He looked at Ned, his fevered eyes watering in the strong glare of sunlight that shot under the half-closed blind.
“You have an enviable complexion, my lord,” said he. “Did you ever, in all your life, experience the need to dose yourself with so much as a mug of tar-water?”
Ned laughed.
“I refuse to lend myself to point a moral,” said he. “Palate is a matter of temperament, and temperament is a cause, not a consequence. Mr Sheridan may find in wine the very stimulant I borrow from country air and exercise.”
“Oh, the country!” said the other, with a groan: “from Tweed to Channel nothing but the market-garden to London.”
“So you think? And yet you stay on here?”
Mr Sheridan shrugged his shoulders. His face seemed to have fallen quite sick and peevish.
“By my own wish?” said he. “But at least I scent liberty at last. Madame (I am abusing no confidence in telling you) contemplates changing her quarters very shortly.”
Ned was conscious that his heart gave a somersault.
“Indeed?” said he, reining-in his emotion. “And for what others?”