“May I offer you a glass of claret, De Tankard?” asked Lord Mannerley.
“Thank you, I only drink sherbet, just now,” replied the youth.
“You can get some Persian sherbet at a penny a glass,” said a witty Milesian lord.
De Tankard smiled compassionately on the aristocratic buffoon. “’Tis doubtless worthy of your English civilization,” was his calm scornful reply.
* * * * *
Chapter XLIV.
De Tankard stood at the window of a small country inn, and watched the storm raging in the forest. Lithely bent the straight poplar with a low wail beneath the breath of the north wind. The oak roared, the beech howled, and the wild leaves, caught in the eddies of the winds, were wreathed by them into chaplets, as though the Spirit of the Storm wished to crown with them the noble gazer on his work.
“’Tis a great spectacle,” remarked De Tankard, to a man who stood beside him, of an air—oh, how grand!
Benonia (for it was indeed he!) sneered. “Have you ever seen a Mediterranean white squall, or a whirlwind in the Desert?” he asked.
“Alas, no!” was the reply. “I must soon visit the glorious East, the parent of religion, civilization, science, and art,” and the dark eyes of De Tankard glowed with Eastern fire.