“Oh, I did not mean to say that it was not good port!” said Peregrine, blushing furiously. “I am not a judge. I’ve no doubt of it being capital stuff!” He took another sip, and returned to the task of mastering the deed of settlement. The Earl sat with his elbow on the desk, and his chin resting on his hand, watching him.
The words began to move queerly under Peregrine’s eyes. He blinked, and was conscious all at once of a strong feeling of lassitude. Something in his head was making a buzzing sound; his ears felt thick, as though wool had been stuffed in them. He looked up, pressing a hand to his forehead. “I beg pardon—don’t feel quite the thing. A sudden dizziness—can’t understand it.” He lifted his half-empty wine-glass to his lips, but paused before he drank, staring at Worth with a look of frightened suspicion in his eyes.
The Earl was sitting quite still, impassively regarding him. One of the cut-steel buttons on his coat attracted and held Peregrine’s cloudy gaze until he forced himself to look away from it. His brain felt a little stupid; he found himself speculating on the snowy folds of Worth’s cravat. He himself had tried so often to achieve a Water-fall, and always failed. “I can’t tie mine like that,” he said. “Water-fall.”
“You will one day,” answered the Earl.
“My head feels so queer,” Peregrine muttered.
“The room is a trifle hot. I will open the window in a minute. Go on reading.”
Peregrine dragged his eyes away from that fascinating cravat and tried to focus them on the Earl’s face. He made an effort to collect his wandering wits. The paper he was holding slipped from his fingers to the ground. “No!” he said. “It’s not the room!” He staggered to his feet and stood swaying. “Why do you look at me like that? The wine! What have you put in the wine? By God, you sh-shall answer me!”
He stared at his glass in a kind of bemused horror, and in that instant Worth was on his feet, and in one swift movement had got behind him, and seized him, gripping the boy’s right hand from over his shoulder in a cruel hold that clenched Peregrine’s fingers tightly round the wine-glass. His left arm was round Peregrine, forcing the boy back against his shoulder.
Peregrine struggled like a madman, but. the dreadful lassitude was stealing over him. He panted: “No, no, I won’t! I won’t! You devil, let me go! What have you done to me? What—” His own hand, with that other grasping it, tilted the rest of the wine down his throat. He seemed to have no power to resist; he choked, spluttered, and saw the room begin to spin round like a kaleidoscope. “The wine!” he said thickly. “The wine!”
He heard Worth’s voice say as from a long way off: “I am sorry, Peregrine, but there was no alternative. There is nothing to be afraid of.”