In that moment, when all heads turned to the picture, I plainly saw her draw the glass of claret to the verge of the table, it disappeared beneath it and returned to its place empty. Almost simultaneously, the black-and-tan terrier sprang from a lair near my feet, and hurried from the room, shaking his ears vigorously. Mrs. Flurry's eyes wavered from the portrait to mine, and her face became slowly and evenly pink, like an afterglow.
It was but one of the many shameless acts of my party during the age-long evening. At ten o'clock we retired to rest, for my own part, thoroughly overfed, not in the least sleepy, worn with conversation, and oppressed by the consciousness of flippant, even brutal, ingratitude.
The weather had cleared next morning to mild greyness, that softened even the asperity of half-past eight breakfast. I lumbered stiffly downstairs in a pair of new butcher boots, and found with thankfulness that our hosts, exhausted possibly by their efforts, had kept their rooms.
Marshalled in order upon the sideboard stood the remains of all the more enduring items of last night's dinner, cold indeed, but firm and undefeated; hot dishes of ancient silver roasted before the noble brass-mounted fireplace; there were vats of lethargic cream, a clutch of new-laid eggs, a heap of hot scones.
"It's easy seen it wasn't cracking blind nuts made Lucy Hodnett and Louisa the size they are!" remarked Flurry, as the party, feeling more piratical than ever, embarked upon this collation. "Mrs. Yeates, do you think I am bound to dance with the pair of them to-night? You are, Major, anyway! But I might get off with Louisa."
"Oh, Sinclair's card is full," said my wife, who was engaged in trying to decipher the marks on the cream jug without upsetting the cream; "he and the General are plighted to one another for the evening."
"I wonder if the claret has stained the carpet!" said Mrs. Flurry, diving under the table. "It has! How awful!" Mrs. Flurry's voice indicated the highest enjoyment. "Never mind, they'll never see it! They're too fat to get under the table!"
"If they did, it'd be the first time old Looshy's claret ever put anyone there!" said Flurry.
We have never known the precise moment in this speech at which "Old Looshy's" butler entered the room; we only know that while Mrs. Flurry, much hampered by habit and boots, was in the act of struggling from beneath the table, he was there, melancholy and righteous, with a telegram on a salver.
It was from Flavin, the livery stableman, and its effect upon the spirits of the company was that of a puncture in a tyre.