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.
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