Burgo's Romance

by T. W. Speight

It was only what he had been expecting to hear for some time past, and yet the blow, when it did fall, seemed scarcely the less hard to bear on that account. Well, all was at an end now. Whatever faint but altogether illusory hopes had lurked unbidden in the most secret chamber of his heart that Clara might possibly rise superior to the prejudices of her station--might even rise to the height of a great sacrifice, and insist upon throwing in her lot with his--withered and fell dead before that fatal announcement.

On one point he was determined: he would see Clara and speak with her for the last time. After what had passed between them, after what he had said to her on the occasion of their last meeting, he felt that some justification of himself might not improbably be looked for by her. At any rate, it was due to himself to impress upon her that, although fickle fortune had left him in the lurch, there was no change in the sentiments with which he regarded her--that he still loved her as devotedly as ever he had done. No less than that and no more would he say to her.

More clearly, as time went on, was Burgo made to feel that he was being coldshouldered and quietly dropped by numbers of those with whom he had heretofore been on terms of intimacy, and who had always accepted him as one of themselves. Already his cards and invitations had dwindled by fifty per cent. People whom he had been in the habit of visiting for years seemed of late to have unaccountably forgotten his existence. Mothers with marriageable daughters no longer smiled on him so sweetly as they had been wont to do, indeed, they often forgot to smile on him at all; and the daughters themselves, or so he fancied, had become more shy and distant--in some cases positively chilling--and no longer evinced the readiness to dance with him or to allow him to escort them to the supper-room, to which they had accustomed him. Even at his club he detected a difference. There was a frigidity in the atmosphere such as he had never been conscious of before. Men who had always made a point of shaking hands with him, now satisfied themselves with a nod and a curt "How-de-do?" It was a lesson in life the value of which Burgo would recognise later on, but which at present he could only face in a spirit of proud, bitter indifference.

It is not to be presumed that among the circle of Mr. Brabazon's friends and acquaintances any knowledge of the fact that his uncle had discarded him had as yet leaked out. It was enough for society to know that Sir Everard Clinton had taken to himself a wife not more than half his own age, and that, as a consequence, his nephew's prospects had gone down nearly, if not quite, to zero. Henceforward Mr. Brabazon would be relegated to the great army of detrimentals.

But not all people are alike, and the Hon. Mrs. Dovering was one of those who never turned her back on any one whom she liked simply because fortune had chosen to frown on him or her. Yet Mrs. Dovering moved in very select circles indeed. Thus it came to pass that one day a card for her forthcoming garden party reached Burgo. He at once made up his mind to accept the invitation, for he knew that Mrs. Dovering and Mrs. Mordaunt were friends of long standing, and it seemed to him very likely that the latter, accompanied, of course, by Miss Leslie, would be at the party. If so, he might be able to secure his wished-for opportunity of speaking with Clara for the last time.

Twysden Court, the country house of the Hon. Mrs. Dovering, was about a dozen miles up river. When the day of the party arrived Burgo timed himself so as not to reach there till after the majority of the company would have assembled. The great attraction of the afternoon was to be a lawn-tennis match, in which two of the most accomplished amateur players were to take part.

After shaking hands with his hostess, who greeted him with a cordiality in no wise impaired by the recent change in his prospects, of which she had been duly informed, he sauntered off, keeping well on the fringe of the crowd--and it was a crowd, for there must have been quite a couple of hundred people present--which, just then, was, or professed to be, intensely interested in a critical point of the game, but not failing to keep a wary look-out for Mrs. Mordaunt and her niece. At length he caught sight of them, not among the mob round the players, but forming part of a thin outer fringe of people for whom tennis had no special charm, who were scattered about in little groups of three or four--the ladies seated, the gentlemen mostly standing or strolling from one group to another--in the welcome shade of some "immemorial elms." He saw them, but he was nearly sure that neither of them had recognised him, and as Mrs. Mordaunt was somewhat short-sighted, there was not much fear of that matron doing so so long as he kept outside her limited range of vision. They were seated on a couple of rustic chairs, and now and again one or another of the men would lounge up, chat for a couple of minutes, and then retire to make way for some one else. At length he saw his hostess approach them, say something to Mrs. Mordaunt, and presently carry that lady off in the direction of the conservatory. The fact was that, just at that time, the Hon. Mrs. Dovering's pet craze--she had a fresh one every year, sometimes two--was the cultivation of orchids, and as Mrs. Mordaunt, who dabbled a little in most things, but had no enthusiasms (they were too expensive, she said, and she was not overburdened with means), had on a recent occasion expressed a strong desire to see her hostess's collection, her wish was now about to be gratified.

Miss Leslie was left alone.

Here was Burgo's opportunity, and he was not slow to avail him self of it.

He made a little detour on purpose, and so took the girl unawares. She gave a great start as he stood suddenly before her, and caught her breath quickly. Then the hot colour surged up and dyed throat and face alike, but only, a few seconds later, to ebb as swiftly as it had come, leaving her paler than before. Burgo, on his part, was perhaps a trifle paler than ordinary, but perfectly self-possessed and unembarrassed.