The Lunatic at Large Part 30

The Baron emitted a happy blend of sigh and groan.

"Alas!" he replied, "it is hard indeed."

"You must hurry up and get better," said the Countess, in her most cheering sick-room manner. "It won't do to disappoint the Brierleys, you know."

"You must come down for _part_ of the time," smiled her daughter.

These expressions of sympathy so affected the Baron that he placed his hand on his brow and turned slightly away to conceal his emotion. At the same time Mr Bunker, with well-timed dramatic effect, sank wearily into a chair, and, laying his elbow on the back, hid his own face in his hand.

Their guests jumped to the most alarming conclusions, and looked from one to the other with great concern.

"Dear me!" said the Countess, "surely it isn't so very serious, Mr Bunker; it isn't _infectious_, is it?"

The unlucky Baron here made his first mistake: without waiting for his more diplomatic friend to reply, he answered hastily, "Ach, no, it is bot a cold."

Lady Grillyer's expression changed.

"A cold!" she said. "Dear me, that can't be so very serious, Baron."

"It is a bad cold," said the Baron.

By this time the ladies' eyes were growing more used to the dim light, and Mr Bunker could see that they were taking rapid stock of the garnishings.

"This, I suppose, is your cough-mixture," said the Countess, examining the bottle.

The Baron incautiously admitted it was.

"Two table-spoonfuls every half hour!" she exclaimed; "why, I never heard of taking a cough-mixture in such doses. Besides, your cough doesn't seem so very bad, Baron."

"Ze doctor told me to take it so," replied the Baron.

The Countess turned towards Mr Bunker and said, with a touch of suspicion in her voice, "I thought, Mr Bunker, the doctor had given no opinion."

The Baron threw a glance of intense ferocity at his friend.

"In the Baron's desire to spare your feelings," replied Mr Bunker, gravely, "he has been a little inaccurate; that is not precisely an ordinary cough-mixture."

"Oh," said the Countess.

Lady Alicia's attention had been strongly attracted by the bath, and suddenly she exclaimed, "Why, there are goldfish in it!"

The Baron's nerve was fast deserting him.

"Ze doctor ordered zem," he began-"I mean, I am fond of fishes."

The Countess looked hard at the unhappy young man, and then turned severely to his friend.

"_What_ is the matter with the Baron?" she demanded.

Mr Bunker saw there was nothing for it but heroic measures.

"The dog was destroyed at once," he replied, with intense gravity. "It is therefore impossible to say exactly what is the matter."

"_The dog!_" cried the two ladies together.

"By this evening," he continued, "we shall know the worst-or the best."

"What do you mean?" exclaimed the Countess, withdrawing a step from the bed.

"I mean," replied Mr Bunker, with a happy inspiration, "that this bath is a delicate test. No victim of the dread disease of hydrophobia can bear to look--"

But the Countess gave him no time to finish. Even as he was speaking the Baron's face had pa.s.sed through a series of the most extraordinary expressions, which she not unnaturally put down to premonitory symptoms.

"It's beginning already!" she shrieked. "Alicia, my love, come quickly.

How dare you expose us, sir?"

"Calm yourselves. I a.s.sure you--" pleaded Mr Bunker, coming hastily after them, but they were at the door before him.

The hapless Baron could stand it no longer. Crying, "No, no, it is false!"

he sprang out of bed, arrayed in a tweed suit only half concealed by his night-shirt, and, forgetting all about the bath, descended with a great splash among the startled goldfish.

The Countess paused in the half-opened door and looked at him with horror that rapidly pa.s.sed into intense indignation.

"I am not ill!" he cried. "It vos zat rascal Bonker's plot. He made me! I haf not hydrophobia!"

Most unkindest cut of all, Lady Alicia went off into hysterical giggles.

For a moment her mother glared at the two young men in silence, and then only remarking, "I have never been so insulted before," she went out, and her daughter followed her.

As the door closed Mr Bunker went off into roar after roar of laughter, but the humorous side of the situation seemed to appeal very slightly to his injured friend.

"You rascal! you villain!" he shouted, "zis is ze end of our friendship, Bonker! Do you use ze pistols? Tell me, sare!"

"My dear Baron," gasped Mr Bunker, "I could not put such an inartistic end to so fine a joke for the world."

"You vill not fight? Coward! poltroon! I know not ze English name bad enoff for you!"

With difficulty Mr Bunker composed himself and replied, still smiling: "After all, Baron, what harm has been done? I get all the blame, and the sympathy you wanted is sure to turn to you."

"False friend!" thundered the Baron.

"My dear Baron!" said Mr Bunker, mildly, "whose fault was it that the plot miscarried? If you'd only left it all to me--"

"Left it to you! Yes, I left too moch to you! Traitor, it vas a trick to vin ze Lady Alicia for yourself! Speak to me nevermore!" And with that the infuriated n.o.bleman rushed off to his own room.

As there was no further sign of him for the next half hour, Mr Bunker, still smiling to himself at the recollection, went out to take the air; but just as he was about to descend the stairs he spied Lady Alicia lingering in a pa.s.sage. He turned back and went up to her.

She began at once in a low, hurried voice that seemed to have a strain of anger running beneath it.