“I know he is most anxious to see you,” said Mrs. Dalrymple, with a very peculiar emphasis, and evidently desiring that I should inquire the reasons of this anxiety. I, however, most heroically forbore indulging my curiosity, and added that I should endeavor to find him on my way to the barracks; and then, hastily looking at my watch, I pronounced it a full hour later than it really was, and promising to spend the evening—my last evening—with them, I took my leave and hurried away, in no small flurry to be once more out of reach of Mrs. Dalrymple’s fire, which I every moment expected to open upon me.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE SUPPER.
Power and I dined together tête-à-tête at the hotel, and sat chatting over my adventures with the Dalrymples till nearly nine o’clock.
“Come, Charley,” said he, at length, “I see your eye wandering very often towards the timepiece; another bumper, and I’ll let you off. What shall it be?”
“What you like,” said I, upon whom a share of three bottles of strong claret had already made a very satisfactory impression.
“Then champagne for the coup-de-grace. Nothing like your vin mousseux for a critical moment,—every bubble that rises sparkling to the surface prompts some bright thought, or elicits some brilliant idea, that would only have been drowned in your more sober fluids. Here’s to the girl you love, whoever she be.”
“To her bright eyes, then, be it,” said I, clearing off a brimming goblet of nearly half the bottle, while my friend Power seemed multiplied into any given number of gentlemen standing amidst something like a glass manufactory of decanters.
“I hope you feel steady enough for this business,” said my friend, examining me closely with the candle.