'Ah!' Soane said, marvelling somewhat. 'I shall stay here, nevertheless, until I hear that Mr. Dunborough is out of danger.'
'An impulse that does you credit, sir,' the surgeon said impressively. 'These affairs, alas! are very greatly to be de--'
'They are d--d inconvenient,' Sir George drawled. 'He is not out of danger yet, I suppose?'
The surgeon stared and puffed anew. 'Certainly not, sir,' he said.
'Ah! And where have you placed him?'
'The Honourable Mr.--, the sufferer?'
'To be sure! Who else, man?' Soane asked impatiently.
'In some rooms at Magdalen,' the doctor answered, breathing hard. And then, 'Is it your wish that I should report to you to-morrow, sir?'
'You will oblige me. Thank you. Good-day.'
CHAPTER VI
A FISH OUT OF WATER
Sir George spent a long day in his own company, and heedless that on the surgeon's authority he passed abroad for a hard man and a dashed unfeeling fellow, dined on Lord Lyttelton's 'Life of King Henry the Second,' which was a new book in those days, and the fashion; and supped on gloom and good resolutions. He proposed to call and inquire after his antagonist at a decent hour in the morning, and if the report proved favourable, to go on to Lord----'s in the afternoon.
But his suspense was curtailed, and his inquiries were converted into a matter of courtesy, by a visit which he received after breakfast from Mr. Thomasson. A glance at the tutor's smiling, unctuous face was enough. Mr. Thomasson also had had his dark hour--since to be mixed up with, a fashionable fracas was one thing, and to lose a valuable and influential pupil, the apple of his mother's eye, was another; but it was past, and he gushed over with gratulations.
'My dear Sir George,' he cried, running forward and extending his hands, 'how can I express my thankfulness for your escape? I am told that the poor dear fellow fought with a fury perfectly superhuman, and had you given ground must have ran you through a dozen times. Let us be thankful that the result was otherwise.' And he cast up his eyes.
'I am,' Sir George said, regarding him rather grimly. 'I do not know that Mr. Dunborough shares the feeling.'
'The dear man!' the tutor answered, not a whit abashed. 'But he is better. The surgeon has extracted the ball and pronounces him out of danger.'
'I am glad to hear it,' Soane answered heartily. 'Then, now I can get away.'
'_ volont_!' cried Mr. Thomasson in his happiest vein. And then with a roguish air, which some very young men found captivating, but which his present companion stomached with difficulty, 'I will not say that you have come off the better, after all, Sir George,' he continued.
'Ah!'
'No,' said the tutor roguishly. 'Tut-tut. These young men! They will at a woman by hook or crook.'
'So?' Sir George said coldly. 'And the latest instance?'
'His Chloe--and a very obdurate, disdainful Chloe at that--has come to nurse him,' the tutor answered, grinning. 'The prettiest high-stepping piece you ever saw, Sir George--that I will swear!--and would do you no discredit in London. It would make your mouth water to see her. But he could never move her; never was such a prude. Two days ago he thought he had lost her for good and all--there was that accident, you understand. And now a little blood lost--and she is at his pillow!'
Sir George reddened at a sudden thought he had. 'And her father unburied!' he cried, rising to his feet. This Macaroni was human, after all.
Mr. Thomasson stared in astonishment. 'You know?' he said. 'Oh fie, Sir George, have you been hunting already? Fie! Fie! And all London to choose from!'
But Sir George simply repeated, 'And her father not buried, man?'
'Yes,' Mr. Thomasson answered with simplicity. 'He was buried this morning. Oh, that is all right.'
'This morning? And the girl went from that--to Dunborough's bedside?' Sir George exclaimed in indignation.
'It was a piece of the oddest luck,' Mr. Thomasson answered, smirking, and not in the least comprehending the other's feeling. 'He was lodged in Magdalen yesterday; this morning a messenger was despatched to Pembroke for clothes and such-like for him. The girl's mother has always nursed in Pembroke, and they sent for her to help. But she was that minute home from the burial, and would not go. Then up steps the girl and "I'll go," says she--heaven knows why or what took her, except the contrariness of woman. However, there she is! D'ye see?' And Mr. Thomasson winked.
'Tommy,' said Sir George, staring at him, 'I see that you're a d--d rascal!'
The tutor, easy and smiling, protested. 'Fie, Sir George,' he said. 'What harm is in it? To tend the sick, my dear sir, is a holy office. And if in this case harm come of it--' and he spread out his hands and paused.
'As you know it will,' Sir George cried impulsively.
But Mr. Thomasson shrugged his shoulders. 'On the contrary, I know nothing,' he answered. 'But--if it does, Mr. Dunborough's position is such that--hem! Well, we are men of the world, Sir George, and the girl might do worse.'
Sir George had heard the sentiment before, and without debate or protest. Now it disgusted him. 'Faugh, man!' he said, rising. 'Have done! You sicken me. Go and bore Lord Almeric--if he has not gone to Paris to save his ridiculous skin!'
But Mr. Thomasson, who had borne abuse of himself with Christian meekness, could not hear that unmoved. 'My dear Sir George, my dear friend,' he urged very seriously, and with a shocked face, 'you should not say things like that of his lordship. You really should not! My lord is a most excellent and--'
'Pure ass!' said Soane with irritation. 'And I wish you would go and divert him instead of boring me.'
'Dear, dear, Sir George!' Mr. Thomasson wailed. 'But you do not mean it? And I brought you such good news, as I thought. One might--one really might suppose that you wished our poor friend the worst.'
'I wish him no worse a friend!' Sir George responded sharply; and then, heedless of his visitor's protestations and excuses and offers of assistance, would see him to the door.
It was more easy, however, to be rid of him--the fine gentleman of the time standing on scant ceremony with his inferiors--than of the annoyance, the smart, the vexation, his news left behind him. Sir George was not in love. He would have laughed at the notion. The girl was absolutely and immeasurably below him; a girl of the people. He had seen her once only. In reason, therefore--and polite good breeding enforced the demand--he should have viewed Mr. Dunborough's conquest with easy indifference, and complimented him with a jest founded on the prowess of Mars and the smiles of Venus.
But the girl's rare beauty had caught Sir George's fancy; the scene in which he had taken part with her had captivated an imagination not easily inveigled. On the top of these impressions had come a period of good resolutions prescribed by imminent danger; and on the top of that twenty-four hours of solitude--a thing rare in the life he led. Result, that Sir George, picturing the girl's fate, her proud, passionate face, and her future, felt a sting at once selfish and unselfish, a pang at once generous and vicious. Perhaps at the bottom of his irritation lay the feeling that if she was to be any man's prey she might be his. But on the whole his feelings were surprisingly honest; they had their root in a better nature, that, deep sunk under the surface of breeding and habit, had been wholesomely stirred by the events of the last few days.
Still, the good and the evil in the man were so far in conflict that, had he been asked as he walked to Magdalen what he proposed to do should he get speech with the girl, it