It was one of Rose's chief delights to show her husband what she had now become; and without giving him time to say a word she ran lightly out of the room in quest of the letter.
Hardly had she disappeared behind the portiere which hung before the door than Frederick, who had suddenly grown very pale, took from his waistcoat-pocket a small cut-glass bottle filled with a colorless and transparent fluid. Bending over the table, he dropped part of its contents in the half-finished glass of green chartreuse which stood in front of Rose's plate. With an almost supernatural coolness he shook the mixture, so as to amalgamate it properly, and then sank back into his chair and lit a cigar, as if to give himself what the French call a “countenance.”
At this moment Rose reappeared, holding in her hand an open letter.
“Let me read this to you. It will show you that if you don't behave I can do without you, sir,” she said.
“Nonsense, Rose! What pleasure can it afford you to be always teasing me? You are not half so bad as you try to make yourself out to be. Here, let me drink your health again. That will be much more to the purpose!”
Rose laughed a harsh, unlovely laugh, and seizing hold of her glass clinked it against her husband's and tossed the liquor down her throat with a “cranerie” which showed that she was not afraid of a stiff drink!
“What a peculiar taste this chartreuse has,” she said, as she threw herself back in her chair.
Frederick laughed rather uneasily.
“You swallowed it too quickly. It is a pity, for it is good stuff, and I prefer taking mine more quietly,” continued he, raising his own glass to his lips.
“I feel awfully jolly to-night,” exclaimed Rose, jumping up from her chair again and beginning to restlessly pace the floor. “We ought to go out. Why don't you take me to some theater? Oh! it's too late for that! Let us go to my boudoir and have some music; it will remind us of past times.”