“Distill your breath and get it back,” suggested Rust.
“What’s that? Demme, you are laughing at me, sir.”
“Never!” said Adam, decisively. “Above all persons you make me sober. Breathe toward our friend the Viscount. He has ever wished fortune to wing in his direction.”
“The Viscount? Where? Demme, yes. My dear old chap, how are you?” and turning, inconsequently, to a friend whose little eyes seemed to swim around in the florid sea of his face, his lordship was deserted by the rover. Sauntering through a cluster of friends who would have detained him, Adam approached a window, where he sat himself down on a miniature divan.
Here he had but a second to himself, for while somebody else was preparing to sing to the company, a beautiful little lady, with eyes that were fairly purple in their depths of blue, came and took the seat beside him.
“Oh, Mr. Rust,” she said, “what a strange song that was. Why, but you know nothing of wine and sack, and poison. Oh, why did you say poison? That was dreadful. And why should you wish never to think of love? What has poor little love ever done to you?”
“You must remember, Lady Violet,” said Adam, “that before I sang I had not seen you, to speak a word, during the entire evening.”
Lady Violet blushed. “That hasn’t anything to do with anything,” she said.
Adam replied: “That makes me equivalent to nothing.”
“It doesn’t,” the lady protested. “You mix me all up. I don’t believe you know anything more about love than you do about drinking.”