"For breakfast; and eaten in bed every day for thirty years!"
"Oh, dam!" said the Captain. "If you hadn't told the story, Wainwright, I shouldn't have believed it. Of course, if you say so, it is so; but the fellow must have been off his head--mad!"
Before he had uttered the last word Mrs. Derinzy, who seemed to have an idea of what was coming, had stretched out her hand towards her husband in warning, while even Dr. Wainwright moved uncomfortably on his chair. Had Annette heard it? Little doubt of that. She looked up slyly, very slyly, with a half-stealthy, half-searching glance at the Doctor; then raising her head, glared defiantly at her aunt, as though marking whether she were affected by the suggestion. She looked long and earnestly, then finding that Mrs. Derinzy's attention was concentrated on her, she withdrew her glance, and relapsed into her former stolid condition.
So the dinner progressed--pleasantly to Captain Derinzy, as a break in the monotony of his life. Not merely did Mrs. Derinzy, who, in her capacity of housekeeper, kept the keys of the cellar and exercised a rigorous economy in that department--not merely did she increase both the quality and quantity of the wine supplied to the table, but she refrained from joining in the conversation more than was absolutely demanded of her by politeness, and consequently the Captain was able to direct it into those channels which most delighted him. It is needless to say that those channels ran with small-talk and fashionable gossip, and petty details of that London life which he had once so thoroughly enjoyed, and from which he was now so unwillingly exiled. The Captain found his interlocutor perfectly able to converse on these his favourite topics. One might have thought that Dr. Wainwright had nothing better to do than to flutter from club to mess-room, and from mess-room to boudoir, so well was he up in the chronique scandaleuse of the day, adapting his phraseology, his voice, and manner to the fashion of the times. The Captain was delighted; great names, once familiar in his mouth as household words, but the mention of which he had not heard for ages, were once more ringing in his ears; the conversation seemed to possess the old smoking-room and barrack flavour so dear to him once, so dead to him of late; and while under its spell, his manner renewed its ancient swagger and his voice its old roll. He yet asked himself how the man whom he had hitherto only known as the sober sedate physician could have recalled such sentiments or borne so essential a part in their discussion.
At length the Doctor's anecdotes commenced to flag, and the Doctor himself was obviously seeking for an opportunity of breaking off the conversation. Mrs. Derinzy, who had been apparently dropping off to sleep, roused up with the declining voices, and catching a peculiar expression in the Doctor's face, was on the alert in an instant. That peculiar expression was a glance towards Annette, accompanied by a significant elevation of the eyebrows, following immediately upon which Dr. Wainwright said:
"And now I must drop this charming conversation which we have had, my dear Captain Derinzy, and, falling back into my professional character, must declare that it is time for us to adjourn.--Beauty sleep, my dear Miss Netty"--walking quickly round and laying his hand lightly on her shoulder--lightly, though she quivered under the touch, and rose at once from her seat--"beauty sleep is not to be had after twelve, they tell us; and though you don't require it, and though you said you didn't like to be looked at--oh, Miss Netty!--yet I think we're all of us sufficiently tired to wish for it to-night. So goodnight! You don't mind shaking hands with me, though you were cruel enough to say you disliked me; goodnight.--Goodnight, Mrs. Derinzy; you feel stronger to-night? Let me feel your pulse for one moment." Then in a rapid undertone to her, "Do you go with her, while I speak a word to Mrs. Stothard. Don't leave till she returns." Again aloud, "Goodnight."
The Captain was making a final foray among the decanters as Mrs. Derinzy and Annette, closely followed by Dr. Wainwright, passed out of the door, immediately on the other side of which Mrs. Stothard was standing. She was about to follow the ladies, but a sign from the Doctor arrested her, and she let them pass on, remaining behind with him. He said but very few words to her, and those in a muttered undertone, but she understood them apparently, nodded her reply, and hurried away upstairs.
"Now, Miss Derinzy, get to bed; do you hear? This is the last time I shall speak to you; next time I shall make you."
The tone in which these words are said is very unlike Mrs. Stothard's usual tone; but it is Mrs. Stothard's voice and it is Mrs. Stothard herself--equipped in a tight linen jacket fitting her closely and without any superfluity of material, and a short clinging petticoat--who is standing by the bed on which Annette is seated.
"Come, do you hear me?" she repeats, taking the girl by the shoulder; "undress now, and get into bed. We're ever so late as it is."