From the time of the hack’s departure, till the moment when the valet was so hastily sent out of the room, Mr Swinton had been acting as a man in full possession of his senses. The drink taken during the day had but restored his intellect to its usual strength; and with a clear brain he had written the note inviting Mr Louis Lucas to an interview. He had solicited this interview in his own apartment—accompanying the request with an apology for not going to that of Mr Lucas. The excuse was that he was “laid up.”
All this he could have done in a steady hand, and with choice diction; for Richard Swinton was neither dunce nor ignoramus.
Instead, the note was written in scribble, and with a chaotic confusion of phraseology—apparently the production of one suffering from the “trembles.”
In this there was a design; as also, in the behaviour of Mr Swinton, when he heard the footfall of his expected visitor coming along the corridor in the direction of his room. His action was of the most eccentric kind—as much so as any of his movements during the day.
It might have been expected that the ci-devant habitué of the Horse Guards, in conformity with past habits, would have made some attempt to arrange his toilet for the reception of a stranger. Instead, he took the opposite course; and while the footsteps of Mr Lucas were resounding through the gallery, the hands of Mr Swinton were busy in making himself as unpresentable as possible.
Whipping off the dress-coat he had worn at the ball, and which in his distraction he had all day carried on his shoulders; flinging the waistcoat after, and then slipping his arms out of the braces; in shirt-sleeves and with hair dishevelled, he stood to await the incoming of his visitor. His look was that of one just awakened from the slumber of intoxication.
And this character—which had been no counterfeit in the morning—he sustained during the whole time that the stranger remained in his room.
Mr Lucas had no suspicion that the Englishman was acting. He was himself in just that condition to believe in its reality; feeling, and as he confessed, “seedy as the devil.” This was his speech, in return to the salutations of Swinton.
“Yas, ba Jawve! I suppose yaw do. I feel just the same way. Aw—aw—I must have been asleep for a week?”
“Well, you’ve missed three meals at least, and I two of them. I was only able to show myself at the supper-table.”