Madame Dor was not in the room.  Neither was there any visible place reserved for her when they sat down to table.  Obenreizer explained that it was “the good Dor’s simple habit to dine always in the middle of the day.  She would make her excuses later in the evening.”  Vendale wondered whether the good Dor had, on this occasion, varied her domestic employment from cleaning Obenreizer’s gloves to cooking Obenreizer’s dinner.  This at least was certain—­the dishes served were, one and all, as achievements in cookery, high above the reach of the rude elementary art of England.  The dinner was unobtrusively perfect.  As for the wine, the eyes of the speechless friend rolled over it, as in solemn ecstasy.  Sometimes he said “Good!” when a bottle came in full; and sometimes he said “Ah!” when a bottle went out empty—­and there his contributions to the gaiety of the evening ended.

Silence is occasionally infectious.  Oppressed by private anxieties of their own, Marguerite and Vendale appeared to feel the influence of the speechless friend.  The whole responsibility of keeping the talk going rested on Obenreizer’s shoulders, and manfully did Obenreizer sustain it.  He opened his heart in the character of an enlightened foreigner, and sang the praises of England.  When other topics ran dry, he returned to this inexhaustible source, and always set the stream running again as copiously as ever.  Obenreizer would have given an arm, an eye, or a leg to have been born an Englishman.  Out of England there was no such institution as a home, no such thing as a fireside, no such object as a beautiful woman.  His dear Miss Marguerite would excuse him, if he accounted for her attractions on the theory that English blood must have mixed at some former time with their obscure and unknown ancestry.  Survey this English nation, and behold a tall, clean, plump, and solid people!  Look at their cities!  What magnificence in their public buildings!  What admirable order and propriety in their streets!  Admire their laws, combining the eternal principle of justice with the other eternal principle of pounds, shillings, and pence; and applying the product to all civil injuries, from an injury to a man’s honour, to an injury to a man’s nose!  You have ruined my daughter—­pounds, shillings, and pence!  You have knocked me down with a blow in my face—­pounds, shillings, and pence!  Where was the material prosperity of such a country as that to stop?  Obenreizer, projecting himself into the future, failed to see the end of it.  Obenreizer’s enthusiasm entreated permission to exhale itself, English fashion, in a toast.  Here is our modest little dinner over, here is our frugal dessert on the table, and here is the admirer of England conforming to national customs, and making a speech!  A toast to your white cliffs of Albion, Mr. Vendale! to your national virtues, your charming climate, and your fascinating women! to your Hearths, to your Homes, to your Habeas Corpus, and to all your other institutions!  In one word—­to England!  Heep-heep-heep! hooray!