“My sister’s fables? I do not want to hear them. Her signature speaks for her. Besides, I can have the whole facts of the transaction from the jeweler. No ingenuity of hers can ever explain them away.” “You are very harsh.” “I am far from harsh. And of my harshness or my mildness you cannot be the judge.” “Why not?” “Because you are the daughter of a man who knew nothing of honor, or of its exactions, and that instinct is not acquired in a single generation.” “Have twenty-three generations of nobility bequeathed it to your sister?” was the retort which sprang to her lips, but she generously and valorously kept it unspoken. Her white skin flushed hotly and painfully at the insult, which was to her what a blow would have been to a man. She did not resent, but she suffered intensely. What he had said was so completely the reflection of her own feelings that it seemed to burn itself into her brain like a branding-iron. Oh, to have come of some stainless and valiant race, with traditions of a past great and pure! What she would have given for that heritage of barren honor, which would have been, in her keeping, virgin and puissant, as a kingdom guarded against every foe! For an instant she was tempted to go and unlock the drawer in which all the memoranda of his sister’s other debts were lying, and put them before him and say: “Did a thousand years of nobility teach honor and honesty to her?” But she resisted the temptation. He was humiliated and embittered, and this insolence of his speech was, she thought, to be forgiven to him. She said nothing in protest or defence; but there was that in her expression which touched him to repentance for his utterance. He felt that she had deserved better at his hands, though he could not bend his pride to say so. He was silent some moments, so was she--a silence of pain and of embarrassment. At length, with a great effort, he forced himself to say to her: “I should not have said that. I beg your pardon. It was offensive.” She made a slight inclination of the head, as if to accept the apology. “You said what is generally true, I believe. But there may be exceptions.” His apology could not efface the impression of his speech, which seemed like vitriol thrown in her face. The impression of pain which his speech left on her was so poignant that she felt as if it would never pass away. He was violently and bitterly prejudiced against her; he was incapable of being just to her; she seemed to him steeped in the villainy of all that ill-gotten gold in which she had her being; but he could not but acknowledge the dignity and simplicity of her attitude under insult, and he was conscious that he had insulted her grossly. After all, the disgrace of his sister was no fault of hers.