left them at the table.

Isabel turned wondering, hurt eyes upon her son. "George, dear!" she
said. "What did you mean?"

"Just what I said," he returned, lighting one of the Major's cigars, and
his manner was imperturbable enough to warrant the definition (sometimes
merited by imperturbability) of stubbornness.

Isabel's hand, pale and slender, upon the tablecloth, touched one of the
fine silver candlesticks aimlessly: the fingers were seen to tremble.
"Oh, he was hurt!" she murmured.

"I don't see why he should be," George said. "I didn't say anything
about him. He didn't seem to me to be hurt--seemed perfectly cheerful.
What made you think he was hurt?"

"I know him!" was all of her reply, half whispered.

The Major stared hard at George from under his white eyebrows. "You
didn't mean 'him,' you say, George? I suppose if we had a clergyman as
a guest here you'd expect him not to be offended, and to understand that
your remarks were neither personal nor untactful, if you said the church
was a nuisance and ought never to have been invented. By Jove, but
you're a puzzle!"

"In what way, may I ask, sir?"

"We seem to have a new kind of young people these days," the old
gentleman returned, shaking his head. "It's a new style of courting a
pretty girl, certainly, for a young fellow to go deliberately out of his
way to try and make an enemy of her father by attacking his business! By
Jove! That's a new way to win a woman!"

George flushed angrily and seemed about to offer a retort, but held
his breath for a moment; and then held his peace. It was Isabel who
responded to the Major. "Oh, no!" she said. "Eugene would never be
anybody's enemy--he couldn't!--and last of all Georgie's. I'm afraid he
was hurt, but I don't fear his not having understood that George spoke
without thinking of what he was saying--I mean, with-out realizing its
bearing on Eugene."

Again George seemed upon the point of speech, and again controlled the
impulse. He thrust his hands in his pockets, leaned back in his chair,
and smoked, staring inflexibly at the ceiling.

"Well, well," said his grandfather, rising. "It wasn't a very successful
little dinner!"

Thereupon he offered his arm to his daughter, who took it fondly, and
they left the room, Isabel assuring him that all his little dinners were
pleasant, and that this one was no exception.

George did not move, and Fanny, following the other two, came round the
table, and paused clos