"Room? He had better have the one that used to be his years ago. I don't believe it has been slept in since. It will seem to you like old times come back again, Burgo, my boy." He was evidently in the cheeriest of spirits.
"I am afraid I must ask your ladyship to excuse my presence at dinner to-day," said Burgo, evidently a trifle discomposed. "I have no clothes here but these which I am wearing, and----"
"My ladyship is prepared to excuse all shortcomings on that score," she broke in with a short laugh. "And so is Sir Everard. Are you not, dear?"
"Of course, of course. What does it matter for once?"
Scarcely had the door closed behind Lady Clinton before it opened to admit Vallance. He had come to assist Sir Everard to his room.
[CHAPTER IX.]
BURGO'S VIGIL.
Sir Everard, leaning on Vallance's arm, came down to dinner in due course, looking, Burgo thought, even more frail and feeble in his dress clothes than in the morning suit he had worn earlier in the day. His appetite was of the poorest, and it was evidently more by way of keeping the others company than for anything he partook of himself that he sat down at table. Greatly to the relief of Burgo, who began to fear that he might be condemned, later in the evening, to a tête-à-tête with Lady Clinton (who, not improbably, was beset by a similar fear), the party was made up at the last moment to a quartette in the person of Signora Dusanti, the widow of a well-known musical conductor. The signora, who herself was no mean musician, and had been a popular teacher before her marriage, was now a middle-aged, plain-featured woman, but with an expression of amiability and good sense which at once impressed Mr. Brabazon in her favour. It appeared that she and Lady Clinton had known each other in years gone by, and that the signora had come to stay for a couple of days in Great Mornington Street previously to her final departure for Italy.
After dinner it was a matter of course that there should be music in the drawing-room; indeed, the evening was given up to it, her ladyship being evidently bent on utilising her friend's talents to the utmost while the opportunity of doing so was afforded her. It may here be remarked that, while merely a third-rate but facile executant, Lady Clinton had a cultivated voice, and sang with taste and brio. It was the only accomplishment for which she cared, or professed to care.
At ten o'clock Sir Everard retired. As he told his nephew with a smile, he had not sat up till so late an hour he hardly knew when. It had already been proposed by the baronet, and assented to by Lady Clinton in the most amiable manner possible, that, so long as Burgo should remain in Great Mornington Street, or so long as the necessity should continue, he should take on himself the task of watching by his uncle during the night, which her ladyship had heretofore refused to delegate to anybody. It was not that there was any occasion to sit and watch by Sir Everard's bedside throughout the night; he was not so ill as to necessitate any such service; it was merely that Dr. Hoskins considered it essential that his medicine should be administered to him at certain stated hours, provided he were not asleep at the time, in which case the dose must be given him as soon as he should have awakened of his own accord. Lady Clinton smilingly admitted to Burgo that the duty had at length become so automatic to her that she could sleep "like a top" between whiles, and yet always wake up within five minutes of the time her services were required.