My Lady Nicotine | Page 6

in a
rambling manner, occasionally breaking off in the middle of a sentence
and seeming to listen for something. I tried him on history, and
mentioned 1822 as the date of the battle of Waterloo, merely to give
him his opportunity. But he let it pass. After that there was silence. By
and by he rose from his chair, apparently to leave the room, and then
sat down again, as if he had thought better of it. He did this several
times, always eying me narrowly. Wondering how I could make it
easier for him, I took up a book and pretended to read with deep
attention, meaning to show him that he could go away if he liked
without my noticing it. At last he jumped up, and, looking at me boldly,
as if to show that the house was his and he could do what he liked in it,
went heavily from the room. As soon as he was gone I laid down my
book. I was now in a state of nervous excitement, though outwardly I
was quite calm. I took a look at him as he went up the stairs, and
noticed that he had slipped off his shoes on the bottom step. All
haughtiness had left him now.
[Illustration]
In a little while he came back. He found me reading. He lighted his
pipe and pretended to read too. I shall never forget that my book was
"Anne Judge, Spinster," while his was a volume of "Blackwood."
Every five minutes his pipe went out, and sometimes the book lay
neglected on his knee as he stared at the fire. Then he would go out for
five minutes and come back again. It was late now, and I felt that I

should like to go to my bedroom and lock myself in. That, however,
would have been selfish; so we sat on defiantly. At last he started from
his chair as some one knocked at the door. I heard several people
talking, and then loud above their voices a younger one.
[Illustration]
When I came to myself, the first thing I thought was that they would
ask me to hold it. Then I remembered, with another sinking at the heart,
that they might want to call it after me. These, of course, were selfish
reflections; but my position was a trying one. The question was, what
was the proper thing for me to do? I told myself that my brother might
come back at any moment, and all I thought of after that was what I
should say to him. I had an idea that I ought to congratulate him, but it
seemed a brutal thing to do. I had not made up my mind when I heard
him coming down. He was laughing and joking in what seemed to me a
flippant kind of way, considering the circumstances. When his hand
touched the door I snatched at my book and read as hard as I could. He
was swaggering a little as he entered, but the swagger went out of him
as soon as his eye fell on me. I fancy he had come down to tell me, and
now he did not know how to begin. He walked up and down the room
restlessly, looking at me as he walked the one way, while I looked at
him as he walked the other way. At length he sat down again and took
up his book. He did not try to smoke. The silence was something
terrible; nothing was to be heard but an occasional cinder falling from
the grate. This lasted, I should say, for twenty minutes, and then he
closed his book and flung it on the table. I saw that the game was up,
and closed "Anne Judge, Spinster." Then he said, with affected
jocularity: "Well, young man, do you know that you are an uncle?"
There was silence again, for I was still trying to think out some
appropriate remark. After a time I said, in a weak voice. "Boy or girl?"
"Girl," he answered. Then I thought hard again, and all at once
remembered something. "Both doing well?" I whispered. "Yes," he said
sternly. I felt that something great was expected of me, but I could not
jump up and wring his hand. I was an uncle. I stretched out my arm
toward the cigar-box, and firmly lighted my first cigar.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER III.
THE ARCADIA MIXTURE.
[Illustration]
Darkness comes, and with it the porter to light our stair gas. He
vanishes into his box. Already the inn is so quiet that the tap of a pipe
on a window-sill startles all the sparrows in the quadrangle. The men
on my stair emerged from their holes. Scrymgeour, in a dressing-gown,
pushes