“Yes,” said the Countess, in a languid alien accent. “He has something of his father’s carriage—something. Something of his delivery—his readiness.”
It was a remarkable thing that these ladies thought no man on earth like their father, and always cited him as the example of a perfect gentleman, and yet they buried him with one mind, and each mounted guard over his sepulchre, to secure his ghost from an airing.
“He can walk, my dears, certainly, and talk—a little. Tête-à-tête, I do not say. I should think there he would be—a stick! All you English are. But what sort of a bow has he got, I ask you? How does he enter a room? And, then his smile! his laugh! He laughs like a horse—absolutely! There’s no music in his smile. Oh! you should see a Portuguese nobleman smile. Oh! Dios! honeyed, my dears! But Evan has it not. None of you English have. You go so.”
The Countess pressed a thumb and finger to the sides of her mouth, and set her sisters laughing.
“I assure you, no better! not a bit! I faint in your society. I ask myself—Where am I? Among what boors have I fallen? But Evan is no worse than the rest of you; I acknowledge that. If he knew how to dress his shoulders properly, and to direct his eyes—Oh! the eyes! you should see how a Portuguese nobleman can use his eyes! Soul! my dears, soul! Can any of you look the unutterable without being absurd! You look so.”
And the Countess hung her jaw under heavily vacuous orbits, something as a sheep might yawn.
“But I acknowledge that Evan is no worse than the rest of you,” she repeated. “If he understood at all the management of his eyes and mouth! But that’s what he cannot possibly learn in England—not possibly! As for your poor husband, Harriet! one really has to remember his excellent qualities to forgive him, poor man! And that stiff bandbox of a man of yours, Caroline!” addressing the wife of the Marine, “he looks as if he were all angles and sections, and were taken to pieces every night and put together in the morning. He may be a good soldier—good anything you will—but, Dios! to be married to that! He is not civilized. None of you English are. You have no place in the drawing-room. You are like so many intrusive oxen—absolutely! One of your men trod on my toe the other night, and what do you think the creature did? Jerks back, then the half of him forward—I thought he was going to break in two—then grins, and grunts, ‘Oh! ’m sure, beg pardon, ’m sure!’ I don’t know whether he didn’t say, MA’AM!”
The Countess lifted her hands, and fell away in laughing horror. When her humour, or her feelings generally, were a little excited, she spoke her vernacular as her sisters did, but immediately subsided into the deliberate delicately-syllabled drawl.
“Now that happened to me once at one of our great Balls,” she pursued. “I had on one side of me the Duchesse Eugenia de Formosa de Fontandigua; on the other sat the Countess de Pel, a widow. And we were talking of the ices that evening. Eugenia, you must know, my dears, was in love with the Count Belmaraña. I was her sole confidante. The Countess de Pel—a horrible creature! Oh! she was the Duchess’s determined enemy—would have stabbed her for Belmaraña, one of the most beautiful men! Adored by every woman! So we talked ices, Eugenic and myself, quite comfortably, and that horrible De Pel had no idea in life! Eugenia had just said, ‘This ice sickens me! I do not taste the flavour of the vanille.’ I answered, ‘It is here! It must—it cannot but be here! You love the flavour of the vanille?’ With her exquisite smile, I see her now saying, ‘Too well! it is necessary to me! I live on it!’—when up he came. In his eagerness, his foot just effleured my robe. Oh! I never shall forget! In an instant he was down on one knee it was so momentary that none saw it but we three, and done with ineffable grace. ‘Pardon!’ he said, in his sweet Portuguese; ‘Pardon!’ looking up—the handsomest man I ever beheld; and when I think of that odious wretch the other night, with his ‘Oh! ’m sure, beg pardon, ’m sure! ’pon my honour!’ I could have kicked him—I could, indeed!”
Here the Countess laughed out, but relapsed into: