Lester Vane regarded him with a glance of scornful contempt, and replied in a haughty, supercilious tone--“My good man, you forget yourself and presume. Let me give you distinctly to understand that I differ with you in your view of the laws and regulations which govern the position of visitors in this or any house. Mr. Wilton is undoubtedly master in his house and of his own actions, but I am no less the master of mine. Mr. Wilton, in his eccentricity, may choose to invite here some pin-maker’s son or apprentice, it is immaterial which, but I am not bound to entertain violent feelings of friendship for him, or even to associate with him. What is more, I do not choose to do so.” He was about to leave the room but Hal caught him by the wrist. “No,” he said, “pardon me: you cannot go this moment.” Vane tried to fling him off, but Hal held him as if he were in a vice, and said-- “It will be unadvisable to struggle or to raise your voice, because I shall then consider you desire to make the household a witness to our brief discussion, and I shall deem you coward as well as poltroon. Now, sir, mark me, I repeat it--in this house I stand your equal; out of it, your superior--ay, sir, your superior. You may be, as the son of a poor lord, an empty-pocketed Honorable, without deserving even that appellative, for honour is independent of condition. You may possess a town-house, at which the sheriff’s officer is the most frequent visitor; you may drive a carriage obtained upon promise of payment, attended by a groom in arrears of a wages; you may move in fashionable circles, attired in clothes not paid for, or display at times money wrung by hard pleading from usurers at exorbitant interest; you may do worse even than all this, for in your ‘view’ to be honourable is not to be honest, but no item of that foul list entitles you to treat me with scorn, or to reflect upon my birth or position. Nor shall it. I will not permit your very brassy nobility to be flashed in my eyes, and sounded in my ears as pure gold. I know the ring of the true metal too well for that. If I am a pin-maker, I scorn to do a dishonourable action, and, therefore, I may justly, which you cannot, lay a claim to the title of ‘Honorable.’ And now let me warn you, that as I hold myself to be, in all particulars upon which manhood may pride itself, infinitely your superior, any further insult, tacit or direct, will be resented by me in such manner as your courage or your cowardice may determine. Now go.” He flung him from him; then, turning his back, he walked slowly to the window, which was open, and stepped upon the terrace, strolling with a calm and seemingly imperturbed manner along the tesselated pavement.