Burgo's Romance

by T. W. Speight

"No; what is it?" asked Burgo languidly, with a half-smothered yawn. Just then he did not care greatly about either Tighe or his news.

For reply Tighe handed him an evening paper, his thumb marking a certain passage. The passage in question ran as under:

"At Nice, on the 12th inst., Sir Everard Clinton, Bart., to Giulia, relict of the late Colonel Innes."

Burgo stared at the paper for some moments as if his mind were unable to take in the announcement.

Then he gave it back to Tighe. "What an ancient idiot!" he said in his usual impassive tone. "He'll never see his sixtieth birthday again. But he always was eccentric." And Burgo lighted another cigarette.

But truth to tell, although he took the matter so coolly, he was much perturbed inwardly. The two lines he had just read announced a fact which might have the effect of altering all his prospects in life.

"I wonder whether Mrs. Mordaunt had heard the news when she carried off Clara?" was one of the first questions he asked himself. "And those fellows on the stairs?" Already he began to feel in some indefinable sort of way that he was no longer quite the same Burgo Brabazon in the eyes of the world that he had been a couple of hours previously.

All his life he had been led to believe that he would be his uncle's heir. The title, together with such portion of the property as was entailed, would go to his other uncle, Denis Clinton, the baronet's younger brother. He, Burgo, was the only son of Sir Everard's favourite sister. Both his parents dying when he was a child, his uncle had at once adopted him, and from that time to the present had treated him as if he were his own son. When his education was finished, and Burgo hinted to his uncle that the time had now arrived for deciding upon his future profession in life, Sir Everard had only laughed in his quiet way and put the question aside as a piece of harmless pleasantry; and when Burgo had ventured to broach the subject on two or three subsequent occasions, it had met with no response from the elder man.

Burgo, who had no wish to lead an idle life, would fain have gone into the army, but his uncle was unaccountably prejudiced against a military career, and there had been no hope in that direction.

Thus it fell out that month after month had drifted by without anything being finally arranged, till Burgo had gradually settled down into the groove of a young man about town, with no more serious employment in life than to contrive how his liberal quarterly allowance could be made productive of the greatest amount of enjoyment. And that he did enjoy himself there could be no reasonable doubt. He belonged to two or three pleasant clubs; he knew no end of nice people who were glad to see him, or professed themselves to be so; and when the shooting season began he had the pick and choice of a dozen country houses. In short, Burgo was one of the spoiled darlings of Society, and he was quite aware of the fact, although how much of the favour accorded him was due to his own merits and how much to the reflected radiance of his uncle's prospective thousands, was one of those problems of which it would be invidious to attempt the solution.