A sense of shame rushed through him. In the late weeks at Newstead he had felt how small were such impulses. He had told himself that he would sing for his song’s own sake and keep it free from the petty and the retaliative; that he would live in the azure his own mind created and let the world’s praise and abuse alike go by. Had he kept this determination?
He poured out a second tumbler of the liquor and drank it.
Neither claret nor champagne ever affected him, but the double draft of brandy brought an immediate intoxication that grew almost instantly to a gray giddiness. He pushed a couch to the wall, shoved a screen between it and the dawn-lit windows, threw himself down without undressing and fell into a moveless sleep that lasted many hours. The reaction, his physical weariness and both topped by the cognac, made his slumber log-like, a dull, dead blank of nothingness, unbroken by any sound.
Fletcher came in yawning, looked into his master’s sleeping-room and went out shaking his head. Later he brought a pile of letters, and relaid the fire. Noon came—one, two o’clock—and meanwhile there were many knocks upon the door, from each of which the valet returned with larger eyes to add another personal card or note to the increasing pile on the table.
As the clock struck three, he opened the door upon two of the best-liked of his master’s old-time town associates. They were Tom Moore, with a young ruddy face of Irish humor, and Sheridan, clad to sprucery as if Apollo had sent him a birthday suit, and smiling like a rakish gray-haired cherub.
“Fletcher, where’s your master?”
“His lordship is out, Mr. Sheridan.”
“The devil he is! Hang it, we’ll wait then, Tom. Go and look for him, Fletcher.”
“I shouldn’t know where to look, sir. My lord didn’t come in at all last night.”
Sheridan whistled. “That’s queer. Well, we’ll wait a while,”—and they entered. As he saw the pile of newly arrived stationery, the older man threw his stick into the corner and smote Moore on the shoulder with a chuckle.