“It was a sudden seizure, then?” I asked.
Well, he would scarcely go as far as that. It was a decline, a fading away, sir; but he was certainly took bad the day before, had sent for Mr. Romaine, and the major-domo had taken it on himself a little later to send word to the Viscount. “It seemed to me, my lord,” said he, “as if this was a time when all the fambly should be called together.”
I approved him with my lips, but not in my heart. Dawson was plainly in the interests of my cousin.
“And when can I expect to see my great-uncle, the Count?” said I.
In the evening, I was told; in the meantime he would show me to my room, which had been long prepared for me, and I should be expected to dine in about an hour with the doctor, if my lordship had no objections.
My lordship had not the faintest.
“At the same time,” I said, “I have had an accident: I have unhappily lost my baggage, and am here in what I stand in. I don’t know if the doctor be a formalist, but it is quite impossible I should appear at table as I ought.”
He begged me to be under no anxiety. “We have been long expecting you,” said he. “All is ready.”
Such I found to be the truth. A great room had been prepared for me; through the mullioned windows the last flicker of the winter sunset interchanged with the reverberation of a royal fire; the bed was open, a suit of evening clothes was airing before the blaze, and from the far corner a boy came forward with deprecatory smiles. The dream in which I had been moving seemed to have reached its pitch. I might have quitted this house and room only the night before; it was my own place that I had come to; and for the first time in my life I understood the force of the words home and welcome.