"Such being the case, may I assume that any wishes or desires your uncle may choose to give expression to will be regarded as obligatory by you?"
Burgo paused before answering. Then he said: "If my uncle himself had put such a question to me three months ago, I should have answered 'Yes' unhesitatingly; but, seeing that it is your ladyship who puts the question to me to-day, I am somewhat at a loss what to reply."
Burgo's barb pricked her. Her eyes dilated a little; two red-hot spots flamed out for a moment on her cheeks and then vanished.
"If I have taken upon myself, Mr. Brabazon, to question you with regard to your plans for the future, I have done so at your uncle's special request. He presumes that, at your age, your future career cannot be altogether a matter of indifference to you, and he is desirous of knowing what views and wishes you may have formed with regard to it."
"It seems somewhat strange, madam, that my uncle should all at once profess to be so anxious about my future. On more than one occasion, some four or five years ago, I acquainted him with my wishes in the matter, but he chose quietly to set them aside as of no moment, and since that time I have never troubled myself in the affair?"
"Even granting that such may have been the case at the period you speak of," said her ladyship, "you can readily understand, Mr. Brabazon, that certain circumstances which have happened since then may have modified Sir Everard's views in many matters, and in the particular one under consideration among the rest."
"Oh yes, I can quite understand that," answered Burgo, not without a spice of bitterness.
"While fully aware that, in all probability, such would be the case, you have not, to quote your own words, troubled yourself further in the affair?"
"I have not--as I said before. When I left college, as I did not fail to impress upon my uncle at the time, I was desirous of entering the army, but it is too late to think of that now. Then it was that my uncle took the responsibility of my future into his own hands, and in his hands it still remains."
Lady Clinton did not at once reply, but sat gazing through the window like one deep in thought.