"Tell Mr. Durnford to come to me directly he arrives," he said to the servant who waited upon him at the Manor, "and let me be awakened if I am asleep when he comes."
And then he turned his head to the wall and dozed, or thought, with his eyes shut.
"My dearest Lavendale, you are not often such a sluggard," exclaimed Herrick, coming into the room between twelve and one. "I hope you are not ill."
"No, I am not ill," answered his lordship, sitting up in bed, and facing his friend in the bright sunshine.
"You say you are not ill, but you are as white as a ghost. What have you been doing with yourself, Jack?"
"Raking, Herrick, raking! A long night at Vauxhall with Lady Polwhele and her crew, a debauch of champagne and minced chicken; the Dowager cooked the mess herself, I believe, over a spirit-lamp, though I was not there to see. Dark walks, nightingales and folly, and home by water under the moonlight. A pretty sight enough, those twinkling gardens, and the cold, bright moonlit river beyond."
"There must have been something more than nightingales and champagne, Jack, or you would not have that ghastly look. There is something very much amiss."
"There is something very much amiss, and I want you to set it right for me. What was friendship invented for except to get a fellow out of scrapes?"
"I have ever been your âme damnée, Lavendale," answered Herrick, betwixt jest and earnest. "It is the fashion to say that Lord Lavendale would have been a virtuous youth had not that scamp Durnford led him astray."
"And yet I swear you were always the better of the two, and have oftener played Mentor than Mephistopheles. But now you have become a senator the town begins to respect you. You are no longer Lavendale's alter ego—the careless rake and spendthrift. You are a young man with a career, a great future before you. And now, Herrick, I want you to save me from my own selfish passion, my own reckless folly, and to save one who is well-nigh as reckless, and whom I love better than myself."