CHAPTER V.
The next morning the two conspirators breakfasted early. The Baron seemeda little nervous now that it came so near the venture, but his friend wasas cheerful as a schoolboy, and his confident air soon put fresh courageinto Rudolph.
Mr Bunker's bedroom opened out of their common sitting-room, and so hedeclared that in the afternoon the Baron must be laid up there.
"Keep your room all morning," he said, "and look as pale as you can. Ishall make my room ready for you."
When the Baron had retired, he threw himself into a chair and gazed for afew minutes round his bedroom. Then he rang his bell, ordered the servantto make the bed immediately, and presently went out to do some shopping.On the way he sent word to the Countess, telling her only that the Baronwas indisposed, but that in spite of this misfortune he hoped he shouldhave the pleasure of their company at tea. The rest of the morning hespent in his bedroom, prudently keeping out of the ladies' way.
When, after a substantial lunch which he insisted upon getting up to eat,the Baron was allowed to enter the sick-room, he uttered an exclamation ofastonishment,--and indeed his surprise was natural. The room was as full offlowers as a conservatory; chairs, wardrobe, and fireplace were mostartistically draped with art hangings; a plate filled with grapes, a largebottle labelled "Two table-spoonfuls every half hour," and amedicine-glass were placed conspicuously on a small table; and, mostremarkable feature of all, Mr Bunker's bath filled with water and alivewith goldfish stood by the side of the bed. A couple of canaries sang in acage by the window, the half-drawn curtains only permitted the mostdelicate light to steal into the room, and in short the whole arrangementreflected the utmost credit on his ingenious friend.
The Baron was delighted, but a little puzzled.
"Vat for are zese fishes and ze canaries?" he asked.
"To show your love of nature."
"Vy so?"
"There is nothing that pleases a woman more."
"My friend, you zink of everyzing!" exclaimed the Baron, admiringly.
When four o'clock approached he drew a night-shirt over his other garmentsand got into bed. Mr Bunker at first was in favour of a complete change ofattire, but on his friend's expostulating against such a thoroughprecaution, he admitted that it would be perhaps rather like the historicblacking of Othello.
"Leave it all to me, my dear Baron," he said, reassuringly, as he tuckedhim in; and with that he went into the other room and awaited the arrivalof their guests.
They came punctually. The Countess was full of concern for the "dearBaron," while Lady Alicia, he could not help thinking, appeared unusuallyreserved. In fact, his quick eye soon divined that something was thematter.
"She has either been getting a lecture from the dowager or has foundsomething out," he said to himself.
However, it seemed that if she had found anything out it could havenothing to do with the Baron's indisposition, for she displayed the mostingenuous sympathy, and, he thought, she even appeared to aim it pointedlyat himself.
"So sudden!" exclaimed the Countess.
"It is rather sudden, but we'll hope it may pass as quickly as it came,"said Mr Bunker, conveying a skilful impression of deep concern veiled by acheerful manner.
"Tell me honestly, Mr Bunker, is it dangerous?" demanded the countess.
Mr Bunker hesitated, gave a half-hearted laugh, and replied, "Oh, dear,no! that is--at present, Lady Grillyer, we have really no reason to bealarmed."
"I am _so_ sorry," murmured Lady Alicia.
Her mother looked at her approvingly.
"Poor Baron!" she said, in a tone of the greatest commiseration.
"So far from home!" sighed Mr Bunker. "And yet so cheerful through itall," he added.
"What did you say was the matter?" asked the Countess.
Mr Bunker had thought it both wiser and more effective to maintain alittle mystery round his friend's malady.
"The doctor hasn't yet given a decided opinion," he replied.
"Can't we do anything?" said Lady Alicia, softly.
Mr Bunker thought the guests were nearly worked up to the proper pitch ofsympathy.
"Poor Rudolph!" he exclaimed. "It would cheer him immensely, I know, andease my own anxiety as well, if you would venture in to see him for a fewminutes. In such a case there is no sympathy so welcome as a woman's."
The Countess glanced at her daughter, and wavered for an instant betweenthose proprieties for which she was a famous stickler and this admirablechance of completing the Baron's conquest.
"His relations are far away," said Mr Bunker, looking pensively out of thewindow.
"We might come in for a few minutes, Alicia?" suggested Lady Grillyer.
"Yes, mamma," replied Lady Alicia, with an alacrity that rather surprisedtheir host.
With a pleasantly dejected air he ushered the ladies into the darkenedsick-room. The Baron, striving to conceal his exultation under a ruefulsemblance, greeted them with a languid yet happy smile.
"Ah, Lady Grillyer, zis is kind indeed! And you, Lady Alicia, how can Izank you?"
"My daughter and I are much distressed, Baron, to find our host _hors decombat_," said the Countess, graciously.
"Just when you wanted to go away too!" added Lady Alicia, sympathetically.
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 mostcheering sick-room manner. "It won't do to disappoint the Brierleys, youknow."
"You must come down for _part_ of the time," smiled her daughter.
These expressions of sympathy so affected the Baron that he placed hishand on his brow and turned slightly away to conceal his emotion. At thesame time Mr Bunker, with well-timed dramatic effect, sank wearily into achair, 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 oneto 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 hismore diplomatic friend to reply, he answered hastily, "Ach, no, it is bota 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, andMr Bunker could see that they were taking rapid stock of the garnishings.
"This, I suppose, is your cough-mixture," said the Countess, examining thebottle.
The Baron incautiously admitted it was.
"Two table-spoonfuls every half hour!" she exclaimed; "why, I never heardof taking a cough-mixture in such doses. Besides, your cough doesn't seemso 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 suspicionin 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 anordinary cough-mixture."
"Oh," said the Countess.
Lady Alicia's attention had been strongly attracted by the bath, andsuddenly 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 turnedseverely 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 istherefore impossible to say exactly wh
at 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 thebed.
"I mean," replied Mr Bunker, with a happy inspiration, "that this bath isa delicate test. No victim of the dread disease of hydrophobia can bear tolook----"
But the Countess gave him no time to finish. Even as he was speaking theBaron's face had passed through a series of the most extraordinaryexpressions, 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 assure you----" pleaded Mr Bunker, coming hastily afterthem, 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 hisnight-shirt, and, forgetting all about the bath, descended with a greatsplash among the startled goldfish.
The Countess paused in the half-opened door and looked at him with horrorthat rapidly passed into intense indignation.
"I am not ill!" he cried. "It vos zat rascal Bonker's plot. He made me! Ihaf 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 thenonly remarking, "I have never been so insulted before," she went out, andher 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 tohis 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 endto so fine a joke for the world."
"You vill not fight? Coward! poltroon! I know not ze English name badenoff 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 thesympathy 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 plotmiscarried? 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 tovin ze Lady Alicia for yourself! Speak to me nevermore!" And with that theinfuriated nobleman 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 Alicialingering in a passage. He turned back and went up to her.
She began at once in a low, hurried voice that seemed to have a strain ofanger running beneath it.
"I got the two letters I wrote you returned to me to-day through thedead-letter office. Nothing was known about you at the address you gave."
"I am not surprised," he replied.
"Then it was false?"
"As an address it was perfectly genuine, only it didn't happen to bemine."
"Were you _ever_ in the Church?"
"Not to my personal knowledge."
"Yet you said you were?"
"I was in an asylum."
She looked up at him with fine contempt, while he smiled back at her withgreat amusement.
"You have deceived _me_," she said, "and you have treated your otherfriend--who is far too good for you--disgracefully. Have you anything to sayfor yourself?"
"Not a word," he replied, cheerfully.
"You must _never_ treat me again as--as I let you."
As a smile played for an instant about his face, she added quickly, "Idon't _suppose_ I shall ever see you again. In future we are not _likely_to meet."
"The lady and the lunatic?" said he. "Well, perhaps not. Good-bye, andbetter luck."
"Good-bye," she answered coldly, and added as they parted, "my mother, ofcourse, is extremely angry with you."
"There," he said with a smile, "you see I still come in useful."
She hurried away, and Mr Bunker walked slowly downstairs and out of thehotel.
"It seems to me," he reflected, "that I shall have to set out on myadventures again alone."
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