‘What’s become of the Count, Antonia?’ said the old gentleman. ‘Try that Chablis, Ernest, my boy; imported it since you were down. Old Jedwood didn’t give you anything like that; thundering old screw, isn’t he? good man for all that; trust him with your life. I thought you were going to make the Count stay to dinner, Antonia.’ ‘Well, it would have been pleasanter for Mr. Neuchamp, perhaps,’ said the young lady demurely. ‘But he said he had to go to Mrs. Folleton’s.’ ‘Oh! that was the attraction then,’ said Mr. Frankston. ‘They say he admires Harriet Folleton tremendously. She will have twenty thousand down; but as he is so wealthy himself, of course the cash can’t matter.’ ‘You all seem to take it for granted that he is so very rich, and a wonderful fellow in all respects,’ said Ernest. ‘He’s good-looking enough, I admit; but who is to know whether he is really the man he represents himself to be?’ ‘Why should he not be himself,’ said Antonia, ‘more than any one else?’ ‘For this reason,’ replied Ernest, ‘that it is much more easy for a foreigner to impose upon English people, in a community like this, than for an Englishman to practise a similar deceit. He has but to bring manufactured introductions, and the whole difficulty is over to a man of ordinary address and qualifications for sustaining such a part.’ ‘Well, I must say,’ said Mr. Frankston, ‘that the letters I received might have been written by any corresponding clerk in a German counting-house. I took him and his letters for granted, and so did old Blockstrop, just as we should have taken his bills properly endorsed. But let me ask you, Ernest, my boy, doesn’t he look and speak like the real thing?’ ‘You must not be offended with me,’ said Ernest, conscious of a certain flash in Antonia’s eyes, ‘or think me ungenerous, if I say that I should like to take a little more time and have some opportunities of intercourse before giving my opinion. You must remember that habitudes of ceremonious behaviour pervade _all classes_ in continental countries to an extent unknown in British communities. By superficial observers a count and a courier, for instance, will not be perceived to differ in manner or language; and the courier is often the more picturesque personage of the two.’ ‘And why not?’ inquired Antonia; ‘is there no difference between the manners and the conversation of people of upper and lower rank, except in England and English places?’ ‘I do not say that; the contrary is the case, but the discrepancies are sufficiently minute to escape British people not thoroughly acquainted with the language. For the same reason no foreigner would discover the difference between a good-looking, decently-educated Britisher who dropped his aitches, and the real article. Thackeray somewhere gives a case in point.’