"You're very good," decided Jim. "Yes, I'll come."
"Of course it's wretched stuff they give us here," remarked Ellis when they were seated at the hotel. "Will you take water, or risk the wine?"
"The wine's not so bad," said Jim. He was pleased at his invitation, but even deference to one so rich could not subdue his pride in special knowledge. "I don't know how it happens, but they have some very decent Medoc."
"Then we'll try it," and Ellis ordered a bottle. He began to feel sure of his estimate of a young man who took wine when alone in the country. Bad blood will show; Ellis recalled his experience with Jim's father.
For although the promoter had once met Mather's father and come off second-best, with the elder Wayne he had been easily master. Ellis had bought up most of Wayne's outstanding notes by the time alcohol removed from society one who so well adorned it; the sale of the house had been merely a return of I. O. U.'s. In just the same way Ellis was providing against Blanchard's collapse, and now was watching Jim as the wine worked on him.
"A hole, a hole!" cried Jim, and the wave of his third glass included all Chebasset. "If it weren't for a little girl, Mr. Ellis——!" Jim gulped down more wine, and Ellis ordered a second bottle.
"That little girl," he asked, "whom I saw at the office?"
"She?" cried Jim loftily. "All very well to have fun with in this place, but a fellow of my standing looks forward to something better than that. Don't pretend ignorance, Mr. Ellis. You're learning what's worth having, even if you didn't know it when first you came to Stirling."
"I know very little about women," returned Ellis steadily.
"Gad," cried Jim, "you've chosen pretty well, then."