‘I hope to God my mother is well!’ Evan groaned.

‘That’ll do,’ said Mr. Andrew.  ‘Don’t say any more.’

As he spoke, he clapped Evan kindly on the back.

A message was brought from the ladies, requiring Evan to wait on them.  He returned after some minutes.

‘How do you think Harriet’s looking?’ asked Mr. Andrew.  And, not waiting for an answer, whispered,

‘Are they going down to the funeral, my boy?’

Evan’s brow was dark, as he replied:  ‘They are not decided.’

‘Won’t Harriet go?’

‘She is not going—­she thinks not.’

‘And the Countess—­Louisa’s upstairs, eh?—­will she go?’

‘She cannot leave the Count—­she thinks not.’

‘Won’t Caroline go?  Caroline can go.  She—­he—­I mean—­Caroline can go?’

‘The Major objects.  She wishes to.’

Mr. Andrew struck out his arm, and uttered, ’the Major!’—­a compromise for a loud anathema.  But the compromise was vain, for he sinned again in an explosion against appearances.

’I’m a brewer, Van.  Do you think I’m ashamed of it?  Not while I brew good beer, my boy!—­not while I brew good beer!  They don’t think worse of me in the House for it.  It isn’t ungentlemanly to brew good beer, Van.  But what’s the use of talking?’

Mr. Andrew sat down, and murmured, ‘Poor girl! poor girl!’

The allusion was to his wife; for presently he said:  ’I can’t see why
Harriet can’t go.  What’s to prevent her?’

Evan gazed at him steadily.  Death’s levelling influence was in Evan’s mind.  He was ready to say why, and fully.

Mr. Andrew arrested him with a sharp ’Never mind!  Harriet does as she likes.  I’m accustomed to—­hem! what she does is best, after all.  She doesn’t interfere with my business, nor I with hers.  Man and wife.’

Pausing a moment or so, Mr. Andrew intimated that they had better be dressing for dinner.  With his hand on the door, which he kept closed, he said, in a businesslike way, ’You know, Van, as for me, I should be very willing—­only too happy—­to go down and pay all the respect I could.’  He became confused, and shot his head from side to side, looking anywhere but at Evan.  ’Happy now and to-morrow, to do anything in my power, if Harriet—­follow the funeral—­one of the family—­anything I could do:  but—­a—­we ‘d better be dressing for dinner.’  And out the enigmatic little man went.

Evan partly divined him then.  But at dinner his behaviour was perplexing.  He was too cheerful.  He pledged the Count.  He would have the Portuguese for this and that, and make Anglican efforts to repeat it, and laugh at his failures.  He would not see that there was a father dead.  At a table of actors, Mr. Andrew overdid his part, and was the worst.  His wife could not help thinking him a heartless little man.