“Abominable language!” cried the Countess, stopping her ears like a child. “Do not excruciate me so. You laugh! My goodness! what will you come to!”
Evan checked his smile, and, taking her hand, said:
“I must tell you; that, on the whole, I see nothing to regret in what has happened to-day. You may notice a change in the manners of the servants and some of the country squiresses, but I find none in the bearing of the real ladies, the true gentlemen, to me.”
“Because the change is too fine for you to perceive it,” interposed the Countess.
“Rose, then, and her mother, and her father!” Evan cried impetuously.
“As for Lady Jocelyn!” the Countess shrugged:
“And Sir Franks!” her head shook: “and Rose, Rose is, simply self-willed; a ‘she will’ or ‘she won’t’ sort of little person. No criterion! Henceforth the world is against us. We have to struggle with it: it does not rank us of it!”
“Your feeling on the point is so exaggerated, my dear Louisa”, said Evan, “one can’t bring reason to your ears. The tattle we shall hear we shall outlive. I care extremely for the good opinion of men, but I prefer my own; and I do not lose it because my father was in trade.”
“And your own name, Evan Harrington, is on a shop,” the Countess struck in, and watched him severely from under her brow, glad to mark that he could still blush.
“Oh, heaven!” she wailed to increase the effect, “on a shop! a brother of mine!”