"Perhaps," was the careless reply.
They reached Helen's door as he spoke.
"Come in," she said. "Fortunately I can make you a salad. It is a long time since we had a petit souper together. I have, too, something to say to you."
He followed her to the pretty parlor, and sat idly chatting while she made her preparations for the supper.
XX.
THE WORLD IS STILL DECEIVED.
Merchant of Venice; iii.—2.
It was a dainty little table to which Helen invited her husband when every thing was ready. The china was of odd bits picked up here and there abroad, and it was now disposed with an artist's eye for color and grouping. A tall bottle of Rhine wine had come from some mysterious nook, and beside it were a pair of fine old German glasses, frail as bubbles.
"I have always to offer my guests Rhine wine," Helen said, "for I've no glasses for any thing else. Arthur is ungracious enough to object. He does not like white wine as you do."
"I do like it," her guest answered, drawing the cork, "and so does Arthur, only he does not know it. He has somewhere stumbled upon the whim of pretending not to, and he can deceive himself more completely than any other man I ever saw. Rhine wine is the most poetic of beverages. It should go down like oil and only leave a fragrance like a poet's dream behind it."
"That is quite a rhapsody for you, Will; only your cool tone gives it a certain cynical flavor."