“Really, Miss Miller——” protested Vance, feeling much embarrassed.
“You will oblige me, won’t you?”
She placed one of the glasses close to his fingers and raised the other toward her ruby lips, with a look so seductive as to be almost irresistible.
Vance was confused at his position and somewhat bewildered by the coquettish and persistent attitude of the fair lady at his elbow.
He felt, without actually seeing, that the eyes of the two gentlemen were fixed upon him at that moment.
As his fingers grasped the slender stem of the wineglass and he half drew it toward him, a gleam of unholy triumph seemed to dart from three pairs of eyes.
But their satisfaction was premature.
Suddenly before Vance’s vision passed the face of his gentle, white-haired mother in Chicago, whom he had promised faithfully that he would never drink a drop of intoxicating liquor.
He drew back his hand.
His muscles tightened, and he looked his fair tempter squarely in the face as he said: