"I keep that for the mornings. Shall I ring the bell?"
He nodded. The waiter who entered looked curiously from one to another. Lord Alcester had a firm, quiet, impressive manner.
"You will bring me," he said, "a bottle of the best port you have and a small bottle of soda-water. Make up that fire."
"I never said a bottle," said the woman. "Are you going to drink the rest?"
"I am going to drink the soda-water. Don't talk about that. Sit down by the fire. Warm your hands and tell me about yourself."
It was not until she had finished her first glass of port that she began on the subject. "There is no more to say than what I said before," she said. "You were my ruin."
"I remember that night very distinctly. I never made love to you. I never tried to kiss you. I never treated you with any less respect than I would have treated a woman of my own class. What are you talking about? What is all this nonsense?"
"No nonsense at all. How did you think it would be when I got home that night with fifty pounds' worth of new clothes, and my pearl necklace, and a story of a theatre and supper afterwards? Do you think they would believe my word at home? They said they did; I have got a temper, and they daren't say anything else; but they let me see very well that they didn't believe me. I wasn't going to stand it. Next morning at breakfast, when they were all full of the thing, I gave them some straight talking, and then I cleared out."
"Am I responsible for the heat of your temper and the straightness of your talking?"
"You might have guessed how it would be with me. Did you think that after one night of glory like that I was going back to perpetual drudgery? I'd seen life as it might be, and I'd been given a bad name. I'd only got to deserve it."