Page:Man's Country (1923).pdf/219

 was enough to make him hate the man forever. Yet George rallied astonishingly. Youth can often do that.

"This fellow is a thoroughbred," George meditated. "I can imagine just how his inherited pride, with all that ancestor stuff in his mind, would get away with a situation like mine. You'd never know he was sitting on a red-hot stove. Well, I'm a thoroughbred, too. Watch me!"

The dinner was from every point of view a triumph. It was a triumph for Sir Brian, because he retold his tiger story and added many other exciting events of a very active and widely traveled life. It was a triumph for Fay, for she was never more beautiful, more vivacious, or more capable of stimulating the admiration of mankind. And it was a triumph for George Judson because, despite the hollow feeling in his chest, he arched it stoutly against terrible external pressure from most unhappy circumstances. He was witty, entertaining, cordial. Fay was especially proud of him. She had never heard him talk better. He manifested a perfect breeding at all points.

As for the woman, she sparkled and scintillated with brilliance unusual even for her. The fact that her husband was present to witness the effect upon this presumably seasoned appraiser of beauty seemed like a challenge to her to exert