'I agree with you, sir,' said Pierre, bowing. 'I fully agree with you. And now, madam, let us talk of something else.'
'You madam me very punctiliously this morning, Mr. Glendinning,' said his mother, half bitterly smiling, and half openly offended, but still more surprised at Pierre's frigid demeanour.
'"Honour thy father and mother,"' said Pierre—'both father and mother,' he unconsciously added. 'And now that it strikes me, Mr. Falsgrave, and now that we have become so strangely polemical this morning, let me say, that as that command is justly said to be the only one with a promise, so it seems to be without any contingency in the application. It would seem—would it not, sir?—that the most deceitful and hypocritical of fathers should be equally honoured by the son, as the purest.'
'So it would certainly seem, according to the strict letter of the Decalogue—certainly.'
'And do you think, sir, that it should be so held, and so applied in actual life? For instance, should I honour my father, if I knew him to be a seducer?'
'Pierre! Pierre!' said his mother, profoundly colouring, and half rising; 'there is no need of these argumentative assumptions. You very immensely forget yourself this morning.'
'It is merely the interest of the general question, madam,' returned Pierre, coldly. 'I am sorry. If your former objection does not apply here, Mr. Falsgrave, will you favour me with an answer to my question?'
'There you are again, Mr. Glendinning,' said the clergyman, thankful for Pierre's hint; 'that is another question in morals absolutely incapable of a definite answer, which shall be universally applicable.' Again the surplice-like napkin chanced to drop.
