The cloud gathered again, and an impatient reply was coming, when Dalrymple opportunely invited the whole party to a bowl of punch in an adjoining arbor, and himself led the way with Madame Roquet. The arbor was vacant, a waiter was placing the chairs, and the punch was blazing in the bowl. It had evidently been ordered during one of the pauses in the dance, that it might be ready to the moment--a little attention which called forth exclamations of pleasure from both Madame Roquet and Monsieur Robineau, and touched with something like a gleam of satisfaction even the grim visage of Monsieur Robineau's wife.
Dalrymple took the head of the table, and stirred the punch into leaping tongues of blue flame till it looked like a miniature Vesuvius.
"What diabolical-looking stuff!" I exclaimed. "You might, to all appearance, be Lucifer's own cupbearer."
"A proof that it ought to be devilish good," replied Dalrymple, ladling it out into the glasses. "Allow me, ladies and gentlemen, to propose the health, happiness, and prosperity of the bride and bridegroom. May they never die, and may they be remembered for ever after!"
We all laughed as if this was the best joke we had heard in our lives, and Dalrymple filled the glasses up again.
"What, in the name of all that's mischievous, can have become of Sullivan?" said he to me. "I have not caught so much as a glimpse of him for the last hour."
"When I last saw him, he was dancing."
"Yes, with a pretty little dark-eyed girl in a blue dress. By Jove! that fellow will be getting into trouble if left to himself!"
"But the girl has her mother with her!"
"All the stronger probability of a scrimmage," replied Dalrymple, sipping his punch with a covert glance of salutation at Suzette.