Coarse food, but then Harry was a youthful Englishman; and the Countess dieted the vanity according to the nationality.  With good wine to wash it down, one can swallow anything.  The Countess lent him her eyes for that purpose; eyes that had a liquid glow under the dove—­like drooping lids.  It was a principle of hers, pampering our poor sex with swinish solids or the lightest ambrosia, never to let the accompanying cordial be other than of the finest quality.  She knew that clowns, even more than aristocrats, are flattered by the inebriation of delicate celestial liquors.

‘Now,’ she said, after Harry had gulped as much of the dose as she chose to administer direct from the founts, ’you must accord me the favour to tell me all about yourself, for I have heard much of you, Mr. Harry Jocelyn, and you have excited my woman’s interest.  Of me you know nothing.’

‘Haven’t I?’ cried Harry, speaking to the pitch of his new warmth.  ’My uncle Melville goes on about you tremendously—­makes his wife as jealous as fire.  How could I tell that was your brother?’

‘Your uncle has deigned to allude to me?’ said the Countess, meditatively.  ‘But not of him—­of you, Mr. Harry!  What does he say?’

‘Says you’re so clever you ought to be a man.’

‘Ah! generous!’ exclaimed the Countess.  ’The idea, I think, is novel to him.  Is it not?’

’Well, I believe, from what I hear, he didn’t back you for much over in Lisbon,’ said veracious Harry.

’I fear he is deceived in me now.  I fear I am but a woman—­I am not to be “backed.”  But you are not talking of yourself.’

‘Oh! never mind me,’ was Harry’s modest answer.

’But I do.  Try to imagine me as clever as a man, and talk to me of your doings.  Indeed I will endeavour to comprehend you.’

Thus humble, the Countess bade him give her his arm.  He stuck it out with abrupt eagerness.

‘Not against my cheek.’  She laughed forgivingly.  ’And you need not start back half-a-mile,’ she pursued with plain humour:  ’and please do not look irresolute and awkward—­It is not necessary,’ she added.  ‘There!’; and she settled her fingers on him, ’I am glad I can find one or two things to instruct you in.  Begin.  You are a great cricketer.  What else?’

Ay! what else?  Harry might well say he had no wish to talk of himself.  He did not know even how to give his arm to a lady!  The first flattery and the subsequent chiding clashed in his elated soul, and caused him to deem himself one of the blest suddenly overhauled by an inspecting angel and found wanting:  or, in his own more accurate style of reflection, ’What a rattling fine woman this is, and what a deuce of a fool she must think me!’

The Countess leaned on his arm with dainty languor.

‘You walk well,’ she said.

Harry’s backbone straightened immediately.