‘Really—­yes, or no?’ added the Countess.

‘So unaccountable a whim!’ Caroline looked in the glass dolefully, and pulled up her thick locks from one cheek, letting them fall on the instant.

‘She will?’ breathed the Countess.

‘I really cannot,’ said Caroline, with vehemence.

The Countess burst into laughter, replying:  ’My poor child! it is not my whim—­it is your obligation.  George Uplift dines here to-day.  Now do you divine it?  Disguise is imperative for you.’

Mrs. Strike, gazing in her sister’s face, answered slowly, ’George?  But how will you meet him?’ she hurriedly asked.

‘I have met him,’ rejoined the Countess, boldly.  ’I defy him to know me.  I brazen him!  You with your hair in my style are equally safe.  You see there is no choice.  Pooh! contemptible puppy!’

’But I never,’—­Caroline was going to say she never could face him.  ’I will not dine.  I will nurse Evan.’

‘You have faced him, my dear,’ said the Countess, ’and you are to change your head-dress simply to throw him off his scent.’

As she spoke the Countess tripped about, nodding her head like a girl.  Triumph in the sense of her power over all she came in contact with, rather elated the lady.

Do you see why she worked her sister in this roundabout fashion?  She would not tell her George Uplift was in the house till she was sure he intended to stay, for fear of frightening her.  When the necessity became apparent, she put it under the pretext of a whim in order to see how far Caroline, whose weak compliance she could count on, and whose reticence concerning the Duke annoyed her, would submit to it to please her sister; and if she rebelled positively, why to be sure it was the Duke she dreaded to shock:  and, therefore, the Duke had a peculiar hold on her:  and, therefore, the Countess might reckon that she would do more than she pleased to confess to remain with the Duke, and was manageable in that quarter.  All this she learnt without asking.  I need not add, that Caroline sighingly did her bidding.

‘We must all be victims in our turn, Carry,’ said the Countess.  ’Evan’s prospects—­it may be, Silva’s restoration—­depend upon your hair being dressed plain to-day.  Reflect on that!’

Poor Caroline obeyed; but she was capable of reflecting only that her face was unnaturally lean and strange to her.

The sisters tended and arranged one another, taking care to push their mourning a month or two ahead and the Countess animadverted on the vulgar mind of Lady Jocelyn, who would allow a ’gentleman to sit down at a gentlewoman’s table, in full company, in pronounced undress’:  and Caroline, utterly miserable, would pretend that she wore a mask and kept grimacing as they do who are not accustomed to paint on the cheeks, till the Countess checked her by telling her she should ask her for that before the Duke.

After a visit to Evan, the sisters sailed together into the drawing-room.