Prince Fortunatus by William Black (ebook reader with highlighter TXT) 📖

use; you must get away home and have a sound night's rest after your travelling. I have just called the nurse; she will be down in a minute. And if you will put on your things I will send for a four-wheeled cab for you; or I will walk along with you until we get one."

All day long Nina had betrayed no outward anxiety; she had merely listened intently to every word, watched intently the expression of every face, as the doctors came and went. And now, as Mangan shut the door behind them, he did not care to discuss the chances of the fever; it was a subject all too uncertain and too serious for a few farewell words. But there was one point on which, delicate as it might be, he felt bound to question her.

"Miss Ross," said he, "I hope you won't think me impertinent. You must consider I represent Lionel. I am in his place. Very well; he would probably ask you, in coming so suddenly to London, whether you were quite sufficiently provided with funds--you see I am quite blunt about it--for your lodgings and cabs and so forth. I know he would ask you, and you wouldn't be angry; well, consider that I ask you in his place."

"I thank you," said Nina, in a low voice. "I understand. It is what Leo would do--yes--he was always like that. But I have plenty. I have brought everything with me. I do not go back to Glasgow."

"No?" said he, and then, rather hesitatingly, for it was dangerous ground, he added, "Wasn't it strange that, with you singing at those public concerts in Glasgow, Lionel should never have seen your name in the papers--should never have guessed where you were?"

"I took another name--Signorina Teresa I was," Nina said, simply.

"So you are not going back to Glasgow?" he asked again.

"No. The concert season is about over there. Besides," she added, rather sadly, "I have been--a little--a little homesick. The people there were very kind to me, but I was much alone. So now--when Lionel is over the worst of the fever--when he promises to get well--when you say to me I can be of no more use--then I return to Naples to my friends."

"Oh, to Naples? But what to do there?" he made bold to ask.

"Ah, who knows?" said Nina, in so low a voice that he could hardly hear.

He put her safely into a four-wheeled cab; then went back to Lionel's rooms to see that all arrangements were made for the night; finally he set out for his own chambers in Westminster. No, it had not been a dawdling day for him at all; on the contrary, he had not had time to glance at a single newspaper, and now, as he got some hot drink for himself and lit his pipe and hauled in an easy-chair to the fire, he thought he would look over the evening journals. And about the first paragraph he saw was headed, "Death of Sir Barrington Miles, M.P." Well, it was a bit of a coincidence, he considered; nothing more; the L1100 had been paid, and, apart from that circumstance, it must be confessed, his interest in the Miles family was of the slightest. Only he wondered what the young man was doing in Paris, with his father so near the point of death.


CHAPTER XXV.


CHANGES.

Shortly after ten on the Wednesday morning a young gentleman clad in travelling costume drove up to the door of a house in Edgeware Road, got out of the hansom, stepped across the pavement, and rang the bell. The smart little maid-servant who answered the summons appeared to know him, but was naturally none the less surprised by so early a visit.

"Miss Burgoyne isn't down yet, sir!" she said, in answer to his inquiries.

"Very well, I will wait," said the young man, who seemed rather hurried and nervous. "Will you tell her that I wish to see her on a matter of great importance. She will know what it is."

Well, it was not the business of this rosy-cheeked maid to check the vagaries of impetuous lovers; she merely said,

"Will you step up-stairs, sir; there's a fire in the morning-room."

She led the way, and when she had left him in the bright little chamber--where breakfast-things for one were laid on the table--she departed to find, perhaps to arouse, her mistress. The young man went to the window and stared into the street. He returned to the fire and stared into the red flames. He took up a newspaper that was on the table and opened it, but could not fix his attention. And no wonder; for he had just succeeded to a baronetcy and the extensive Petmansworth estates; and he was determined to win a bride as well--even as he was on his way to his father's funeral.

It was some considerable time before Miss Burgoyne came down, and when she did make her appearance she seemed none too well pleased by this unconscionable intrusion; at the same time she had paid some little attention to her face, and she wore a most charming tea-gown of pink and sage-green.

"Well?" she said, rather coldly. "What now? I thought you had gone over to Paris."

"But don't you know what has happened?" he said, rather breathlessly.

"What has happened?"

He took up the newspaper, opened it, and handed it to her in silence, showing her a particular paragraph.

"Oh!" she said, with startled eyes, and yet she read the lines slowly, to give time for consideration. And then she recollected that she ought to express sympathy. "I am so very sorry--so sudden and unexpected; it must have been such a shock to you. But," she added, after a second--"but why are you here? You ought to have gone home at once."

"I'm on my way home--I only got the telegram yesterday afternoon--I reached London this morning," the young man said, disconnectedly; all his eager and wistful attention was concentrated on her face; what answer was about to appear there to his urgent prayer? "Don't you understand why I am here, dear Kate?" said he, and he advanced a little, but very timidly.

"Well, really," said she, for she was bound to appear a trifle shocked, "when such a dreadful thing happens--your father's sudden death--really I think that should be the first thing in your mind; I think you ought not to delay a moment in going home."

"You think me heartless, but you don't understand," said he, eager to justify himself in her eyes. "Of course I'm sorry. But my father and I never got on very well; he was always trying to thwart me."

"Yes, but for the sake of mere outward form and decency," she ventured to say.

"That's just it!" he said, quickly. "I'll have to go away down there, and I don't know how long I may be kept; and--and--I thought if I could take with me some assurance that these altered circumstances would weigh with you--you see, dear Kate, I am my own master now, I can do what I like--and you know what it is I ask. Now tell me--you will be my wife! I can quite understand your hesitating before; I was dependent upon my father; if he had disapproved there might have been trouble; but now it is different."

Miss Burgoyne stood silent, her eyes fixed on the floor, her fingers interclasped. He looked at her. Then, finding she had no answer for him, a curious change of expression came over his face.

"And if you hesitate now," he said, vindictively, "I know the reason, and I know it is a reason you may as well put out of your mind. Oh, I am quite aware of the shilly-shallying that has been going on between you and that fellow Moore--I know you've been struck, like all the rest of the women--but you may as well give up that fancy. Mr. Moore isn't much of a catch, now!"

She raised her head, and there was an angry flash in her eyes that for a second frightened him.

"Magnanimous!" she said, with a curl of her lip. "To taunt a man with being ill, when perhaps he is lying on his death-bed!"

"It is not because he is ill," he retorted, and his naturally pale face was somewhat paler, "I dare say he'll get well enough again. It is because he is dead broke and ruined. And do you know who did it?" he went on, more impetuously still. "Well, I did it! I said I would break him, and I broke him. I knew he was only playing with you and making a fool of you, and I said to myself that I would have it out with him--either he or I would have to go to the right about. I said I would smash him, and I have smashed him. Do you see this check? That was waiting for me at my rooms this morning. Eleven hundred pounds--that was two days' work only, and I had plenty more before. But do you think it is his check? Not a bit! It is drawn out by a friend of his. It is lent him. He is just so much the more in debt, and I don't believe he has a farthing in the world. And that's the wonderful creature all you women are worshipping!"

Now this foolish boy ought to have taken care, but he had been carried away on a whirlwind of jealous rage. All the time that he was pouring forth his vengeful story, Miss Burgoyne's face had become more and more hard; and when he ceased, she answered him, in low and measured tones that conveyed the most bitter scorn.

"Yes," she said, "we women are worthy of being despised, when--when we think anything of such creatures as men are capable of showing themselves to be! Oh, it is a fine time to come and boast of what you have done, when the man you hate--when the man you fear--is lying ill, delirious, perhaps dying. That is the time to boast of your strength, your prowess! And how dare you come to me," she continued, with a sudden toss of her head, "with all this story of gambling and debt? What is it to me? It seems that is the way men fight now--with a pack of cards! That is fighting between--men, and the victor waves a check in triumph, and comes and brags about it to women! Well--I--I don't appreciate--such--such manliness. I think you had better--go and see to your father's funeral--instead of--of bringing such a story to me!" said Miss Burgoyne, with heaving bosom; and it was real indignation this time, for there were tears in her eyes as she turned proudly away from him and marched straight for the door of the room.

"For Heaven's sake!" he cried, intercepting her. "Kate, I did not mean to offend you! I take back what I said. How could any one help being jealous--seeing your off-and-on relations with him all this time, and you would never say one thing or another. Forgive me."

She turned to him, and there were still indignant tears in her eyes.

"It isn't fair!" she said. "It isn't fair!--he is ill; you might have a little humanity."

"Yes, I know," he said, quite humbly and imploringly (for this young man was in a bad way, and had lost his head as well as his heart). "And I didn't mean half what I said--indeed I didn't! And--and you shouldn't reproach me with not going