“Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, somewhat shame-facedly—“I had only looked for Anthony Baddlesmere—to find out his new address—but the fact is——” He looked slowly round the room, and his eyes lighted up as he recognised Caroline: “Ah, Caroline!—just the person I would have wished to see. You’ll excuse me maintaining a firm position—here—but the fact is—I’m far from sober.”
“Ah, Andrew!” she said, coming to his side.
“Yes, Caroline—I’ve been watching the almonds bloom—I have been walking on air—in realms where there is no solid, base, nor tangible reality. Tush! And you would call me—not sober!... Most—ridiculous—prejudice!... Why should people of taste be sober, when by tasting what tastes well they may walk on air? Such a strange convention!... Consider the position: You stroll down the filthy Strand in muddied boots, all the shabby world hurrying by, thinking sordidly of money and greynesses—or crawling along with hunger in their eyes under the miserable gas-lamps.... Sip the nectar of the gods, commune with Bacchus, and you are in a street of the world of dreams—you are a-riot—you walk on the wind—the trees are all in bloom—faces are laughing at you—the very cast-iron lamps come to greet you—the air is full of music—you sing—everyone sings!... Tush! you are a god.”
“Ah, Andrew—when vice becomes a virtue, virtue seems but a feeble vice.”
“It’s your trick, Caroline,” he said airily; and added, in a thick-voiced confidential aside, glancing round the room with drunken caution:
“It’s rather a confidential matter, Caroline—but—we seem to be amongst friends. So I suppose it’s all right. We’re amongst intimates, eh? Good! All right.”
He whistled a refrain gallingly out of tune.
“Andrew!—Andrew——!” She put her white hand on his arm.
Andrew Blotte patted the slender fingers: