"No, you are quite wrong, Monsieur Brierley, if you will forgive me for saying so. Your chant is not Italian; it is Spanish. I have a better way of knowing than by searching among musty libraries and sacristies. When your fingers were touching the keys I looked around my Marmouset to see who was listening beside you gentlemen. I soon discovered that the two heads on Monsieur Herbert's chair were glum and solemn; they might have been asleep so dull were they. My old Virgin in the corner, which I found in Rouen, and which is unquestionably French, never raised her eyes; but the two carved saints over your head, the ones I got in Salamanca when I was last there, were overjoyed. One smiled so sweetly that I could not take my eyes from her, and the other kept such perfect time with his head that I was sorry when you stopped. So you see, your chant is unquestionably Spanish, and I am glad." Nor did his spirits flag when dinner was over and he took his place by the coffee-table, handing Mignon the tiny cups without even a look of reproach at the demure, sad-eyed girl who was keeping up so brave a heart. The change was a delightful one to the coterie. As long as the embarrassing situation continued there was no telling what might happen. A question of cuisine could be settled by more or less cayenne, but the question of a marriage settlement was another affair. Press him too far and the old gentleman might have bundled us all into the street and thrown our trunks after us. The wisest thing, therefore, was to meet his cordiality more than half way, an easy solution, really, since his _amende honorable_ of the night before had put us all on our mettle. He should be made to realize and at once that all traces of ill feeling of every kind had been wiped out of our hearts. Herbert, who, as usual when any patching up was to be done, was chief pacificator, opened the programme by becoming suddenly interested in the several rare specimens of furniture that enriched the room in which we sat, complimenting Lemois on his good taste in banishing from his collection the severe, uncomfortable chairs and sofas of Louis XIV and XV, and calling special attention to the noble Spanish and Italian specimens about us, with wide seats, backs, and arms, where, even in the old days, tired mortals could have lounged without splitting their stockings or disarranging their wigs, had the dons and contessas worn any such absurdities.