Beckley Court was her Elysium ere the ardent feminine brain conceived a
loftier summit. Fallen from that attained eminence, she sighed anew for
Beckley Court. Nor was this mere spiritual longing; it had its material
side. At Beckley Court she could feel her foreign rank. Moving with our
nobility as an equal, she could feel that the short dazzling glitter of
her career was not illusory, and had left her something solid; not coin
of the realm exactly, but yet gold. She could not feel this in the
Cogglesby saloons, among pitiable bourgeoises--middle-class people daily
soiled by the touch of tradesmen. They dragged her down. Their very
homage was a mockery.

Let the Countess have due credit for still allowing Evan to visit Beckley
Court to follow up his chance. If Demogorgon betrayed her there, the
Count was her protector: a woman rises to her husband. But a man is what
he is, and must stand upon that. She was positive Evan had committed
himself in some manner. As it did not suit her to think so, she at once
encouraged an imaginary conversation, in which she took the argument that
it was quite impossible Evan could have been so mad, and others instanced
his youth, his wrongheaded perversity, his ungenerous disregard for his
devoted sister, and his known weakness: she replying, that undoubtedly
they were right so far: but that he could not have said he himself was
that horrible thing, because he was nothing of the sort: which faith in
Evan's stedfast adherence to facts, ultimately silenced the phantom
opposition, and gained the day.

With admiration let us behold the Countess de Saldar alighting on the
gravel sweep of Beckley Court, the footman and butler of the enemy bowing
obsequious welcome to the most potent visitor Beckley Court has ever yet
embraced.