Page:Between Two Loves.djvu/50

Rh father. So the dinner, though an excellent one, faultlessly served, was a very painful meal. Eleanor was satirical, mocking, brilliant, almost defiant, and Jonathan suffered keenly amid the flying shafts of her ready tongue. But he remembered that a little meddling will make a deal of care, and he tried to pass over the unpleasant, doubtful speeches. As for Aske, he received them with an impassive good-humor, he talked well and rapidly, and kept the conversation as far as possible from all domestic topics.

After dinner there was a most uncomfortable two hours, but Aske throughout them exhibited in a marked manner the influence which gentle traditions and fine breeding exercise. Upon his own hearth-stone he would protect his father-in-law from every annoyance, if it were possible to do so, and though he was naturally a much more passionate man than Burley, he never once suffered his good temper to desert him amid his wife's innuendoes and scornful sarcasms.

Not so with Jonathan. He was astonished, pained, and then angry, and when this point had been reached he showed it by lapsing into a frowning silence. But Eleanor seemed possessed by a spirit of aggravation; her father's