The courage that mounteth with occasion was eminently the attribute of the Countess de Saldar.  After that dreadful dinner she (since the weaknesses of great generals should not be altogether ignored), did pray for flight and total obscurity, but Caroline could not be left in her hysteric state, and now that she really perceived that Evan was progressing and on the point of sealing his chance, the devoted lady resolved to hold her ground.  Besides, there was the pic-nic.  The Countess had one dress she had not yet appeared in, and it was for the picnic she kept it.  That small motives are at the bottom of many illustrious actions is a modern discovery; but I shall not adopt the modern principle of magnifying the small motive till it overshadows my noble heroine.  I remember that the small motive is only to be seen by being borne into the range of my vision by a powerful microscope; and if I do more than see—­if I carry on my reflections by the aid of the glass, I arrive at conclusions that must be false.  Men who dwarf human nature do this.  The gods are juster.  The Countess, though she wished to remain for the pic-nic, and felt warm in anticipation of the homage to her new dress, was still a gallant general and a devoted sister, and if she said to herself, ’Come what may, I will stay for that pic-nic, and they shall not brow-beat me out of it,’ it is that trifling pleasures are noisiest about the heart of human nature:  not that they govern us absolutely.  There is mob-rule in minds as in communities, but the Countess had her appetites in excellent drill.  This pic-nic surrendered, represented to her defeat in all its ignominy.  The largest longest-headed of schemes ask occasionally for something substantial and immediate.  So the Countess stipulated with Providence for the pic-nic.  It was a point to be passed:  ‘Thorough flood, thorough fire.’

In vain poor Andrew Cogglesby, to whom the dinner had been torture, and who was beginning to see the position they stood in at Beckley, begged to be allowed to take them away, or to go alone.  The Countess laughed him into submission.  As a consequence of her audacious spirits she grew more charming and more natural, and the humour that she possessed, but which, like her other faculties, was usually subordinate to her plans, gave spontaneous bursts throughout the day, and delighted her courtiers.  Nor did the men at all dislike the difference of her manner with them, and with the ladies.  I may observe that a woman who shows a marked depression in the presence of her own sex will be thought very superior by ours; that is, supposing she is clever and agreeable.  Manhood distinguishes what flatters it.  A lady approaches.  ‘We must be proper,’ says the Countess, and her hearty laugh dies with suddenness and is succeeded by the maturest gravity.  And the Countess can look a profound merriment with perfect sedateness when there appears to be an equivoque in company.  Finely secret are her glances, as if under every eye-lash there lurked the shade of a meaning.  What she meant was not so clear.  All this was going on, and Lady Jocelyn was simply amused, and sat as at a play.