'Is there anything in the letter to worry you?' persisted Trixie. 'It can't be a bill, can it?'
'Never mind what it is,' said Mark; 'have you got the keys? I—I should like a glass of wine.'
'Ma left the keys in the cupboard,' said Trixie; 'how lucky! port or sherry, Mark?'
'Brandy, if there is any,' he said, with an effort.
'Brandy! oh, Mark, have you taken to drinking spirits, and so early in the morning?' she asked, with an anxious misgiving that perhaps that was de rigueur with all literary men.
'No, no, don't be absurd. I want some just now, and quick, do you hear? I caught a chill walking across,' he explained.
'You had better try to eat something with it, then,' she advised; 'have some cake?'
'Do you want to make me ill in earnest?' he retorted peevishly, thrusting away the brown cake, with a stale flavour of cupboard about it, with which Trixie tried to tempt him; 'there, it's all right—there's nothing the matter, I tell you.' And he poured out the brandy and drank it. There was a kind of comfort, or rather distraction, in the mere physical sensation to his palate; he thought he understood why some men took to drinking. 'Ha!' and he made a melancholy attempt at the sigh of satisfaction which some people think expected of them after spirits. 'Now I'm a man again, Trixie; that has driven off the chill. I'll be off now.'
'Are you sure you're quite well again?' she said anxiously. 'Very well, then I shan't see you again till you're in church next Tuesday; and oh, Mark, I do so hope you'll be very, very happy!' He was on the door-step by this time, and made no reply, while he kept his face turned from her.
'Good-bye, then,' she said; 'you won't forget my message to Mabel, will you?'