Warburton made one. Monsieur sipped it slowly, making a wry face, for, true Gaul that he was, only two kinds of stimulants appealed to his palate, liqueurs and wines. He found it as good as any he had ever tasted.
"Ver' good,"—softening. "Zare ees, zen, one t'ing zat all zee Americans can make, zee cocktail? I am educate'; I learn. Now leaf me till eight. Keep zee collect head;"—and Monsieur Pierre turned his attention to his partridges.
James went out of doors to get a breath of fresh air and to collect his thoughts, which were wool-gathering, whatever that may mean. They needed collecting, these thoughts of his, and labeling, for they were at all points of the compass, and he was at a loss upon which to draw for support. Here he was, in a devil of a fix, and no possible way of escaping except by absolutely bolting; and he vowed that he wouldn't bolt, not if he stood the chance of being exposed fifty times over. He had danced; he was going to pay the fiddler like a man. He had never run away from anything, and he wasn't going to begin now.
At the worst, they could only laugh at him; but his secret would be his no longer. Ass that he had been! How to tell this girl that he loved her? How to appear to her as his natural self? What a chance he had wilfully thrown away! He might have been a guest to-night; he might have sat next to her, turned the pages of her music, and perhaps sighed love in her ear, all of which would have been very proper and conventional. Ah, if he only knew what was going on behind those Mediterranean eyes of hers, those heavenly sapphires. Had she any suspicion? No, it could not be possible; she had humiliated him too often, to suspect the imposture. Alackaday!
Had any one else applied the disreputable terms he applied to himself there would have been a battle royal. When he became out of breath, he reentered the house to have a final look at the table before the ordeal began.
Covers had been laid for twelve; immaculate linen, beautiful silver, and sparkling cut-glass. He wondered how much the girl was worth, and thought of his own miserable forty-five hundred the year. True, his capital could at any time be converted into cash, some seventy-five thousand, but it would be no longer the goose with the golden egg. A great bowl of roses stood on a glass center-piece. As he leaned toward them to inhale their perfume he heard a sound. He turned.
She stood framed in a doorway, a picture such as artists conjure up to fit in sunlit corners of gloomy studios: beauty, youth, radiance, luster, happiness. To his ardent eyes she was supremely beautiful. How wildly his heart beat! This was the first time he had seen her in all her glory. His emotion was so strong that he did not observe that she was biting her nether lip.
"Is everything well, James?" she asked, meaning the possibilities of service and not the cardiac intranquillity of the servant.
"Very well, Miss Annesley,"—with a sudden bold scrutiny.
Whatever it was she saw in his eyes it had the effect of making hers turn aside. To bridge the awkwardness of the moment, he rearranged a napkin; and she remarked his hands. They were tanned, but they were elegantly shaped and scrupulously well taken care of—the hands of a gentleman born, of an aristocrat. He could feel her gaze penetrate like acid. He grew visibly nervous.