"Why, to the Queen's fancy ball, of course," said Lord Lackington, still smiling. "Such a to-do! All the elderly sticks practising minuets for their lives!"
A voluble flow of talk followed--hardly intelligible. The words "Melbourne" and "Lady Holland" emerged--the fragment, apparently, of a dispute with the latter, in which "Allen" intervened--the names of "Palmerston" and "that dear chap, Villiers."
Lord Uredale sighed. The young doctor looked at him interrogatively.
"He is thinking of his old friends," said the son. "That was the Queen's ball, I imagine, of '42. I have often heard him describe my mother's dress."
But while he was speaking the fitful energy died away. The old man ceased to talk; his eyelids fell. But the smile still lingered about his mouth, and as he settled himself on his pillows, like one who rests, the spectators were struck by the urbane and distinguished beauty of his aspect. The purple flush had died again into mortal pallor. Illness had masked or refined the weakness of mouth and chin; the beautiful head and countenance, with their characteristic notes of youth, impetuosity, a kind of gay detachment, had never been more beautiful.
The young doctor looked stealthily from the recumbent figure to the tall and slender woman standing absorbed and grief-stricken beside the bed. The likeness was as evident to him as it had been, in the winter, to Sir Wilfrid Bury.
As he was escorting her down-stairs, Lord Uredale said to his companion, "Foster thinks he may still live twenty-four hours."
"If he asks for me again," said Julie, now shrouded once more behind a thick, black veil, "you will send?"
He gravely assented.