Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 3.djvu/20

12 "Ah, no," pleaded Nick, "it will do you good after a little. Think it over quietly and you'll be glad I've stopped being a humbug."

"I loved you—I loved you as my son," moaned the old man.

Nick sank on his knee beside the bed and leaned over him tenderly. "Get better, get better, and I'll be your son for the rest of your life."

"Poor Dormer—poor Dormer!" Mr. Carteret softly wailed.

"I admit that if he had lived I probably shouldn't have done it," said Nick. "I dare say I should have deferred to his prejudices, even if I thought them narrow."

"Do you turn against your father?" Mr. Carteret asked, making, to disengage his arm from the young man's touch, an effort in which Nick recognized the irritation of conscious weakness. Nick got up, at this, and stood a moment looking down at him, while Mr. Carteret went on: "Do you give up your name, do you give up your country?"

"If I do something good my country may like it," Nick contended.

"Do you regard them as equal, the two glories?"

"Here comes your nurse, to blow me up and turn me out," said Nick.

The nurse had come in, but Mr. Carteret managed to direct to her an audible, dry, courteous "Be so good as to wait till I send for you," which arrested her, in the large room, at some distance from the bed, and then had the effect of making her turn on her heel with a professional laugh. She appeared to think that an old gentleman with the fine manner of his