There was more to eat and drink, and the talk was fast and lively.

Peter was very silent.

So quiet, that Mrs.Gallagher told her "take in" that she "guessed that young Stirling wasn't used to real fashionable dinners," and Peter's partner quite disregarded him for the rattling, breezy talker on her other side.

After the dinner Peter had a pleasant chat with the Justice's seventeen-year-old daughter, who was just from a Catholic convent, and the two tried to talk in French.

It is wonderful what rubbish is tolerable if only talked in a foreign tongue.
"I don't see what you wanted to have that Stirling for ?" said Honorable Mrs.Justice Gallagher, to him who conferred that proud title upon her, after the guests had departed.
"You are clever, arn't you ?" said Gallagher, bitingly.
"That's living with you," retorted the H.M.J., who was not easily put down.
"Then you see that you treat Stirling as if he was somebody.