They remained staring at each other, trying to crowd into their eyes an infinity of strange passionate messages, though their features were all awry with nausea and the premonition of lethal pains.
Verrinder began to wonder at their delay. He was about to rise. Marie Louise went to the door anxiously. Sir Joseph mumbled:
“Look once, my darlink. I find some bong-bongs. Vould you like, yes?”
With a childish canniness he held the bottle so that she could see the skull and cross-bones and the word beneath.
Marie Louise, not realizing that they had already set out on the adventure, gave a stifled cry and snatched at the bottle. It fell to the floor with a crash, and the tablets leaped here and there like tiny white beetles. Some of them ran out into the room and caught Verrinder’s eye.
Before he could reach the door Sir Joseph had said, triumphantly, to Marie Louise:
“Mamma and I did eat already. Too bad you do not come vit. Adé, Töchterchen. Lebewohl!”
He was reaching his awkward arms out to clasp her when Verrinder burst into the homely scene of their tragedy. He caught up the broken bottle and saw the word “Poison.” Beneath were the directions, but no word of description, no mention of the antidote.
“What is this stuff?” Verrinder demanded, in a frenzy of dread and wrath and self-reproach.