A moment’s doubt and fear swept over Maud like some huge combing breaker.
“Thurso, Thurso!” she cried. “Mr. Cochrane!”
He still held the bottle in his hand.
“Ah, reverse your fear quickly,” he said.
But Thurso seemed not to hear her. The sugar was nearly dissolved now, and he was stabbing at the few remaining crystals.
“What a nice fire!” he said. “I shall sit by it all the evening, and not come to dinner, and enjoy four or five hours of Paradise. Time goes so slowly, too, in Paradise; it seems an eternity. I shouldn’t take more than a tea-spoonful if I were you,” he said to Cochrane, who was just tilting the bottle. “That’s what I began with.”
“Ah, was it?” said Cochrane. “Then, see here.”
He poured the whole of the rest of the bottle into the glass. Then, without troubling about hot water or sugar, he put it to his mouth and drank it off.
“Can’t say I like your brand,” he said, putting the glass down.
The sugar was melted in Thurso’s glass, and he had withdrawn the spoon. The first sip was imminent now, that first sip of so many. Then the struggle began; he longed for that first sip, but as he saw what Cochrane had done his hands trembled; they would not raise the glass to his mouth. But the stammering had gone, and the giggling laugh was dumb.