“It is insolent to adopt the tone you have adopted to Mrs. Disney--first in your own house--on the solitary occasion when my wife and I were your guests--and next at the dinner-table last night. I took no notice of your manner on the first occasion--for though I considered your conduct offensive, I thought it might be your ordinary manner to a pretty woman, and I considered I did enough in forbidding my wife ever to re-enter your house. But last night the offence was repeated--was grosser--and more distinctly marked. What do you mean by talking to my wife of Lord Lostwithiel with a peculiar emphasis? What do you mean by your affectation of a secret understanding with my wife whenever you pronounce Lord Lostwithiel’s name?” “I am not aware that there has been anything peculiar in my pronunciation of that name--or in my manner to Mrs. Disney,” said Mr. Crowther, looking at his boots, but with a malignant smile lurking at the corners of his heavy lips. “Oh, but you are aware of both facts. You meant to be insolent, and meant other people to notice your insolence. It was your way of being even with me for defying you to shut up the wood yonder, and cut off the people’s favourite walk to church. You dared not attack me; but you thought you could wreak your petty spite upon my wife--and you thought I should be too dull to observe, or too much of a poltroon to resent your impertinence. That’s what you thought, Mr. Crowther: and I am here to undeceive you, and to tell you that you are a coward and a liar, and that if you don’t like those words you may send any friend you please to my friend, Captain Hulbert, to arrange a meeting in the nearest and most convenient place on the other side of the channel.” Mr. Crowther turned very red, and then very pale. It was the first time he had been invited to venture his life in defence of his honour; and for the moment it seemed to him that honour was a small thing, a shadowy possession exaggerated into importance by the out-at-elbows and penniless among mankind, who had nothing else to boast of. As if a man who always kept fifty thousand pounds at his bankers, and who had money invested all over the world, would go and risk his life upon the sands of Blankenburgh against a soldier whose retiring allowance was something less than three hundred a year, and who was perhaps a dead shot. The idea was preposterous! No, Mr. Crowther was not going to fight; and though he quailed before those steady eyes of Martin Disney’s, calm in their deep indignation, this explanation was not unwelcome to him. He had a dagger ready to plunge into his enemy’s heart, and he did not mean to hold his hand.