The blank of amaze of your haughty gaze,
The cold surprise of patrician eyes. Lewis Morris
But the paucity of Christians is astonishing, considering
the number of them. Leigh Hunt.
The irritation, or, at any rate, the novelty of the luxury in the Fane-Smith's household wore off after Erica had spent a few days at Greyshot. She became accustomed to the great rooms, and being artistic by nature and the reverse by education, she began very much to enjoy the pictures, the charming variety of foreign treasures, and particularly all the lovely things of Indian workmanship with which the drawing room was crowded. The long, formal meals she learned to endure. The absurdly large retinue of servants ceased to oppress her; she used to amuse herself by speculating as to the political views of the men-servants! while the luxury of a daily drive with her aunt she very much appreciated.
But, though the mere externals were soon familiar enough, she found that every day increased the difficulty she felt in becoming accustomed to the atmosphere of this family. She had lived all her life with people who were overwhelmed with work, and in a home where recreation was only the rare concession to actual health. Here recreation seemed to be the business of life, while work for the public was merely tacked on as a sort of ornamental fringe.
Mr. Fane-Smith had, indeed, a few committee meetings to attend; Mrs. Fane-Smith visited her district once a fortnight, and distributed tracts, and kind words, and soup tickets, and blanket tickets, besides the most lavish gifts from her own purse. Rose, to please her mother, taught a class of little girls on Sunday afternoon that is to say, she did NOT teach them, but she sat in a chair and heard them say collects, and enforced orderly behavior upon them, and read them a good little story book. But these were merely rather tiresome duties which came in very often as provoking interruptions to the great business of life, namely eating, drinking, dining out, giving dinners, or attending the endless succession of at-homes, dances, musical evenings, amateur theatricals, by which Greyshot people tried to kill time.
As to taking any intelligent interest in the political world, no one seemed to dream of such a thing, except Mr. Fane-Smith, who read the paper at breakfast, and hurled anathemas at all the statesmen whom Erica had learned to love and revere. It taxed her patience to the utmost to sit through the daily diatribe against Sir Michael Cunningham, her hero of heroes. But even the violent opposition seemed preferable to the want of interest shown by the others. Mrs. Fane-Smith had time to fritter away at least half an hour after breakfast in the most desultory conversation, the most fruitless discussions with Rose as to some detail of dress; but she always made the excuse that she “had no time” to read the papers, and amused Erica not a little by asking her husband if “anything particular had been happening lately,” when they were just starting for a dinner party. Out of his little rechauffe of the week's news she probably extracted enough information to enable her to display that well-bred interest, that vague and superficial acquaintance with the subject which will pass muster in society, and which probably explains alike the very vapid talk and the wildly false accusations which form the staple of ordinary conversation.
Rose was even more perplexing. She was not only ignorant, but she boasted of her ignorance. Again and again Erica heard her deprecate the introduction of any public question.
“Oh, don't begin to talk of that!” she would exclaim. “I know nothing about it, and never mean to know anything.”
Or there would be an imploring appeal.
“Why do you waste your time in talking politics when you have never told me a word about so-and-so's wedding?”
She occasionally read the “Court Circular,” and was rather fond of one or two of the “society” papers from which she used to glean choice little paragraphs of personal gossip.
Once one of these papers gave Erica an uncomfortable experience. The elders of the party being out for the evening, Rose and Erica had the drawing room to themselves, and Erica was really enjoying the rare novelty of talking with a girl of her own age. Rose, although the most arrant little flirt, was fond, too, of her girl friends, and she really liked Erica, and enjoyed the fun of initiating her into all the mysteries and delights of society.
“How did you get your name?” she asked, suddenly. “It is so pretty and so uncommon.”
“Oh,” said Erica, without thinking, “I was called after my father's friend, Eric Haeberlein.”
“Eric Haeberlein?” exclaimed Rose. “Why, I was reading something about him this afternoon. Here it is look!” And after searching the columns of her favorite “society” paper, she pointed to the following paragraph:
“It is now known as a positive fact that the notorious Eric Haeberlein was actually in London last week in connection with the disgraceful Kellner business. ON DIT that he escaped detection through the instrumentality of one of the fair sex, whose audacity outweighed her modesty.”
Erica could hardly have restrained her indignation had not two real dangers drawn off her attention from her own wounded feelings. Her father was there any hateful hint that he was mixed up with Herr Kellner? She glanced anxiously down the page. No, at least that falsehood had not been promulgated. She breathed more freely, but there was danger still, for Rose was watching her, and feminine curiosity is hard to baffle.
“Did you know about it?” she asked.
Erica did not reply for a moment, but read on, to gain time; then she threw down the paper with an exclamation of disgust.
“How can you read such stuff?”
“Yes, but is that the Eric Haeberlein you were named after? Did he really come to London and escape?”
“There is only one Eric Haeberlein in the world that I know of,” said Erica. “But I think, Rose, I was wrong and foolish to mention him. I can't tell you anything about him, and, even if I could, there is my promise to Aunt Isabel. If I am not to talk to you about my father, I certainly ought not to talk about his friends.”
Rose acquiesced, and never suspected any mystery. She chatted on happily for the rest of the evening, brought down a great collection of old ball-cards, and with a sort of loving recollection described each very minutely, just as some old nurses have a way of doing with the funeral cards of their deceased friends. This paved the way for a spontaneous confession that she really preferred Mr. Torn, the curate of St. Matthew's, to Captain Golightly, though people were so stupid, and would say she was in love with him just because they flirted a little sometimes. Rose had already imagined herself in love with at least a dozen people, and was quite ready to discuss every one of her flirtations, but she was disappointed to find that her cousin was either very reserved on the subject, or else had nothing to say.
Erica sat listening with a sort of wonder, not unmixed with disgust. Perhaps she might have shown her disapprobation had she not been thankful to have the conversation diverted from the dangerous topic; besides, the cruel words were still rankling in her heart, and woven in with Rose's chatter she heard continually, “whose audacity outweighed her modesty.” For the first time she fully understood why her father had so reluctantly consented to her scheme; she began to feel the sting which lay beneath the words, the veiled “hints,” the implied evil, more wounding, more damaging than an outspoke lie. Now that she understood the ways of society better, she saw, too, that what had seemed to her an unquestionable duty would be regarded as a grave breach of custom and etiquette. She began to question herself. Had she been right? It mattered very little what the writer of a “society” paper said of her, if she had done the really right thing. What had she done? To save her father's friend from danger, to save her father from unmerited suspicion, she had gone out late in the evening with a man considerably over fifty, whom she had known from her babyhood. He had, it is true, been in the disguise of a young man. She had talked to him on the platform much as she would have talked to Tom, and to save his almost certain detection, had sprung into the carriage, thrown her arms round his neck, and kissed him. HAD audacity outweighed her modesty? Why, all the time she had been thanking God for having allowed her to undertake the difficult task for her father on that particular evening. She had done it in the sight of God, and should she now make herself miserable because the world was wanting in that charity which “thinketh no evil?” No, she had been right of that she was certain. Nevertheless, she understood well enough that society would condemn her action, and would with a smile condone Rose's most outrageous flirtation.
The first week in a new place always seems long, and Erica felt as if she had been away from home for months by the time it was over. Every one had been very kind to her so far, but except when she was playing lawn-tennis she was somehow far from happy., Her happiest moments were really those which she spent in her own room before breakfast, writing; and the “Daily Review” owed some very lively articles to the Greyshot visit. Beyond a sort of clan feeling for her aunt, and a real liking for Rose who, in spite of her follies, was good-humored and very lovable she had not yet found one point of union with her new relations. Even possible topics of conversation were hard to find. They cared nothing for politics, they cared nothing for science, they were none of them book lovers, and it was against their sense of etiquette to speak of anything but the externals of religion. Worst of all, any allusion to home matters, any mention of her father had to be avoided. Little was left but the mere gossip of the neighborhood, which, except as a social study, could not interest Erica.
Greyshot was an idle place; the church seemed asleep, a drowsy indifference hung about the richer inhabitants, while the honest workers not unnaturally banded themself together against the sleepily respectable church-goers, and secularism and one or two other “isms” made rapid advances. Then sleepy orthodoxy lifted its drowsy head for a minute, noted the evil, and abused Mr. Raeburn and his fellow workers, lamenting in many-syllable words the depravity of the working classes and the rapid spread of infidelity. But nothing came of the lament; it never seemed to strike them that they must act as well as talk, that they must renounce their useless, wasteful, un-Christian lives before they had even a right to lift up their voices against secularism, which certainly did in some measure meet the needs of the people. It never seemed to strike them that THEY were the real promoters of infidelity that they not only dishonored the name of Christ, but by their inconsistent lives disgusted people with Christianity, and then refused to have anything more to do with them. Luke Raeburn, if he pulled down with the one hand, at any rate, tried hard to build up with the other; but the people of Greyshot caused in a great degree the ruin and down fall, and then exclaimed, “How shocking!” and turned their backs, thinking to shift their blame on to the secularist leaders.
As far as society goes, they succeeded in thus shifting the blame; the world laid it all on Luke Raeburn, he was a most convenient scapegoat, and so widely does conventional Christianity differ from the religion founded by Christ it soon became among a certain set almost equivalent to a religious act to promulgate bits of personal scandal about him, flavored, of course, with wordy lamentations as to the views he entertained. Thus, under the name of defenders of religion, conventional Christians managed to appear very proper and orthodox, and at the same time to dispose comfortably of all their sense of responsibility. There was a meanness about their way of doing it which might have made the very angels weep! Happily the judgments of society are not the judgments of God.
One of the leaders of society was a certain Lady Caroline Kiteley; she was a good-natured, hospitable creature, very anxious that every one should enjoy life, and a great favorite with all the young people, because she made much of them and gave delightful dances. The elders, too, liked her, and were not oblivious to the fact that she was the daughter of an earl, and the widow of a distinguished general. Erica had seen her more than once during her visit, and had been introduced to her by Mrs. Fane-Smith, as “my niece.”
Now it happened that Mr. And Mrs. Fane-Smith and Rose were to dine with Lady Caroline the week after Erica's arrival. On the very day of the dinner party, however, Rose was laid up with a bad cold, and her mother was obliged to write and make her excuses. Late in the afternoon there came in reply one of Lady Caroline's impulsive notes.
“Dear Mrs. Fane-Smith, Scold that silly daughter of yours for catching cold; give her my love, and tell her that I was counting on her very much. Please bring your pretty niece instead. Yours sincerely, Caroline Kiteley.”
Mrs. Fane-Smith was glad and sorry at the same time, and very much perplexed. Such a peremptory but open-hearted invitation could not be declined, yet there were dangers in the acceptance. If Erica's name should transpire, it might be very awkward, but she had not broached the suggested change of name to her, and every day her courage dwindled every day that resolute mouth frightened her more. She was quite aware that Erica's steady, courageous honesty would unsparingly condemn all her small weaknesses and little expedients.
Erica, when told of the invitation, was not particularly anxious to go, for she and Rose had been planning a cozy evening at home over a new novel upon which their tastes really agreed. However, Rose assured her that Lady Caroline's parties were always delightful, and hunted her off to dress at least an hour before there was any necessity. Rose was a great authority on dress and, when her cousin returned, began to study her attire critically.
She wore a very simply made dress of moss-green velveteen, high to the throat, and relieved by a deep falling collar of old point. Elspeth had brought her a spray of white banksia roses, but otherwise she wore no ornament. Her style was very different from her cousin's; but Rose could not help approving of it, its severity suited Erica.
“You look lovely!” she exclaimed. “Lady Caroline will quite lose her heart to you! I think you should have that dress cut low in front, though. It is a shame not to show such a pretty neck as you must have.”
“Oh, no!” said Erica, quickly; “father can't endure low dresses.”
“One can't always dress to please one's father,” said Rose. “For the matter of that, I believe papa doesn't like them; but I always wear them. You see it is more economical, one must dress much more expensively if one goes in for high dresses. A little display of neck and arms, and any old rag will look dressy and fashionable, and though I don't care about economy, mamma does.”
“You don't have an allowance, then?”
“No; papa declared I ought to dress on eighty pounds a year, but I never could make both ends meet, and I got a tiresome long bill at Langdon's, and that vexed him, so now I get what I like and mamma pays.”
Erica made no comment, but was not a little amazed. Presently Mrs. Fane-Smith came in, and seemed well pleased with her niece's appearance.
“You have the old point!” she exclaimed.
“Aunt Jean gave it to me,” said Erica. “She never would part with it because it was grandmamma's at least, she did sell it once, when father was ill years ago, and we were at our wit's end for money, but she got it back again before the end of the year.”
Mrs. Fane-Smith colored deeply, partly at the idea of her mother's lace being taken to a pawnbroker's, partly to hear that her brother and sister had ever been reduced to such straits. She made an excuse to take Erica away to her room, and there questioned her more than she had yet done about her home.
“I thought your father was so strong,” she said. “Yet you speak as if he had had several illnesses.”
“He has,” replied Erica. “Twice I can remember the time when they thought him dying, besides after the riot last year. Yes, he is strong, but, you see, he has such a hard life. It is bad enough now, and I doubt if any one knows how fearfully he overworked himself during the year in America. The other day I had to look something up in his diary for him, and not till then did I find out how terribly he must have taxed his strength. On an average he got one night's rest in the week, on the others he slept as well as he could in the long cars, which are wretchedly uncomfortable; the sleeping cars being expensive, he wouldn't go in them.”
Mrs. Fane-Smith sighed. Her brother was becoming more of a living reality to her; she thought of him less as a type of wickedness. The recollection, too, that she had been all her life enjoying the money which he and her sister Jean had forfeited by their opinions, made her grieve the more over the little details of poverty and privation. Old Mr. Raeburn had left all his money to her, bequeathing to his other daughter and his reprobate son the sum of one shilling, with the hope that Heaven would bring them to a better mind. It was some comfort to learn from Erica that at last the terrible load of debt had been cleared off, and that they were comparatively free from trouble just at present.
With these thoughts in her mind, Mrs. Fane-Smith found herself on her way to Lady Caroline's; but her developing breadth of view was destined to receive a severe shock. They were the last guests to arrive, and at the very moment of their entrance Lady Caroline was talking in her most vivacious way to Mr. Cuthbert, a young clergyman, the vicar of one of the Greyshot churches.
“I am going to give you a treat, Mr. Cuthbert,” she said laughingly. “I know you are artistic, and so I intend you to take down that charming niece of Mrs. Fane-Smith's. I assure you she is like a Burne-Jones angel!”
Mr. Cuthbert smiled a quietly superior smile, and coolly surveyed Erica as she came in. Dinner was announced almost immediately, and it was not until Mrs. Fane-Smith had been taken down that Lady Caroline brought Mr. Cuthbert to Erica's side to introduce him. “Why, your aunt has never told me your name,” she said, smiling.
“My name is Erica Raeburn,” said Erica, quite unconscious that this was a revelation to every one, and that her aunt had purposely spoken of her everywhere as “my niece.”
Lady Caroline gave a scarcely perceptible start of surprise, and there was a curious touch of doubt and constraint in her voice as she pronounced the “Mr. Cuthbert, Miss Raeburn.” Undoubtedly that name sounded rather strangely in her drawing room, and awoke uncomfortable suggestions.
“Raeburn! Erica Raeburn!” thought Mr. Cuthbert to himself. “Uncommon name in England. Connection, I wonder! Aunt hadn't given her name! That looks odd. I'll see if she has a Scotch accent.”
“Are you staying in Greyshot?” he asked as they went down the broad staircase, with its double border of flowering plants.
“Yes,” said Erica; “I came last week. What lovely country it is about here!”
“Country,” with its thrilled “r,” betrayed her nationality, though her accent was of the slightest. Mr. Cuthbert chuckled to himself, for he thought he had caught Mrs. Fane-Smith tripping, and he was a man who derived an immense amount of pleasure from making other people uncomfortable. As a child, he had been a tease; as a big boy, he had been a bully; as a man, he had become a malicious gossip monger. Tonight he thought he saw a chance of good sport, and directly he had said grace, in the momentary pause which usually follows, he turned to Erica with an abrupt, though outwardly courteous question, carried off with a little laugh.
“I hope you are no relation to that despicable infidel who bears your name, Miss Raeburn?”
Erica's color deepened; she almost annihilated him with a flash from her bright indignant eyes.
“I am Luke Raeburn's daughter,” she said, in her clearest voice, and with a dignity which, for the time, spoiled Mr. Cuthbert's enjoyment.
Many people had heard the vicar's question during the pause, and not a few listened curiously for the answer which, though quietly spoken, reached many ears, for nothing gives so much penetrating power to words as concentrated will and keen indignation. Before long every one in the room knew that Mrs. Fane-Smith's pretty niece was actually the daughter of “that evil and notorious Raeburn.”
Mr. Cuthbert had certainly got his malicious wish; he had succeeded in making Mrs. Fane-Smith miserable, in making his hostess furious, in putting his little neighbor into the most uncomfortable of positions. Of course he was not going to demean himself by talking to “that atheist's daughter.” He enjoyed the general discomfiture to his heart's content, and then devoted himself to the lady on his other side.
As for Erica her blood was up. Forced to sit still, forced even to eat at a table where she was an unwelcome guest, her anger got the mastery of her for the time. She was indignant at the insult to her father, indignant, too, that her aunt had ever allowed her to get into such a false position. The very constraint she was forced to put upon herself made her wrath all the deeper. She was no angel yet, though Mr. Burne-Jones might have taken her for a model. She was a quick-tempered little piece of humanity; her passions burned with Highland intensity, her sense of indignation was strong and keen, and the atmosphere of her home, the hard struggle against intolerable bigotry and malicious persecution had from her very babyhood tended to increase this. She had inherited all her father's passion for justice and much of his excessive pride, while her delicate physical frame made her far more sensitive. Moreover, though since that June morning in the museum she had gained a peace and happiness of which in the old days she had never dreamed, yet the entire change had in many ways increased the difficulties of her life. Such a wrench, such an upheaval as it had involved, could not but tell upon her immensely. And, besides, she had in every way for the last three months been living at high pressure.
The grief, the disapproval, the contemptuous pity of her secularist friends had taxed her strength to the utmost, but she had stood firm, and had indeed been living on the heights.
Now the months of Charles Osmond's careful preparation were over, her baptism was over, and a little weary and overdone with all that she had lived through that summer, she had come down to Greyshot expecting rest, and behold, fresh vexations had awaited her!
A nice Christian world! A nice type of a clergyman! she thought to herself, as bitterly as in the old days, and with a touch of sorrow added. The old lines from “Hiawatha,” which had been so often on her lips, now rang in her head:
“For his heart was hot within him, Like a living coal his heart was.”
She longed to get up and go, but that would have put her aunt in a yet more painful position, and might have annoyed Lady Caroline even more than her presence. She would have given anything to have fainted after the convenient fashion of the heroines of romance, but never had she felt so completely strung up, so conscious of intense vitality. There was nothing for it but endurance. And for two mortal hours she had to sit and endure! Mr. Cuthbert never spoke to her; her neighbor on the other side glanced at her furtively from time to time, but preserved a stony silence; there was an uncomfortable cloud on her hostess's brow; while her aunt, whom she could see at some distance on the other side of the table, looked very white and wretched.
It is wonderful how rude people can be, even in good society, and the looks of “blank amaze,” “cold surprise,” and “cool curiosity” which Erica received would hardly be credited. A greater purgatory to a sensitive girl, whose pride was by no means conquered, can hardly be conceived.
She choked down a little food, unable to reject everything, but her throat almost refused to swallow it. The glare of the lights, the oppressive atmosphere, the babel of tongues seemed to beat upon her brain, and a sick longing for home almost overmastered her. Oh, to get away from these so-called Christians, with their cruel judgments, their luxuries, their gayeties these hard, rich bigots, who yet belonged to the body she had just joined, with who, in the eyes of her old friends, she should be identified! Oh, for the dear old book-lined study at home! For one moment with her father! One word from a being who loved and trusted her! Tears started to her eyes, but the recollection that even home was no longer a place of refuge checked them. There would be Aunt Jean's wearing remonstrances and sarcastic remarks; there would be Mr. Masterman's patronizing contempt, and Tom's studious avoidance of the matters she had most at heart. Was it worse to be treated as a well-meaning idiot, or as an outcast and semi-heretic? Never till now had she so thoroughly realized her isolation, and she felt so bruised and buffeted and weary that the realization at that particular time was doubly trying.
Isolation is perhaps the greatest of all trials to a sensitive and warm-hearted nature, and nothing but the truest and deepest love for the whole race can possibly keep an isolated person from growing bitter. Erica knew this, had known it ever since Brian had brought her the message from her mother; “It is only love that can keep from bitterness.” All through these years she had been struggling hard, and though there had been constant temptations, though the harshness of the bigoted, the insults offered to her father in the name of religion, the countless slights and slanders had tried her to the utmost, she had still struggled upward, and in spite of all had grown in love. But now, for the first time, she found herself completely isolated. The injustice, the hardness of it proved too much for her. She forgot that those who would be peace-makers reconcilers, must be content to receive the treatment which the Prince of Peace received; she forgot that these rich, contemptuous people were her brothers and sisters, and that their hard judgment did not and could not alter their relationship; she forgot all in a burning indignation, in an angry revolt against the injustice of the world.
She would study these people, she would note all their little weaknesses and foibles. Mr. Bircham had given her carte blanche for these three weeks; she would write him a deliciously sarcastic article on modern society. The idea fixed her imagination, she laughed to herself at the thought; for, however sad the fact, it is nevertheless true that to ordinary mortals “revenge is sweet.” Had she given herself time to think out matters calmly, she would have seen that boh Christianity and the rules of art were opposed to her idea. It is true that Michael Angelo and other painters used to revenge themselves on the cardinals or enemies they most hated by painting them in the guise of devils, but both they and their art suffered by such a concession to an animal passion. And Erica fell grievously that evening. This is one of the evils of social ostracism. It is unjust, unnatural, and selfish. To preserve what it considers the dignity of society, it drives human beings into an unnatural position; it fosters the very evils which it denounces. And society is grossly unfair. A word, a breath, a false libel in a newspaper is quite sufficient. It will never trouble itself to inquire minutely into the truth, but will pronounce its hasty judgment, and then ostracize.
Erica began to listen attentively to the conversation, and it must be owned that it was not very edifying. Then she studied the faces and manners of her companions, and, being almost in the middle of the table, she had a pretty good view. Every creature she studied maliciously, keenly, sarcastically, until she came to the end of the table, and there a most beautiful face brought her back to herself for a minute with a sort of shock. Where had she seen it before? A strong, manly face of the Roman type, clean-shaven, save for a very slight mustache, which did not conceal the firm yet sensitive mouth; dark eyes, which even as she wondered met hers fully for an instant, and gave her a strange feeling of protection. She knew that at least one person in the room did not shudder at the idea of sitting at table with Luke Raeburn's daughter.
Better thoughts returned to her, she grew a little ashamed of her malice, and began to wonder who that ideal man could be. Apparently he was one of the distinguished guests, for he had taken down Lady Caroline herself. Erica was just too far off to hear what he said, and in another moment she was suddenly recalled to Mr. Cuthbert. He was talking to the old gentleman on her left hand, who had been silently surveying her at intervals as though he fancied she could not be quite human.
“Have you been following this Kellner trial?” asked Mr. Cuthbert. “Disgraceful affair, isn't it?”
Then followed references to Eric Haeberlein, and veiled hints about his London friends and associates more dangerous to the country than say foreigners, “traitors, heady, high-minded,” etc., etc. Such evil-doers always managed to keep within the letter of the law; but, for his part, he thought they deserved to be shut up, more than most of those who get penal servitude for life.
Erica's wrath blazed up again. Of course the veiled hints were intended to refer to her father, and the cruelty and insolence of the speaker who knew that she understood his allusions scattered all her better thoughts. It required a strong effort of will to keep her anger and distress from becoming plainly visible. Her unwillingness to give Mr. Cuthbert such a gratification could not have strengthened her sufficiently, but love and loyalty to her father and Eric Haeberlein had carried her through worse ordeals than this.
She showed no trace of embarrassment, but moved a very little further back in her chair, implying by a sort of quiet dignity of manner, that she thought Mr. Cuthbert exceedingly ill-mannered to talk across her.
Feeling that his malicious endeavor had entirely failed, and stung by her dignified disapproval, Mr. Cuthbert struck out vindictively. Breaking the silence he had maintained toward her, he suddenly flashed round upon her with a question.
“I suppose you are intimately acquainted with Eric Haeberlein?”
He tried to make his tone casual and seemingly courteous, but failed.
“What makes you suppose that?” asked Erica, in a cool, quiet voice.
Her perfect self-control, and her exceedingly embarrassing counter-question, quite took him aback. At that very minute, too, there was the pause, and the slight movement, and the glance from Lady Caroline which reminded him that he was the only clergyman present, and had to return thanks. He bent forward, and went through the usual form of “For what we have received,” though all the time he was thinking of the “counter-check quarrelsome” he had received from his next-door neighbor. When he raised his head again he found her awaiting his answer, her clear, steady eyes quietly fixed on his face with a look which was at once sad, indignant, and questioning.
His question had been an insulting one. He had meant it to prick and sting, but it is one thing to be indirectly rude, and another to give the “lie direct.” Her quiet return question, her dignity, made it impossible for him to insult her openly. He was at her mercy. He colored a little, stammered something incoherent about “thinking it possible.”
“You are perfectly right,” replied Erica, still speaking in her quietly dignified voice. “I have known Herr Haeberlein since I was a baby, so you will understand that it is quite impossible for me to speak with you about him after hearing the opinions you expressed just now.”
For once in his life Mr. Cuthbert felt ashamed of himself. He did not feel comfortable all through dessert, and gave a sigh of relief when the ladies left the room.
As for Erica's other neighbor, he could not help reflecting that Luke Raeburn's daughter had had the best of it in the encounter. And he wondered a little that a man, whom he had known to do many a kindly action, should so completely have forgotten the rules of ordinary courtesy.
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