"Is he, though?" the other exclaimed, brightening sensibly. "Thank you, Knott. It is a very great relief to me to hear that."
"Only a man with a remarkably sound constitution could have pulled round. I quite own he's been very hard hit, and no wonder. Typhoid and complications——"
"Ah! complications?" inquired Lord Fallowfeild, who rarely let slip an opportunity of acquiring information of a pathological description.
"Yes, complications. Of the sort that are most difficult to deal with, emotional and moral—beginning with his engagement to Lady Constance——"
"Oh, dear me!"—this, piteously, from that lady's father.
"And ending—his Satanic Majesty knows where! I don't. It's no concern of mine, nor of any one else's in my opinion. He has paid his footing—every man has to pay it, sooner or later—to life and experience, and personal acquaintance with the thou shalt not which, for cause unknown, goes for so almighty much in this very queer business of human existence. He has had a rough time, never doubt that, with his high-strung, arrogant, sensitive nature and the dirty trick played on him by that heartless jade, Dame Fortune, before his birth. For the time, this illness had knocked the wind out of him. If he sulks for a bit, small blame to him. But he'll come round. He is coming round day by day."
As he finished speaking the doctor got on to his feet somewhat awkwardly. His subject had affected him more deeply than he quite cared either to own to himself or to have others see.
"That plaguy sciatic nerve again!" he growled.
Lord Fallowfeild had risen also.—"Capable man, Knott, but rather rough at times, rather too didactic," he said to himself, as he turned to greet Miss St. Quentin. She had strolled in from the hall. Her charming face was full of merriment. There was something altogether gallant in the carriage of her small head.
"I was so awfully glad to see Lord Shotover!" she said, as she gave her hand to that gentleman's father. "It's an age since he and I have met."