"Is that from the Greek tragedies?"
"To your places, gentlemen," the floor-manager called, and the band struck up the Fisher's Hornpipe. At supper, I saw Ben Somers, still with the pretty girl in blue; but he came to my chair and asked me if I did not think she was a pretty toy for a man to play with.
"How much wine have you drunk? Enough to do justice to the family annals?"
"Really, you have been well informed. No, I have not drunk enough for that; but Mrs. Ryder has sent her virgins home with me. I am afraid their lamps are upset again. I drink nothing after to-night. You shall not ask again, 'How much?'"
My fire was out when I reached home. My head was burning and aching. I was too tired to untwist my hair, and I pulled and dragged at my dress, which seemed to have a hundred fastenings. Creeping into bed, I perceived the odor of flowers, and looking at my table discovered a bunch of white roses.
"Roses are nonsense, and life is nonsense," I thought.
When I opened my eyes, Alice was standing by the bed, with a glass of roses in her hand.
"Charles put these roses here, hey?"
"I suppose so; throw them out of the window, and me too; my head is splitting."
"To make amends for not giving you any last night," she went on; "he is quite childish."