“No, I won’t.  We will talk about you.  You’ve been very ill, Father Stafford?”

“A little knocked up.”

“I don’t wonder!” she said, with an irritated glance at his plate, which was now furnished with a potato.

He saw the glance.

“It wasn’t that,” he said; “that suits me very well.”

Claudia knew that a pretty girl may say most things, so she said: 

“I don’t believe it.  You’re killing yourself.  Why don’t you do as the Bishop does?”

The Bishop, good man, was at this moment drinking champagne.

“Men have different ways of living,” he answered evasively.

“I think yours is a very bad way.  Why do you do it?”

“I’m sure you will forgive me if I decline to discuss the question just now.  I notice you take a little wine.  You probably would not care to explain why.”

“I take it because I like it.”

“And I don’t take it because I like it.”

Claudia had a feeling that she was being snubbed, and her impression was confirmed when Stafford, a moment afterward, turned to Kate Bernard, who sat on his left hand, and was soon deep in reminiscences of old visits to the Manor, with which Kate contrived to intermingle a little flattery that Stafford recognized only to ignore.  They had known one another well in earlier days, and Kate was immensely pleased at finding her playfellow both famous and not forgetful.

Eugene looked on from his seat at the foot of the table with silent wonder.  Here was a man who might and indeed ought to talk to Claudia, and yet was devoting himself to Kate.

“I suppose it’s on the same principle that he takes water instead of champagne,” he thought; but the situation amused him, and he darted at Claudia a look that conveyed to that young lady the urgent idea that she was, as boys say, “dared” to make Father Stafford talk to her.  This was quite enough.  Helped by the unconscious alliance of Haddington, who thought Miss Bernard had let him alone quite long enough, she seized her opportunity, and said in the softest voice: 

“Father Stafford?”

Stafford turned his head, and found fixed upon him a pair of large, dark eyes, brimming over with mingled contrition and admiration.

“I am so sorry—­but—­but I thought you looked so ill.”

Stafford was unpleasantly conscious of being human.  The triumph of wickedness is a spectacle from which we may well avert our eyes.  Suffice it to say that a quarter of an hour later Claudia returned Eugene’s glance with a look of triumph and scorn.