that gently, cold courtesy in which he was commonly wrapped. These silly
pointless stories that he had been telling with such relish disturbed and
repelled her. They revealed a new element in his character, something
small and ugly, that was like the speck in a fine fruit, or, rather, like
the disclosure of an angry sore beneath an outward health and strength.

She recalled the incident of the land, and that cold isolation in which
Helbeck held himself towards his Protestant neighbours--the passionate
animosity with which he would sometimes speak of their charities or their
pietisms, the contempt he had for almost all their ideals, national or
social. Again and again, in the early days at Bannisdale, it had ruffled
or provoked her.

Helbeck soon perceived that she was jarred. When she called to Bruno he
checked his flow of anecdote, and said to her in a lower voice:

"You think us uncharitable?"

She looked up--but rather at the Jesuit than at Helbeck.

"No--only it is not amusing! If Augustina or I could speak for the other
side--that would be more fun!"

"Laura!" cried Augustina, scandalised.

"Oh, I know you wouldn't, if you could," said the girl gayly. "And I
can't. So there it is. One can't stop you, I suppose!"

She threw back her bright head and turned to Helbeck. The action was
pretty and coquettish; but there was a touch of fever in it,