Crauford, who had been still walking to and fro, stopped abruptly at this speech; and his eye, even through the gloom, shot out a livid and fierce light, before which the timid and humble glance of Mr. Bradley quailed in an instant.
“Go home!—no, my friend, no: I can’t part with you tonight, no, not for an instant. I have many lessons to give you. How are we to learn our parts for to-morrow, if we don’t rehearse them beforehand? Do you not know that a single blunder may turn what I hope will be a farce into a tragedy? Go home!—pooh! pooh! why, man, I have not seen my wife, nor put my house to rights, and if you do but listen to me I tell you again and again that not a hair of our heads can be touched.”
“You know best, honoured sir; I bow to your decision.”
“Bravo, honest Brad! and now for dinner. I have the most glorious champagne that ever danced in foam to your lip. No counsellor like the bottle, believe me!”
And the servant entering to announce dinner, Crauford took Bradley’s arm, and leaning affectionately upon it, passed through an obsequious and liveried row of domestics to a room blazing with light and plate. A noble fire was the first thing which revived Bradley’s spirit; and, as he spread his hands over it before he sat down to the table, he surveyed, with a gleam of gladness upon his thin cheeks, two vases of glittering metal formerly the boast of a king, in which were immersed the sparkling genii of the grape.
Crauford, always a gourmand, ate with unusual appetite, and pressed the wine upon Bradley with an eager hospitality, which soon somewhat clouded the senses of the worthy man. The dinner was removed, the servants retired, and the friends were left alone.
“A pleasant trip to France!” cried Crauford, filling a bumper. “That’s the land for hearts like ours. I tell you what, little Brad, we will leave our wives behind us, and take, with a new country and new names, a new lease of life. What will it signify to men making love at Paris what fools say of them in London? Another bumper, honest Brad,—a bumper to the girls! What say you to that, eh?”
“Lord, sir, you are so facetious, so witty! It must be owned that a black eye is a great temptation,—Lira-lira, la-la!” and Mr. Bradley’s own eyes rolled joyously.
“Bravo, Brad!—a song, a song! but treason to King Burgundy! Your glass is—”
“Empty, honoured sir, I know it!—Lira-lira la!—but it is easily filled! We who have all our lives been pouring from one vessel into another know how to keep it up to the last!