"One good bracer deserves another, Jones. Put a stick into my coffee, will you?"
The butler gave me a furtive glance, a cross between an exclamation and an interrogation.
"Brandy, madam?" he asked, smoothly.
When he had fortified my coffee with a dash of fine old French cognac, I looked him straight in the eye.
"Jones," I said, impressively, "Mr. Stevens has complained of you of late. But I don't want you to lose your place. I shall see to it that my--ah--husband becomes reconciled to you, but you must obey my instructions to the letter. To begin with, you are to leave this room at once, close the door, stand on guard outside and allow no one to disturb me until I give you word. If you open the door before I call to you, you leave the house immediately. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, madam," gasped Jones, thrown out of his orbit for once. But he retained sufficient self-control to make a hurried exit, noisily shutting the door behind him.
I swallowed my coffee--and cognac--at a gulp, and stumbled toward the sideboard. After a short search I came upon a box of excellent cigars. Presently I was seated at the luncheon-table again, sipping a pony of brandy neat and blowing cigar-smoke into the air. For a glorious half-hour, I reflected joyously, I could enjoy myself in my own way. Glancing over my shoulder, I caught sight of my reflection in the sideboard mirror. Caroline, with a long, black panatella between her beautiful lips, held a pony of brandy poised in the air, with the other hand raised to remove the cigar from her mouth. An inexplicable wave of diabolical exultation swept over me. Bowing to my wife's handsome image--which cordially returned the salutation--I removed my cigar and raised the brandy to Caroline's mouth.
"Here's how, my dear!" I cried, gaily. "No heel-taps!"
Caroline's reflection drank the toast, and the warm glow of good-fellowship that crept through my veins reconciled me for the time being to my strange, uncanny fate.
CHAPTER VIII.