“Anything wrong with the coffee?” Miss Notman asked anxiously.

He rushed on his fate.  He said, “Nothing whatever.  Pray go on.”

Miss Notman went on.

“You see, Father, Lady Loring was unusually particular about the dinner on this occasion.  She said, ’Lord Loring reminds me that Mr. Romayne is a very little eater, and yet very difficult to please in what he does eat.’  Of course I consulted my experience, and suggested exactly the sort of dinner that was wanted under the circumstances.  I wish to do her ladyship the utmost justice.  She made no objection to the dinner in itself.  On the contrary, she complimented me on what she was pleased to call my ready invention.  But when we came next to the order in which the dishes were to be served—­” Miss Notman paused in the middle of the sentence, and shuddered over the private and poignant recollections which the order of the dishes called up.

By this time Father Benwell had discovered his mistake.  He took a mean advantage of Miss Notman’s susceptibilities to slip his own private inquiries into the interval of silence.

“Pardon my ignorance,” he said; “my own poor dinner is a matter of ten minutes and one dish.  I don’t understand a difference of opinion on a dinner for three people only; Lord and Lady Loring, two; Mr. Romayne, three—­oh! perhaps I am mistaken?  Perhaps Miss Eyrecourt makes a fourth?”

“Certainly, Father!”

“A very charming person, Miss Notman.  I only speak as a stranger.  You, no doubt, are much better acquainted with Miss Eyrecourt?”

“Much better, indeed—­if I may presume to say so,” Miss Notman replied.  “She is my lady’s intimate friend; we have often talked of Miss Eyrecourt during the many years of my residence in this house.  On such subjects, her ladyship treats me quite on the footing of a humble friend.  A complete contrast to the tone she took, Father, when we came to the order of the dishes.  We agreed, of course, about the soup and the fish; but we had a little, a very little, divergence of opinion, as I may call it, on the subject of the dishes to follow.  Her ladyship said, ‘First the sweetbreads, and then the cutlets.’  I ventured to suggest that the sweetbreads, as white meat, had better not immediately follow the turbot, as white fish.  ‘The brown meat, my lady,’ I said, ’as an agreeable variety presented to the eye, and then the white meat, recalling pleasant remembrances of the white fish.’  You see the point, Father?”

“I see, Miss Notman, that you are a consummate mistress of an art which is quite beyond poor me.  Was Miss Eyrecourt present at the little discussion?”

“Oh, no!  Indeed, I should have objected to her presence; I should have said she was a young lady out of her proper place.”

“Yes; I understand.  Is Miss Eyrecourt an only child?”

“She had two sisters, Father Benwell.  One of them is in a convent.”

“Ah, indeed?”