Then two small incidents happened. Martin dropped a plate with a hideous clatter, and a moment afterwards upset a wineglass, which he had just filled with claret, all over the table. He apologised and wiped it up, but, unfortunately, looking up, he saw his father’s face wearing such an extraordinary expression of true Christian patience that for the life of him he could not help giving a sudden giggle of laughter. He could not possibly have helped it; if he was going to be hung for it he must have laughed. Now, the laughter of other people when we ourselves do not see anything whatever in the situation to provoke mirth is one of the authentic trials of life, especially if one half suspects, as Mr. Challoner did now, that one is in some manner inexplicable to one’s self the cause of it. It was therefore highly to his credit that, remembering the interview he had had with Martin the night before, he could manage to keep inside his lips the words that tingled on his tongue. Of more than that he was incapable; he could not just then be genial or start a subject of conversation, he could only just be silent. Martin could easily manage that; his last observation had not found favour, and he held his tongue and ate large quantities of cold beef. Helen sitting opposite her father, in the absence of Aunt Clara, who was spending the Sunday away, had also nothing apparently which she considered as suitable, and the meal proceeded in silence. Then, after a long pause, she raised her eyes, which so happened to catch Martin’s, who was still struggling with his unseemly mirth. At this moment also her father looked up and saw a glance which he interpreted into a glance of meaning pass between them, a thing irritating to the most placid temperament. He saw, too, the corners of Martin’s mouth twitching. This was too much. “I will not have that sort of thing, children,” he said, his voice rising sharply. “It is an extremely rude and vulgar thing to exchange glances like that.” Martin’s merriment was struck as dead as beech-leaves in frost. “I was doing nothing of the kind,” he said, his temper flashing out. “Helen looked up at the same moment as I looked up. We all three looked up, in fact. It was purely accidental.” Helen was vexed that Martin should speak so, but felt bound to endorse him. “Indeed, father, it is so,” she said. Again the silence descended, and Martin, seeing that both his father and sister had finished their meat, changed their plates and arranged the second course. After a very long pause their father spoke again. “I should have thought my children might have had something to say to me in the evening when they have left me alone all day, enjoying themselves elsewhere. Has nothing happened to you since breakfast which I am worthy of hearing?” Martin’s intolerance of this injustice again stung him into ill-advised speech.