CHAPTER XXXVII. THE RETREAT FROM BECKLEY

Never would the Countess believe that brother of hers, idiot as by
nature he might be, and heir to unnumbered epithets, would so far forget
what she had done for him, as to drag her through the mud for nothing:
and so she told Caroline again and again, vehemently.

It was about ten minutes before the time for descending to the
breakfast-table. She was dressed, and sat before the glass, smoothing
her hair, and applying the contents of a pot of cold cream to her
forehead between-whiles. With perfect sincerity she repeated that she
could not believe it. She had only trusted Evan once since their visit
to Beckley; and that this once he should, when treated as a man, turn
traitor to their common interests, and prove himself an utter baby, was
a piece of nonsense her great intelligence indignantly rejected.

'Then, if true,' she answered Caroline's assurances finally, 'if true,
he is not his father's son!'

By which it may be seen that she had indeed taken refuge in the Castle
of Negation against the whole army of facts.

'He is acting, Carry. He is acting the ideas of his ridiculous empty
noddle!'

'No,' said Caroline, mournfully, 'he is not. I have never known Evan to
lie.'

'Then you must forget the whipping he once had from his mother--little
dolt! little selfish pig! He obtains his reputation entirely from his
abominable selfishness, and then stands tall, and asks us to admire him.
He bursts with vanity. But if you lend your credence to it, Carry, how,
in the name of goodness, are you to appear at the breakfast?

'I was going to ask you whether you would come,' said Caroline, coldly.

'If I can get my hair to lie flat by any means at all, of course!'
returned the Countess. 'This dreadful horrid country pomade! Why did we
not bring a larger stock of the Andalugian Regenerator? Upon my honour,
my dear, you use a most enormous quantity; I must really tell you that.'

Conning here entered to say that Mr. Evan had given orders for the boxes
to be packed and everything got ready to depart by half-past eleven
o'clock, when the fly would call for them and convey them to Fallow
field in time to meet the coach for London.

The Countess turned her head round to Caroline like an astonished
automaton.

'Given orders!' she interjected.

'I have very little to get ready,' remarked Caroline.

'Be so good as to wait outside the door one instant,' said the Countess
to Conning,