'Not much, thank you.'
'So I see, but wait a bit. You are Tom's concern, and I shall get into disgrace if I go into it without him. You can stay?'
'Yes, I ventured to think you would house me while Clement is sitting in council.'
'That is well. I need not go out till after dinner. Gertrude is at home, but Ethel is gone to Cocksmoor to see after feeding the divines. Don't you find that an uncommon excitement to the clergywomen? Well, have you got the poor little boy?'
'Yes, a sweet little fellow, but in an anxious state. The spine seems affected still, and I want to know to whom you would advise me to show him—I must get some one while Travis is with us to tell what the American surgeons said.'
'That's another matter for Tom. He knows the present leading men better than I do. I'll send up word to him to look in when he gets back from the hospital.'
'There is a third matter,' said Felix, with a blushing smile, when the message had been despatched, 'not so professional.'
'Eh?' said the doctor with arrested attention.
'It is this,' said Felix in the deliberate manner of one who had long conned his part. 'Should you regard it as intolerable presumption in my brother Lancelot to raise his eyes to your daughter Gertrude?'
'Your brother!!!'