'Are you quite insane?
Consent to be seen by a gentleman there?
What has come to you?
You must be lunatic! Are we all to be utterly ruined--disgraced ?' 'Is my mother to starve ?' said Evan.
'Absurd rejoinder! No! You should have sold everything here before this.
She can live with Harriet--she--once out of this horrible element--she would not show it.

But, Evan, you are getting away from me: you are not going ?--speak!' 'I am going,' said Evan.
The Countess clung to him, exclaiming: 'Never, while I have the power to detain you!' but as he was firm and strong, she had recourse to her woman's aids, and burst into a storm of sobs on his shoulder--a scene of which Mrs.Mel was, for some seconds, a composed spectator.
'What 's the matter now ?' said Mrs.Mel.
Evan impatiently explained the case.

Mrs.Mel desired her daughter to avoid being ridiculous, and making two fools in her family; and at the same time that she told Evan there was no occasion for him to go, contrived, with a look, to make the advice a command.

He, in that state of mind when one takes bitter delight in doing an abhorred duty, was hardly willing to be submissive; but the despair of the Countess reduced him, and for her sake he consented to forego the sacrifice of his pride which was now his sad, sole pleasure.

Feeling him linger, the Countess relaxed her grasp.