She swayed and tottered, and he only just caught her before she fell. He laid her down on the floor and opened the door and window wide. There was a flask of brandy in his portmanteau, laid on the top, designed to be easily accessible in case of an inclement crossing of the Channel. He mixed a tablespoonful of this with a little water, and as she moved, and opened her eyes again, he knelt down on the floor by her, supporting her.
“Take a sip of this, Amy,” he said.
She obeyed him.
“Thank you, my dear,” she said. “I am better. So silly of me.”
“Another sip, then.”
“You want to make me drunk, Lyndhurst,” she said.
Then she smiled: it would be a pity to lose the opportunity for a humorous allusion to what at the time had been so far from humour.
“Really drunk, this time,” she said. “And then you tell Cousin James he was right.”
She let herself rest longer than was physically necessary in the encircling crook of his arm, and let herself keep her eyes closed, though, if she had been alone, she would most decidedly have opened them. But those first few minutes had somehow to be traversed, and she felt that silence bridged them over better than speech. It was appropriate, too, that his arm should be round her.
“There, I am better,” she said at length. “Let me get up, Lyndhurst. Thank you for looking after me.”