on it as permissible to—tell a lie, for example, under given circumstances.”
“I do,” said Raymond.
There was a murmur of surprise and dissent.
“My dear Bourbonais! you are joking, or talking for the mere sake of argument,” cried Sir Simon, forcing a laugh; but he looked vexed and astonished.
“I am not joking, nor am I arguing for argument’s sake,” protested Raymond with rising warmth. “I say, and I am prepared to prove it, that under given circumstances we are justified in withholding the truth—in telling a lie, if you like that way of putting it better.”
“What are they?”
“Prove it!”
“Let us hear!”