Evan enjoyed the doctoring of kingdoms quite as well as the diplomatist.  It suited the latent grandeur of soul inherited by him from the great Mel.  He liked to prop Austria and arrest the Czar, and keep a watchful eye on France; but the Honourable Melville’s deep-mouthed phrase conjured up to him a pair of colossal legs imperiously demanding their Balance likewise.  At first the image scared him.  In time he was enabled to smile it into phantom vagueness.  The diplomatist diplomatically informed him, it might happen that the labours he had undertaken might be neither more nor less than education for a profession he might have to follow.  Out of this, an ardent imagination, with the Countess de Saldar for an interpreter, might construe a promise of some sort.  Evan soon had high hopes.  What though his name blazed on a shop-front?  The sun might yet illumine him to honour!

Where a young man is getting into delicate relations with a young woman, the more of his sex the better—­they serve as a blind; and the Countess hailed fresh arrivals warmly.  There was Sir John Loring, Dorothy’s father, who had married the eldest of the daughters of Lord Elburne.  A widower, handsome, and a flirt, he capitulated to the Countess instantly, and was played off against the provincial Don Juan, who had reached that point with her when youths of his description make bashful confidences of their successes, and receive delicious chidings for their naughtiness—­rebukes which give immeasurable rebounds.  Then came Mr. Gordon Graine, with his daughter, Miss Jenny Graine, an early friend of Rose’s, and numerous others.  For the present, Miss Isabella Current need only be chronicled among the visitors—­a sprightly maid fifty years old, without a wrinkle to show for it—­the Aunt Bel of fifty houses where there were young women and little boys.  Aunt Bel had quick wit and capital anecdotes, and tripped them out aptly on a sparkling tongue with exquisite instinct for climax and when to strike for a laugh.  No sooner had she entered the hall than she announced the proximate arrival of the Duke of Belfield at her heels, and it was known that his Grace was as sure to follow as her little dog, who was far better paid for his devotion.

The dinners at Beckley Court had hitherto been rather languid to those who were not intriguing or mixing young love with the repast.  Miss Current was an admirable neutral, sent, as the Countess fervently believed, by Providence.  Till now the Countess had drawn upon her own resources to amuse the company, and she had been obliged to restrain herself from doing it with that unctuous feeling for rank which warmed her Portuguese sketches in low society and among her sisters.  She retired before Miss Current and formed audience, glad of a relief to her inventive labour.  While Miss Current and her ephemerals lightly skimmed the surface of human life, the Countess worked in the depths.  Vanities, passions, prejudices beneath the surface, gave her full employment.