-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.

The poor show had its term. The ladies fled to the boudoir sacred
to grief. Evan was whispered that he was to join them when he might,
without seeming mysterious to the Count. Before he reached them,
they had talked tearfully over the clothes he should wear at Lymport,
agreeing that his present foreign apparel, being black, would be
su