"It shows its age." said Des Illes, "but still holds its bouquet. Fading—fading!"
"One would scarce know it for the wine we knew when it and we were young," said the Duke.
"Know it?" said Des Illes. "Ah me, dear Duke, if you yourself, aged twenty-five, were to walk in just now and say, 'Bon jour, Duke, how is myself,' would you know him, think you?"
"Pardie, my friend; you have ghostly fancies. Give us some younger wine and a gayer jest."
"With all my heart," said Des Illes.
"Let it be the Clos Vougeot of '20," said the younger St. Maur. "It was with that wonderful vintage that I made my first entry into the highest society of the great wines."
"A fine seigneur is that," said Des Illes.
"It reminds me rather of some grande dame," returned St. Maur. "There is something haughty about the refinement of a high-caste Burgundy: a combination of decisive individual quality with good manners."
"How pretty that is!" said Pierce. "The good manners of a wine!"
"And is n't champagne just a bit like a grisette?" laughed the Duke. "But a Margaux like this, or the Romance I see yonder, are grandees, as my friend has said; and there might be more to say of them, but I leave the rest to your fancy. A little more Burgundy, Monsieur?"