"My lord!" repeated his wife, in a tone of surprise, that sufficiently attested the infrequency of such visits, "what _can_ my lord want with me at this early hour? How am I looking, child? Quick! Give me those drops off the chimney-piece--a clean cap, the one trimmed with pink, you fool!--Put a touch of colour in my cheeks; I declare my face is like death! Draw that window-curtain. Now you may tell him he can come in."
Lord Bellinger entered accordingly, dressed in great splendour, with cane, hat, and snuff-box in hand. Thus encumbered, he made shift, nevertheless, to take the tips of his wife's fingers and carry them to his lips, inquiring at the same time how her ladyship did, and whether she had slept well.
Her ladyship had not closed an eye, of course. She was feverish, poorly, and far from strong! Thus establishing a position of defence from the first.
"Zounds! madam," exclaimed he, "so much the better--you will the more readily hear what I have to say."
My lord, to do him justice, was a good-tempered man enough, but this morning found him, for many reasons, in the worst of humours. Last night's gathering to him, no less than to his lady, had been replete with disappointment and vexation. Like many others, he attended Ranelagh with a variety of motives, among which, pleasure, even in his own sense of the term, was perhaps the least engrossing. In the first place, he desired to show himself before the world accompanied by her ladyship, scandal having been busy with both their names of late, and "the town" telling each other significantly that "there must soon be a break-up in _that_ establishment. My lady's goings on, madam, I protest, are inexcusable, and my lord's extravagance, I have it from the best authority, really beyond belief!" Therefore he thought well to appear in this public place prosperous, smiling, debonair, and on the best of terms with his wife.
Their exit, however, like their entrance, had been badly timed. They neither came nor went away together; and his own staunch ally, Harry St. Leger, who was also a professed admirer of Lady Bellinger, thought well to whisper in his ear, "Look ye, Fred, I never turn my back on a friend. If it _must_ come to a smash, or a split, remember I stand fast by your lordship, sink or swim!" This was failure the first.