“I used to try hard to be. I never was quite comfortable until I gave it up. It was like release from bondage when I decided one day to be just sincere. I do sincerely congratulate Mr. Cabot——”
“Don’t you ever change your mind,” the enthusiastic lawyer interrupted. “Scarce were we properly introduced, Miss Trent and I, when by this sincerity which she depreciates she thrilled me with a beautiful perception.”
“How nice, Rufus, that you still thrill,” Catherine commented with a particularly guileless smile.
“Over anything that is good of its kind,” he amplified. “Such success as I have had at the bar, I owe to that capacity. To me nothing can be more thrilling than the sudden sight of human character. This perception that I have had—this beautiful sight that I have seen—— Perhaps, John, you will let me toast it with your wonderful wine?”
At his host’s encouraging nod, Holt arose and fixed his eyes on the frieze with the twitching smile of inspiration. After a pause, he began:
“I do not give you Wine, Woman and Song. No, nothing so new as that! But it is a song I give—a song of woman and wine. In varying vintages we drink inspiration from the sweetness or tartness, the smoothness, gentleness and headiness of women—we men. From the Cocktail Girl, of whom a little is enough, to good old Mother Cordial, who calms us with her seasoned satisfactions, we have much to enjoy. Here is Champagne.”
Lifting from beside his plate the tall-stemmed glass half-full of bubbling amber, he bowed toward the yellow velvet vision.
“How it sparkles, infects our moods, dares us into animation! If only it would never let us down to normal again—would never cease to sparkle—Champagne!”
As if by chance, his boyish smile left Catherine’s pleased face and strayed Dolores’ way. With a kiss of the rim, he replaced the tall glass upon the cloth. His fingers loosed its slender stem; found a smaller glass; raised it.
“Once in a lifetime you meet a woman who is like this deep red Burgundy. Does it need to speak—the wine—to boast its color, its fragrance, its power? See, it is too rich for the eye to penetrate; there is not a bubble in it to suggest its life; it is topped by no froth. All too quietly, it offers us sensation. And we sip of it—delight. And we drink deep—intoxication.