After coffee she said to the old maidservant: “Tell them to bring out a half-bottle of muscadine.”
That wonderful old wine! A sort of languor seized my every limb. I sat on one side of the bed, draining the last amber drops from my glass, and smoking a cigarette, while through the cloud of tobacco smoke I watched Mistress Marghioala who sat on a chair opposite rolling cigarettes for me. I said:
“Indeed, Mistress Marghioala, you have marvellous eyes! Do you know what?”
“What?”
“Would it trouble you to make me another cup of coffee, not quite so sweet as this?”
How she laughed! When the maid brought the coffee-pot, she said:
“Madam, you sit talking here—you don’t know what it is like outside.”
“What is it?”
“A high wind has got up, and there is a storm coming.”
I jumped to my feet and looked at the time; it was nearly a quarter to eleven. Instead of half an hour, I had been at the inn for two hours and a half! That’s what comes when one begins to talk.