‘You do not object to plain diet?’ said Harriet to Louisa.

‘Oh, no, in verity!’ murmured the Countess.  ’However plain it be!  Absence of appetite, dearest.  You are aware I partook of luncheon at mid-day with the Honourable and Reverend Mr. Duffian.  You must not look condemnation at your Louy for that.  Luncheon is not conversion!’

Harriet observed that this might be true; but still, to her mind, it was a mistake to be too intimate with dangerous people.  ‘And besides,’ she added, ’Mr. Duffian is no longer “the Reverend.”  We deprive all renegades of their spiritual titles.  His worldly ones let him keep.’

Her superb disdain nettled the Countess.

‘Dear Harriet!’ she said, with less languor, ’You are utterly and totally and entirely mistaken.  I tell you so positively.  Renegade!  The application of such a word to such a man!  Oh! and it is false, Harriet quite!  Renegade means one who has gone over to the Turks, my dear.  I am almost certain I saw it in Johnson’s Dictionary, or an:  improvement upon Johnson, by a more learned author.  But there is the fact, if Harriet can only bring her—­shall I say stiff-necked prejudices to envisage it?’

Harriet granted her sister permission to apply the phrases she stood in need of, without impeaching her intimacy with the most learned among lexicographers.

‘And is there no such thing as being too severe?’ the Countess resumed.  ‘What our enemies call unchristian!’

‘Mr. Duffian has no cause to complain of us,’ said Harriet.

’Nor does he do so, dearest.  Calumny may assail him; you may utterly denude him—­’

‘Adam!’ interposed Andrew, distractedly listening.  He did not disturb the Countess’s flow.

’You may vilify and victimize Mr. Duffian, and strip him of the honours of his birth, but, like the Martyrs, he will still continue the perfect nobleman.  Stoned, I assure you that Mr. Duffian would preserve his breeding.  In character he is exquisite; a polish to defy misfortune.’

‘I suppose his table is good?’ said Harriet, almost ruffled by the Countess’s lecture.

‘Plate,’ was remarked in the cold tone of supreme indifference.

‘Hem! good wines?’ Andrew asked, waking up a little and not wishing to be excluded altogether.

‘All is of the very best,’ the Countess pursued her eulogy, not looking at him.

‘Don’t you think you could—­eh, Harry?—­manage a pint for me, my dear?’ Andrew humbly petitioned.  ’This cold water—­ha! ha! my stomach don’t like cold bathing.’

His wretched joke rebounded from the impenetrable armour of the ladies.

‘The wine-cellar is locked,’ said his wife.  ’I have sealed up the key till an inventory can be taken by some agent of the creditors.’

‘What creditors?’ roared Andrew.

‘You can have some of the servants’ beer,’ Mrs. Cogglesby appended.