“You have interpreted my sentiments exactly, Sir Robert,” I told him. “But I fear the wine will have to be postponed till another meeting. My cellar is not well stocked.”
He drew a flask from his pocket, found glasses on the table, and filled them.
“Then let me thus far play host, Mr. Montagu. Come, I give you a toast!” He held the glass to the light and viewed the wine critically. “’T is a devilish good vintage, though I say it myself. Montagu, may you always find a safe port in time of storm!” he said with jesting face, but with a certain undercurrent of meaning that began to set my blood pounding.
But though I took a glimmer of the man’s purpose I would not meet him half-way. If he had any proposal to make the advances must come from him. Nor would I allow myself to hope too much.
“I’ faith, ’tis a good port,” I said, and eyed the wine no less judicially than he.
Volney’s gaze loitered deliberately over the cottage furnishings. “Cozy enough, but after all not quite to my liking, if I may make so bold as to criticise your apartments. I wonder now you don’t make a change.”
“I’m thinking of moving to-morrow,” I told him composedly. “To a less roomy apartment, but one just as snug.”
“Shall you live there permanently?” he asked with innocent face.
“I shall stay there permanently,” I corrected.
Despite my apparent unconcern I was playing desperately for my life. That Volney was dallying with some plan of escape for me I became more confident, and I knew from experience that nothing would touch the man on his weak side so surely as an imperturbable manner.