He looked at her, his eyes angry. “I’m sorry.” He nodded to Manuel, who came down to them, then he said, “What are you drinking?”
She turned her attention to Manuel. First, she gave him a very bright smile. It was a smile that unsettled Manuel’s calm. He felt an urge to reach forward and pull her across the bar towards him. This urge so startled him that he became very confused. He stood looking at her uneasily.
“What shall I drink?” she asked him. “Something that will set fire to my blood. Suggest something.”
Manuel turned to his bottles. “I have something for you,” he said. “You will not be disappointed.”
The tall, thin man she had called Harry said, “I wish you wouldn’t, it doesn’t suit you.”
“That’s only your opinion,” the girl said. She had very fine hands, slim and white and very beautiful. “We are starting well tonight. Soon we shall be quarrelling, and then we shall go away from each other. I think I shall like that.”
Harry offered her a cigarette. “You mustn’t talk like that. I don’t know what’s come over you lately. Have a cigarette. Look, Manuel is bringing you your drink.”
She took the cigarette and smiled very brightly again at Manuel as he put the glass down.
Manuel said, “You will like it. I have every confidence.”
She said: “I am sure I will. Look, I’ll taste it before I smoke.” She raised her hand to stop Harry from striking a match. When she had tasted the drink, she put it down with a little shudder. “God!” she said.