Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/175

 "And has this sort of thing been going on?"

"Evidently."

"And you have not spoken?" said Mrs. Harden. "You carry your Quixotic ideas too far. Thank Heaven! I am a woman, and will not sit still and see a crying shame like this. Honor! I believe in honor only where it is due."

"There would be little of it in the world, madam," answered Philip, "if we all felt as you say you do."

"Shall we go inside? This is more than flesh and blood can endure. I am going to insult that man in my own house,—a thing I have never done in all my life before."

Mrs. Harden rose, and with a heightened color and in freezing tones said, "Mr. Feuardent, you will excuse me, I am sure; but these friends of mine are going to do me the honor of dining with me, and as we are going out afterward—"

"Madam," said Robert, starting to his feet, "it is I who should apologize for intruding so long upon your hospitality. I wish you good evening."

He was gone, and Sara Harden was left to get through her dinner-party as best she could. "It was not what might be called a cheering repast," as Mrs. Harden afterward remarked to