Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 2.djvu/258

250 division, you know—you mustn't miss it." There was to be no division that night, as it happened, but even Mr. Carteret's aberrations were parliamentary. Before Nick left him he had been able to assure him that he was rapidly getting better, that such valuable hours must not be wasted. "Come back on Friday, if they come to the second reading." These were the words with which Nick was dismissed, and at noon the doctor said the invalid was doing very well, but that Nick had better leave him alone for that day. Our young man accordingly determined to go up to town for the night and even, if he should receive no summons, for the next day. He arranged with Chayter that he should be telegraphed to if Mr. Carteret were either better or worse.

"Oh, he can't very well be worse, sir," Chayter replied, inexorably; but he relaxed so far as to remark that of course it wouldn't do for Nick to neglect the House.

"Oh, the House!" Nick sighed, ambiguously, avoiding the butler's eye. It would be easy enough to tell Mr. Carteret, but nothing would have sustained him in the effort to make a clean breast to Chayter.

He might be ambiguous about the House, but he had the sense of things to be done awaiting him in London. He telegraphed to his servant and spent that night in Rosedale Road. The things to be done were apparently to be done in his studio: his servant met him there with a large bundle of letters. He failed that evening to stray within two miles of Westminster, and the legislature of his country reassembled without his support. The next morning he received a telegram from Chayter, to whom he had given Rosedale Road as an