“I am not quite well,” said he; “leave me alone.”
“No, to be sure, you don’t look well,” cried a jolly youth, against whom Bertha had frequently warned him; “but a glass of sherry will soon restore you. It would be highly immoral to leave you in this condition without taking care of you.”
Ralph again vainly tried to remonstrate; but the end was, that he reluctantly followed.
He had always been a conspicuous figure in the student world; but that night he astonished his friends by his eloquence, his reckless humor, and his capacity for drinking. He made a speech for “Woman,” which bristled with wit, cynicism, and sarcastic epigrams. One young man, named Vinter, who was engaged, undertook to protest against his sweeping condemnation, and declared that Ralph, who was a Universal favorite among the ladies, ought to be the last to revile them.
“If,” he went on, “the Baroness should propose to six well-known ladies here in this city whom I could mention, I would wager six Johannisbergers, and an equal amount of champagne, that every one of them would accept him.”
The others loudly applauded this proposal, and Ralph accepted the wager. The letters were written on the spot, and immediately dispatched. Toward morning, the merry carousal broke up, and Ralph was conducted in triumph to his home.
III.
Two days later, Ralph again knocked on Bertha’s door. He looked paler than usual, almost haggard; his immaculate linen was a little crumpled, and he carried no cane; his lips were tightly compressed, and his face wore an air of desperate resolution.
“It is done,” he said, as he seated himself opposite her. “I am going.”