Sir John sipped again.
“It is a new bin,” he said.
“Yes, sir. First bottle of the lower bin, sir.”
Sir John nodded with an air of self-satisfaction. He was pleased to have proved to himself and to the “damned butler,” who had caught him napping in the library, that he was still a young man in himself, with senses and taste unimpaired. But his hand was at the small of his back as he returned to the library.
He was not at all sure about Jack—did not know whether to expect him or not. Jack did not always do what one might have expected him to do under given circumstances. And Sir John rather liked him for it. Perhaps it was that small taint of heredity which is in blood, and makes it thicker than water.
“Nothing like blood, sir,” he was in the habit of saying, “in horses, dogs, and men.” And thereafter he usually threw back his shoulders.
The good blood that ran in his veins was astir to-night. The incidents of the day had aroused him from the peacefulness that lies under a weight of years (we have to lift the years one by one and lay them aside before we find it), and Sir John Meredith would have sat very upright in his chair were it not for that carping pain in his back.
He waited for an hour with his eyes almost continually on the clock, but Jack never came. Then he rang the bell.
“Coffee,” he said. “I like punctuality, if you please.”
“Thought Mr. Meredith might be expected, sir,” murmured the butler humbly.