“Do you smell anything?” said Wilfrid, and hung with frightful suspense on the verdict. “A fellow upset beer on me.”
“It is beer!” sniffed Braintop.
“What on earth shall I do?” was the rejoinder; and Wilfrid tried to remember whether he had felt any sacred joy in touching Emilia's dress as they went up the steps to the door.
Braintop fumbled in the breast-pocket of his coat. “I happen to have,” he said, rather shamefacedly.
“What is it?”
“Mrs. Chump gave it to me to-day. She always makes me accept something: I can't refuse. It's this:—the remains of some scent she insisted on my taking, in a bottle.”
Wilfrid plucked at the stopper with a reckless desperation, saturated his handkerchief, and worked at his breast as if he were driving a lusty dagger into it.
“What scent is it?” he asked hurriedly.
“Alderman's Bouquet, sir.”
“Of all the detestable!—-” Wilfrid had no time for more, owing to fresh arrivals. He hastened in, with his smiling, wary face, half trusting that there might after all be purification in Alderman's Bouquet, and promising heaven due gratitude if Emilia's senses discerned not the curse on him. In the hall a gust from the great opening contention between Alderman's Bouquet and bad beer, stifled his sickly hope. Frantic, but under perfect self-command outwardly, he glanced to right and left, for the suggestion of a means of escape. They were seven steps up the stairs before his wits prompted him to say to Georgiana, “I have just heard very serious news from home. I fear—”