Mr. Andrew arrested him with a sharp ’Never mind!  Harriet does as she likes.  I’m accustomed to—­hem! what she does is best, after all.  She doesn’t interfere with my business, nor I with hers.  Man and wife.’

Pausing a moment or so, Mr. Andrew intimated that they had better be dressing for dinner.  With his hand on the door, which he kept closed, he said, in a businesslike way, ’You know, Van, as for me, I should be very willing—­only too happy—­to go down and pay all the respect I could.’  He became confused, and shot his head from side to side, looking anywhere but at Evan.  ’Happy now and to-morrow, to do anything in my power, if Harriet—­follow the funeral—­one of the family—­anything I could do:  but—­a—­we ‘d better be dressing for dinner.’  And out the enigmatic little man went.

Evan partly divined him then.  But at dinner his behaviour was perplexing.  He was too cheerful.  He pledged the Count.  He would have the Portuguese for this and that, and make Anglican efforts to repeat it, and laugh at his failures.  He would not see that there was a father dead.  At a table of actors, Mr. Andrew overdid his part, and was the worst.  His wife could not help thinking him a heartless little man.

The poor show had its term.  The ladies fled to the boudoir sacred to grief.  Evan was whispered that he was to join them when he might, without seeming mysterious to the Count.  Before he reached them, they had talked tearfully over the clothes he should wear at Lymport, agreeing that his present foreign apparel, being black, would be suitable, and would serve almost as disguise, to the inhabitants at large; and as Evan had no English wear, and there was no time to procure any for him, that was well.  They arranged exactly how long he should stay at Lymport, whom he should visit, the manner he should adopt toward the different inhabitants.  By all means he was to avoid the approach of the gentry.  For hours Evan, in a trance, half stupefied, had to listen to the Countess’s directions how he was to comport himself in Lymport.

’Show that you have descended among them, dear Van, but are not of them.  Our beautiful noble English poet expresses it so.  You have come to pay the last mortal duties, which they will respect, if they are not brutes, and attempt no familiarities.  Allow none:  gently, but firmly.  Imitate Silva.  You remember, at Dona Risbonda’s ball?  When he met the Comte de Dartigues, and knew he was to be in disgrace with his Court on the morrow?  Oh! the exquisite shade of difference in Silva’s behaviour towards the Comte.  So finely, delicately perceptible to the Comte, and not a soul saw it but that wretched Frenchman!  He came to me:  “Madame,” he said, “is a question permitted?” I replied, “As-many as you please, M. le Comte, but no answers promised.”  He said:  “May I ask if the Courier has yet come in?”—­“Nay, M. le Comte,” I replied, “this is diplomacy.  Inquire of me, or better, give me an opinion on the