He complies, and, while he is trying to make it clear to his uncle that he wrongs me in crediting me with any wish to thrust the Persian monarch among the ashes of the Plantagenets, I take breath, and look round again.  Algy is eating nothing, and is drinking every thing that is offered to him.  His face is not much redder than Musgrave’s, and he is glancing across the table at Mrs. Huntley, with the haggard anger of his eyes.  Of this, however, she seems innocently unaware.  She is leaning back in her chair; so is Roger.  They are talking low and quickly, and looking smilingly at each other.  When does his face ever light up into such alert animation when he is talking to me?  There can be no doubt of it!  Why blink a thing because it is unpleasant?  I bore him.

I have no intention of listening, and yet I hear some of their words—­ enough to teach me the drift of their talk.  “Residency!” “Cawnpore!” “Simlah!” “Cursed Simlah!” “Cursed Cawnpore!” My attention is recalled by the voice of my old neighbor.

“Talking of that—­” he says—­(talking of what, in Heaven’s name?)—­“I once knew a man—­a doctor, at Norwich—­who did not marry till he was seventy-eight, and had four as fine children as any man need wish to see.”

By the extraordinary irrelevancy of this anecdote, I am so taken aback that, for a moment, I am unable to utter.  Seeing, however, that some comment is expected from me, I stammer something about its being a great age.  He, however, imagines that I am asking whether they were boys or girls.

“Three boys and a girl, or three girls and a boy!” he answers, with loud distinctness—­“I cannot recollect which; but, after all—­” (with an acrid chuckle)—­“that is not the point of the story!”

I sink back in my chair, with a slight shiver.

“Give it up!” says my other neighbor, with a compassionate smile, and speaking in a voice not a whit lower than usual—­“I would!—­it really is no good!”

“Why does not he have a trumpet?” ask I, with a slight accent of irritation, for I have suffered much, and it is hot.

“He had one once,” replies my companion, still pityingly regarding the flushed discomposure of my face; “but people would insist on bawling so loudly down it, that they nearly broke the drum of his ear, and so he broke it.”

I laugh a little, but in a puny way.  There is not much laugh in me.  Again I look round the table.  Musgrave is better; he is a better color than he was.  Under the influence of Barbara’s gentle talk, his features have reassumed almost serenity.  Algy is no better.  I see him lean back, and speak to the servant behind him.  He is asking for more champagne.  I wish he would not.  He has had quite enough already.  Roger and Mrs. Huntley are much as they were.  They are still leaning back in their chairs—­still looking with friendly intimacy into each other’s eyes—­still smiling.  Again a few words of their talk reach me.