Burgo writhed helplessly on his chair.
"Twice previously my uncle has had the melancholy satisfaction of discharging my liabilities."
"Just so. And yet you come here to-day, and tell me coolly that you expected to be received on precisely the same terms as if nothing had happened!"
"Oh, madam!" cried the young man, a fine flame of indignation burning in his eyes; "I have known my uncle all my life, and I judge him by a different--a very different--standard from that which you seem to judge him by. That he would have grumbled, that he would have scolded me a little, as most fathers and uncles have a way of doing under such circumstances, I was quite prepared to expect; but that he would refuse to see me I would never have believed--never!" His voice broke a little as he finished, and he turned away his head for a moment, ashamed to think that he should have been so moved.
Lady Clinton sat regarding him with her coldly-critical half-smile.
She was one of those people who seem to derive a sort of semi-sensuous enjoyment from witnessing the mental tortures and anguished heart-throbs of their more susceptible fellow mortals. Such people have keen powers for analysing in others a certain class of emotions of the existence of which in themselves they have no cognisance.
Lady Clinton gave Burgo a few moments to recover himself, and then she said in her clear, incisive tones: "May I ask, Mr. Brabazon, what your plans for the future are?"
"My plans for the future!" he echoed, looking at her with unmitigated astonishment. "Upon my word, madam, I am not aware that I have any."
"That is rather sad, is it not? And rather singular, too, if I may venture to say so--considering your age."
"I fail to understand why your ladyship should see anything either sad or singular in such a state of things. I have always left my fortunes, both present and to come, in the hands of my uncle--as it has been his invariable wish that I should do."