‘I knew him so well!’ resumed the horrid woman, addressing anybody.  ’It was so sad! so unexpected! but he was so subject to affection of the throat.  And I was so sorry I could not get down to him in time.  I had not seen him since his marriage, when I was a girl!—­and to meet one of his children!—­But, my dear, in quinsey, I have heard that there is nothing on earth like a good hearty laugh.’

Mr. Raikes hearing this, sucked down the flavour of a glass of champagne, and with a look of fierce jollity, interposed, as if specially charged by Providence to make plain to the persecuted Countess his mission and business there:  ’Then our vocation is at last revealed to us!  Quinsey-doctor!  I remember when a boy, wandering over the paternal mansion, and envying the life of a tinker, which my mother did not think a good omen in me.  But the traps of a Quinsey-doctor are even lighter.  Say twenty good jokes, and two or three of a practical kind.  A man most enviable!’

‘It appears,’ he remarked aloud to one of the Conley girls, ’that quinsey is needed before a joke is properly appreciated.’

‘I like fun,’ said she, but had not apparently discovered it.

What did that odious woman mean by perpetually talking about Sir Abraham?  The Countess intercepted a glance between her and the hated Juliana.  She felt it was a malignant conspiracy:  still the vacuous vulgar air of the woman told her that most probably she was but an instrument, not a confederate, and was only trying to push herself into acquaintance with the great:  a proceeding scorned and abominated by the Countess, who longed to punish her for her insolent presumption.  The bitterness of her situation stung her tenfold when she considered that she dared not.

Meantime the champagne became as regular in its flow as the Bull-dogs, and the monotonous bass of these latter sounded through the music, like life behind the murmur of pleasure, if you will.  The Countess had a not unfeminine weakness for champagne, and old Mr. Bonner’s cellar was well and choicely stocked.  But was this enjoyment to the Countess?—­this dreary station in the background!  ‘May I emerge?’ she as much as implored Providence.

The petition was infinitely tender.  She thought she might, or it may be that nature was strong, and she could not restrain herself.

Taking wine with Sir John, she said: 

’This bowing!  Do you know how amusing it is deemed by us Portuguese?  Why not embrace? as the dear Queen used to say to me.’

‘I am decidedly of Her Majesty’s opinion,’ observed Sir John, with emphasis, and the Countess drew back into a mingled laugh and blush.

Her fiendish persecutor gave two or three nods.  ’And you know the Queen!’ she said.

She had to repeat the remark:  whereupon the Countess murmured, ‘Intimately.’

‘Ah, we have lost a staunch old Tory in Sir Abraham,’ said the lady, performing lamentation.