It might have pleased them to hear any slight put publicly on Mrs. Chump in the first resistance to the woman, but in the present stage their pride defended her.  “Our friend,” was the reply with which Arabella rebuked his rudeness; and her sister approved her.  “We can avoid showing that we are weak in our own opinion, whatsoever degrades us,” they had said during a consultation.  Simultaneously they felt that Mr. Pericles being simply a millionaire and not In Society, being also a middle-class foreigner (a Greek whose fathers ran with naked heels and long lank hair on the shores of the Aegean), before such a man they might venture to identify this their guest with themselves an undoubted duty, in any case, but not always to be done; at least, not with grace and personal satisfaction.  Therefore, the “our friend” dispersed a common gratulatory glow.  Very small points, my masters; but how are coral-islands built?

Mrs. Chump fanned her cheek, in complete ignorance of the offence and defence.  Chump, deceased, in amorous mood, had praised her management of the fan once, when breath was in him:  “‘Martha,” says he, winkin’ a sort of ‘mavourneen’ at me, ye know—­’Martha! with a fan in your hand, if ye’re not a black-eyed beauty of a Spaniard, ye little devil of Seville!’ says he.”  This she had occasionally confided to the ladies.  The marital eulogy had touched her, and she was not a woman of coldly-flowing blood, she had an excuse for the constant employment of the fan.

“And well, Mr. Paricles! have ye got nothin’ to tell us about foreign countesses and their slips?  Because, we can listen, sir, garls or not.  Sure, if they understand ye, ye teach ’em nothin’; and if they don’t understand ye, where’s the harm done?  D’ye see, sir?  It’s clear in favour of talkin’.”

Mr. Pericles administered consolation to his moustache by twisting it into long waxy points.  “I do not know; I do not know,” he put her away with, from time to time.  In the end Mrs. Chump leaned over to Arabella.  “Don’t have ’m, my dear,” she murmured.

“You mean—?” quoth Arabella.

“Here’s the driest stick that aver stood without sap.”

Arabella flushed when she took the implication that she was looking on the man as a husband.  Adela heard the remarks, and flushed likewise.  Mrs. Chump eyed them both.  “It’s for the money o’ the man,” she soliloquized aloud, as her fashion was.  Adela jumped up, and with an easy sprightly posture of her fair, commonly studious person, and natural run of notes “Oh!” she cried, “I begin to feel what it is to be like a live fish on the fire, frying, frying, frying! and if he can keep his Christian sentiments under this infliction, what a wonderful hero he must be!  What a hot day!”

She moved swiftly to the door, and flung it open.  A sight met her eyes at which she lost her self-possession.  She started back, uttering a soft cry.

“Ah! aha! oh!” went the bitter ironic drawl of Mr. Pericles, whose sharp glance had caught the scene as well.