Alfred, who was a tall and stately person, with red hair and no _h_’s, was not less astonished than the Count’s coachman had been. However, he brought the various dishes, and then the wine. The Count poured the beautiful amber fluid into a tumbler, and took a draught of it:
"Here’s to her health, whether the wine came from Bordeaux or Biberich!"
But as a rule the Château Yquem of clubs is a cold drink, which never sparkled under the warm sun of France; and so, as the Count went upstairs to the smoking-room, he returned to his old love, and told them to send him a pint-bottle of port. He had already put twenty-two shillings’ worth of wine into his capacious interior; and he had only to add a glass or two of port, and surround his face with the perfume of an old, hard, and dry cigar, in order to get into that happy mood when visions are born of the half-somnolent brain.
"... I have done it—I have broken the ice, and there is still hope. Her face was pleased, her smile was friendly, her soft clear eyes—fancy having that smile and those eyes at your breakfast-table every morning, to sweeten the morning air for you, and make you snap your fingers at the outside world. ’Gad, I could write poetry about her. I’ll _live_ poetry—which will be something better...."
At this moment there looked into the room a handsome and dressy young gentleman who was the funny fellow of the club. He lived by his wits, and managed to make a good income, considering the material on which he had to work.
"What a courageous man—port in the forenoon!" he said, to the Count.
The other said nothing, but inwardly devoted the newcomer to the deeps of Hades.
"A cigar doesn’t make much difference to club-wines, young gentleman," said the Count, grandly.
"Heard a good thing just now. Fellow was abusing Scotchmen to a Scotch tradesman, and of course Bannockburn was mentioned. ’Why,’ says the Englishman, ’plenty of my countrymen were buried at Bannockburn, and there you have rich harvests of grain. Plenty of _your_ countrymen were buried at Culloden, and there you have only a barren waste. Scotchmen can’t even fatten the land.’"
Once more the Count was left to his happy imaginings.
"Then the marriage," he thought to himself, "then the marriage,—the girls in white, champagne, fun, horses, and flowers, and away for France! No Trouville for me, no Etretât, no Biarritz. A quiet old Norman town, with an old inn, and an old priest; and she and I walking about like the lord and lady of the place, with all the children turning and looking at her as if she were an Italian saint come down from one of the pictures in the church. This is what I offer her—instead of what? A sempstress’s garret in Camden Town, or a music-mistress’s lodgings in Islington, surrounded by squalid and dingy people, glaring publichouses, smoke, foul air, wretchedness, and misery. I take her from the slums of Islington, and I lead her down into the sweet air of Kent, and I make a queen of her!"