"I do not understand what you mean by saying that you gave Mr. Carteret what he deserved."
"Mother, Mr. Carteret took advantage of his privileges as our guest and of the friendship we have showed him to make an unwarranted and ungentlemanly attack on another friend of ours, who has also been our guest."
"Tut, tut, Jessie! Mr. Carteret did not say anything about Dr. Sinclair which should make any sensible person angry."
"He made statements about Dr. Sinclair which were not true; and he made them in the most insulting way possible."
"That is merely a matter of opinion, my dear. Dr. Sinclair himself acknowledged that he was born and reared on a Canadian farm. And though I will acknowledge that he has done remarkably well, considering that, to a gentleman of Mr. Carteret's birth and training he is just a peasant, nothing more than a common peasant."
"Then, mother, to Mr. Carteret we are just peasants, nothing more than common peasants. Your father was a shepherd, and father's was a peasant farmer."
Mrs. MacAllister coloured at the thrust, but tried to evade it.
"Jessie," she said, "what is the use of always humiliating your father and mother by continually reminding them that they were born poor? We have risen above that now and associate with the best in the land. People should be judged by what they are, and not by what they were born to."
"That is exactly what I think, mother. By that standard Dr. Sinclair, who was born on a Canadian farm, is a gentleman. And Mr. Carteret, who was born in an English castle, is not a gentleman."
"For shame, Jessie, to talk like that! You have no right to say that of Mr. Carteret. You humiliated him at our own table to-day, and he bore it like a gentleman."
"And by getting indignant on behalf of Dr. Sinclair," continued the mother, without paying any heed to the daughter's interjection, "you practically said to everybody that you were in love with him."
"Both Mr. De Vaux and Mr. Carteret understood it that way."
"I don't care a fig what they understood."
"And when Dr. Sinclair hears of it he will understand it the same way."
"He will do no such thing. He is too much of a man."
Miss MacAllister spoke bravely. But the thrust had gone home. If there was one thing she dreaded, it was the thought that she should make herself cheap, that she should appear to offer her love instead of having her love sought and won. The thought stung. But she would not acknowledge it.