"Why do you call me Sir Jocelyn? Who are you? Where am I? How did I come to be here?" The question was again ignored.
"Her ladyship wished me to say that if you felt equal to it, Sir Jocelyn, she would be glad if you would join her at breakfast."
"Her ladyship! Who's her ladyship? Didn't you hear me ask you where I am?"
Perhaps it was because the man was busy with certain articles of the gentleman's wardrobe that he did not hear what was said.
"I thought you might like to wear this suit to-day." He was placing three garments over the back of a chair, which Sydney felt, hazily, were certainly not his. "Everything is quite ready, Sir Jocelyn."
Why did the fellow persist in calling him by a name which was not his? What had happened to him? What did it all mean? What was the matter with his head that he felt so incapable of collecting his thoughts? He had never felt so stupid before. Before he clearly understood what was occurring, the bed-clothes were being removed from the bed, and he was being assisted on to the floor as if he were a child or a sick man; indeed, as his feet touched the ground he felt as if, literally, he was a sick man. The room swam round him; his legs refused him support; had not the other had his arm half round him he would have collapsed on to the carpet.
"What," he asked, with a sudden thickness of voice, "what is the matter?"
Had he been clearly conscious of anything he could scarcely have helped but notice the keen scrutiny with which his attendant was observing him. His manner almost suggested a medical man; it was so suave, yet he treated Sydney as if he were an irresponsible patient.
"You've not been quite well, Sir Jocelyn. You've had rather a bad night. I think you'd better have another pick-me-up."
Sydney was placed in an easy chair. Presently he found himself drinking the contents of another tumbler. How good it was. And it did him good; it seemed to relieve some of the heaviness which weighed down his limbs and to render the confusion in his head less obvious, but it was very far from restoring him to himself. The other dressed him, slipping on garment after garment with a curious deftness, for Sydney seemed incapable of giving him any help at all. Beaton was dressed actually before he knew it in garments which he realised were not his, but which somehow seemed to fit him. How he had come to be in them he could not have told; yet so skilful was his valet that in a surprisingly short time his costume was completed, even to his collar and his tie, yet he had not once moved out of the arm-chair in which he had originally been placed.