In the midst of this group Earle, with an air of the most quiet composure, was laying down his propositions one after another, unobservant of and indifferent to the expressions on the different faces around him. "He is very brave," thought Marion; "but surely he is also very foolish. Why should he unnecessarily contradict and vex the old man, who can do so much for him?" A sense of irritation mingled with the admiration which she could not withhold from him. "It would have been easy to say nothing," she thought again; "and yet how well he speaks!"
He did indeed speak well--so well that the attention of Mr. Singleton was gradually drawn from the matter to the manner of his speech. He turned and looked keenly at the young man from under his bent brows.
"You speak," he said, "like an advocate of the cause. How is that?"
"I hope that I should be an advocate of any cause which I believed to be just," answered Brian, quietly; "but I am in a special manner the advocate of this, because I am a Catholic."
"A Catholic!" Mr. Singleton looked as if he could hardly believe the evidence of his ears. "It is not possible that you mean a _Romanist_?"
Earle bent his head, smiling a little. "I mean just that," he said; "or at least what _you_ mean by that. The term is neither very correct nor very courteous, but it expresses the fact clearly enough."
This coolness had the usual effect of provoking Mr. Singleton, yet of making him feel the uselessness of expressing vexation. It was evident that his disgust was as great as his surprise, but he waited a moment before giving expression to either. Then he said, curtly:--
"It is no affair of mine what you choose to call yourself, but I should have more respect for your sense if you told me you were a Buddhist."
"Very likely," returned Earle, with composure; "for in that case I should be following the last whim of fashionable intellectual folly. But, you see, I thought it more sensible to go back to the old faith of our fathers."
"You might have gone back to paganism, then," sneered the other. "That was the faith of our fathers also."
"Very true," assented the young man; "and in that also I should have been following a large train. But I was not in search of a faith simply because it had been that of my fathers. I was in search of a faith which bore the marks of truth, and I found it to be that which some of my fathers unfortunately discarded."