"I don't know much about wine. It's good. Not sweet, like Sauterne. It's a little—well—harsh. But it's harsh without being thin—quite different from that horrid Chianti people always seem to drink at Chelsea parties."
"You're right; it's rather unfinished, but it has plenty of body—it'll be a grand wine in ten years' time. It's 1915. Now, you see. Waiter, take this away and bring me a bottle of the 1908."
He leaned towards his companion.
"Miss Dorland—may I be impertinent?"
"How? Why?"
"Not an artist, not a bohemian, and not a professional man;—a man of the world."
"What do you mean by those cryptic words?"
"For you. That is the kind of man who is going to like you very much. Look! that wine I've sent away—it's no good for a champagne-and-lobster sort of person, nor for very young people—it's too big and rough. But it's got the essential guts. So have you. It takes a fairly experienced palate to appreciate it. But you and it will come into your own one day. Get me?"
"Do you think so?"
"Yes. But your man won't be at all the sort of person you're expecting. You have always thought of being dominated by somebody, haven't you?"