“Well, don’t you ever dare bring one in here, or smell of one. Do you drink cocktails?”
“No. ’Fraid of bootlegger stuff.”
“I don’t mind you drinking a glass of wine with your dinner. There is some old Burgundy and port in the cellar, and, no doubt, a case or two of champagne. Tell Topper to bring up anything you like—but only one glass at a meal, though; and as the champagne is in quart bottles——”
“Thanks, grandmother, but I really don’t care about it. It’s time for your medicine.”
She came out into the light, and Mrs. Carteret looked at her with a frown. “You could be a beauty,” she said plaintively. “Why won’t you, my dear? And at least don’t stick your hands in your pockets again when you are in my presence—like a whistling schoolboy.”
“Well, I can’t just now.” Gita’s somber face broke into a smile that revealed even white teeth brilliantly enameled, and for the moment she looked feminine and roguish in spite of her cropped head and rigid spine. “Let me lift you a little higher. You nearly choked last time.”
She thrust her arm under the pillow and held the glass to the old lady’s sunken lips, then lowered her gently and returned to her chair in the shade of the curtains.
Mrs. Carteret sighed. “You have your good points, Gita, and I do wish you could have come to me before, although a sick-room is no place for a young girl. Eighty-two! It is a great age. Too old for a woman to live to by thirty—forty years. Your generation won’t live as long.”
“I should hope not. But I wish you wouldn’t die.” For the first time the hard boyish voice quivered. “I haven’t anyone else. Why don’t you try this rejuvenation thing?”
“Not I. Thirty years ago, perhaps, if they hadn’t been so long discovering it. But I’ve had enough of life. Eighty-two! All the friends of my youth, all my children, dead. Nobody left but you, and I do not love you. You came to me too late and you are too different, if you are a Carteret. But it is kind of you to say that, my dear, and I am glad I can leave you independent, if not wealthy. You will have the old place and about eight thousand a year, although it may be less, what with the inheritance tax and all.” A look of sharp anxiety came into her eyes. “You won’t sell the manor, Gita? I could not rest in my grave.”