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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: overtook him he began: "I will ask you to excuse my hasty--"
"Oh, John Mayrant! What a notion!"
But he was by no means to be put off, and he proceeded with stiffer
formality: "I feel that I have not acted politely just now, and I beg to
assure you that I intended no slight."
My first impulse was to lay a hand upon his shoulder and say to him: "My
dear fellow, stuff and nonsense!" Thus I should have treated any Northern
friend; but here was no Northerner. I am glad that I had the sense to
feel that any careless, good-natured putting away of his deliberate and
definitely tendered apology would seem to him a "slight" on my part. His
punctilious value for certain observances between man and man reached me
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