‘Eat here?’ Mrs. Pagnell asked, observing the preparations for the meal.  Her pride quailed, her stomach abjured appetite.  But she forbore from asking how it was that the Countess of Ormont had come to the place.

At a symptom of her intention to indulge in disgust; Aminta brought up Mr. Morsfield by name; whereupon Mrs. Pagnell showed she had reflected on her conduct in relation to the gentleman, and with the fear of the earl if she were questioned.

Home-made bread and butter, fresh eggs and sparkling fat of bacon invited her to satisfy her hunger.  Aminta let her sniff at the teapot unpunished; the tea had a rustic aroma of ground-ivy, reminding Weyburn of his mother’s curiosity to know the object of an old man’s plucking of hedgeside leaves in the environs of Bruges one day, and the simple reply to her French, ‘Tea for the English.’  A hint of an anecdote interested and enriched the stores of Mrs. Pagnell, so she capped it and partook of the infusion ruefully.

‘But the bread is really good,’ she said, ’and we are unlikely to be seen leaving the place by any person of importance.’

‘Unless Mr. Morsfield should be advised to return this way,’ said Aminta.

Her aunt proposed for a second cup.  She was a manageable woman; the same scourge had its instant wholesome effect on her when she snubbed the secretary.

So she complimented his trencherman’s knife, of which the remarkably fine edge was proof enough that he had come heart-whole out of the trial of an hour or so’s intimate companionship with a beautiful woman, who had never been loved, never could be loved by man, as poor Mr. Morsfield loved her!  He had sworn to having fasted three whole days and nights after his first sight of Aminta.  Once, he said, her eyes pierced him so that he dreamed of a dagger in his bosom, and woke himself plucking at it.  That was love, as a born gentleman connected with a baronetcy and richer than many lords took the dreadful passion.  A secretary would have no conception of such devoted extravagance.  At the most he might have attempted to insinuate a few absurd, sheepish soft nothings, and the Countess of Ormont would know right well how to shrivel him with one of her looks.  No lady of the land could convey so much either way, to attract or to repel, as Aminta, Countess of Ormont!  And the man, the only man, insensible to her charm or her scorn, was her own wedded lord and husband.  Old, to be sure, and haughty, his pride might not allow him to overlook poor Mr. Morsfield’s unintentional offence.  But the presence of the countess’s aunt was a reply to any charge he might seek to establish.  Unhappily, the case is one between men on their touchiest point, when women are pushed aside, and justice and religion as well.  We might be living in a heathen land, for aught that morality has to say.