The Count took it up.

“It appears to be a dressing-gown!” said he.

“She said, sir, your uncle was wont to dine in it.”

“Ah!  It’s one of my poor uncle’s eccentricities, is it?  Very nice of Miss Wallingford; but all the same I think you can put out my evening clothes for me; and, I say, get me some hot water and a couple of towels that feel a little less like sandpaper, will you?  By the way—­one moment, Mackenzie!—­you needn’t mention anything of this to Miss Wallingford.  I’ll explain it all to her myself.”

It is remarkable how the presence or absence of a few of the very minor accessories of life will affect the humor even of a man so essentially philosophical as Count Bunker.  His equanimity was most marvelously restored by a single jugful of hot water, and by the time he came to survey his blue lapels in the mirror the completest confidence shone in his humorous eyes.

“How deuced pleased she’ll be to find I’m a white man after all,” he reflected.  “Supposing I’d really turned out a replica of that unshaved heathen on the wall—­poor girl, what a dull evening she’d have spent!  Perhaps I’d better break the news gently for the chaperon’s sake, but once we get her of to bed I rather fancy the fair Julia and I will smile together over my dear uncle’s dressing-gown!”

And in this humor he strode forth to conquer.

CHAPTER XXIX

Count Bunker could not but observe that Miss Wallingford’s eyes expressed more surprise than pleasure when he entered the drawing-room, and he was confirmed in his resolution to let his true character appear but gradually.  Afterwards he could not congratulate himself too heartily on this prudent decision.

“I fear,” he said, “that I am late.” (It was in fact half-past six by now.) “I have been searching through my wardrobe to find some nether garments at all appropriate to the overall—­if I may so term it—­ which you were kind enough to lay out for me.  But I found mustard of that particular shade so hard to match that I finally decided in favor of this more conventional habit.  I trust you don’t mind?”

Both the ladies, though evidently disappointed, excused him with much kindness, and Miss Minchell alluded directly to his blue lapels as evidence that even now he held himself somewhat aloof from strict orthodoxy.

“May we see any allusion to your uncle, the late Count Bunker, in his choice of color?” she asked in a reverently hushed voice.

“Yes,” replied the Count readily; “my aunt’s stockings were of that hue.”

From the startled glances of the two ladies it became plain that the late Count Bunker had died a bachelor.

“My other aunt,” he exclaimed unabashed; yet nevertheless it was with decided pleasure that he heard dinner announced immediately afterwards.

“They seem to know something about my uncle,” he said to himself.  “I must glean a few particulars too.”