“Of course she is. We’re not mooring her, just keeping her lying-to till we get the stuff—the stock I mean—ashore and take you off. Are you quite ready?”
“Can’t you stop and dine?”
“Oh, just some soup and a snack, but we mustn’t be long. Just while the other boat comes ashore and we off-load her. Let’s get in to your fire. It’s cold on the water.”
We went into the study and I switched on the lights. The rosy comfort of my room struck me with a kind of pang as I thought of leaving.
“Thank you, Bates, just what I wanted,” said Edmund as Bates brought in a tray with decanter and syphon.
He drank with a little shudder as though of cold, though he did not look cold, but ill at ease.
Snape shuddered too as he watched him.
I knew that seeing a man drink a whisky-and-soda, unsanctified even by the presence of a meal, gave him a feeling of being in some unhallowed presence, and filled him with a desire to protest that was choked down only by his shyness.
“Get some dinner in at once, Bates,” I said, “anything that’s ready.”
“Got all your traps ready?”