In the second's somewhat panicky pause that ensued Rollins flopped forward with his note-book. Rollins evidently had been waiting a long and impatient time for such a pause.
"Now speaking of drinking to drown one's Sorrows—" beamed Rollins.
"But we weren't!" observed George Keets coldly.
"But you were this morning!" triumphed Rollins. From the flapping white pages of the little black note-book he displayed with pride the entries that he had already made, a separate name heading each page—Mrs. Delville—Mr. Delville— Mr. Keets—Miss Davies—the list began. "Now take the hypothesis," glowed Rollins, "that everybody has got just two bottles stowed away for all time, the very last bottles I mean that he will ever own, rum—rye—Benedictine—any thing you choose—and eliminating the first bottle as the less significant of the two—what are you saving the last one for!" demanded Rollins.
From a furtive glance at Allan John's graying face and the May Girl's somewhat startled stare, young Kennilworth looked up with a rather peculiarly glinting smile.
"Oh, that's easy," said he, "I'm saving mine to break the head of some bally fool!"
"And my last bottle," interposed George Keets quickly. "My last bottle—?" In his fine ascetic face the flush deepened suddenly again, but with the flush the faintest possible little smile showed also at the lip-line. "Oh, I suppose if I'm really going to have a wedding—in that little gray toy house, it's up to me to save mine for a 'Loving Cup' . . . claret . . . Something very mild and rosy . . . Yes, mine shall be claret."
With her pretty nose crinkled in what seemed like a particularly abstruse reflection, the May Girl glanced up.
"Bene—benedictine?" she questioned. "Is that the stuff that smells the way stars would taste if you ate them raw?"
"I really can't say," mused Kennilworth. "I don't think I ever ate a perfectly raw star. At the night-lunch carts I think they almost invariably fry them on both sides."