You have no place in the drawing-room.  You are like so many intrusive oxen—­absolutely!  One of your men trod on my toe the other night, and what do you think the creature did?  Jerks back, then the half of him forward—­I thought he was going to break in two—­then grins, and grunts, “Oh! ’m sure, beg pardon, ’m sure!” I don’t know whether he didn’t say, MARM!’

The Countess lifted her hands, and fell away in laughing horror.  When her humour, or her feelings generally, were a little excited, she spoke her vernacular as her sisters did, but immediately subsided into the deliberate delicately-syllabled drawl.

‘Now that happened to me once at one of our great Balls,’ she pursued.  ’I had on one side of me the Duchesse Eugenia de Formosa de Fontandigua; on the other sat the Countess de Pel, a widow.  And we were talking of the ices that evening.  Eugenia, you must know, my dears, was in love with the Count Belmarana.  I was her sole confidante.  The Countess de Pel—­a horrible creature!  Oh! she was the Duchess’s determined enemy-would have stabbed her for Belmarana, one of the most beautiful men!  Adored by every woman!  So we talked ices, Eugenic and myself, quite comfortably, and that horrible De Pel had no idea in life!  Eugenia had just said, “This ice sickens me!  I do not taste the flavour of the vanille.”  I answered, “It is here!  It must—­it cannot but be here!  You love the flavour of the vanille?” With her exquisite smile, I see her now saying, “Too well! it is necessary to me!  I live on it!”—­when up he came.  In his eagerness, his foot just effleured my robe.  Oh!  I never shall forget!  In an instant he was down on one knee it was so momentary that none saw it but we three, and done with ineffable grace.  “Pardon!” he said, in his sweet Portuguese; “Pardon!” looking up—­the handsomest man I ever beheld; and when I think of that odious wretch the other night, with his “Oh! ’m sure, beg pardon, ’m sure! ’pon my honour!” I could have kicked him—­I could, indeed!’

Here the Countess laughed out, but relapsed into: 

’Alas! that Belmarana should have betrayed that beautiful trusting creature to De Pel.  Such scandal! a duel!—­the Duke was wounded.  For a whole year Eugenia did not dare to appear at Court, but had to remain immured in her country-house, where she heard that Belmarana had married De Pel!  It was for her money, of course.  Rich as Croesus, and as wicked as the black man below! as dear papa used to say.  By the way, weren’t we talking of Evan?  Ah,—­yes!’

And so forth.  The Countess was immensely admired, and though her sisters said that she was ‘foreignized’ overmuch, they clung to her desperately.  She seemed so entirely to have eclipsed tailordom, or ‘Demogorgon,’ as the Countess was pleased to call it.  Who could suppose this grand-mannered lady, with her coroneted anecdotes and delicious breeding, the daughter of that thing?  It was not possible to suppose it.  It seemed to defy the fact itself.