The host having filled his glass, pushed the decanters across the table.
“Come, sir, drink; you will own that Port wine sound, and this Madeira has circumnavigated the world; but I recommend the Burgundy. Probably, as it seems the custom of the country, you are not a wine-drinker after supper, should you therefore prefer them, you will find cognac and hollands on the buffet.”
Egad, the more I saw of it, the more I admired the establishment. Burgundy and Madeira that had circumnavigated the world--these formed very gentlemanly tipple to sport under a racketty old roof, to a self-invited visitor, who had dropped in, like a priest collecting corn, with a “God save all here.” Nor did I neglect the invitation. The bottle passed freely, previous restraint wore away, and some allusion of Mr. Hartley’s to a military life, led me by degrees into a private history of my own, until
“I ran it through, even from my boyish days
To the very moment when he bade me tell it.”
I afterwards recollected that some of Mr. Hartley’s questions could only have been asked by a person to whom the earlier history of my parents was intimately known, but I did not notice it at the moment.
Charmed at the urbanity of my host, and flattered that my young Desdemona expressed an interest in my fortunes, and
“Gave me for my pains a world of smiles,”
I became momentarily more intimate and at ease; deciding that the unknown and his boatman, Andy Beg, were little better than libellers, when they insinuated aught against the suavity of temper and sociability of my excellent host.
Isidora had risen to leave the room, and something in her look or attitude recalled the fascinating picture of the corsair’s mistress to my memory.
“How like!” I muttered, loud enough to awake the attention of her father. “I would be sworn that picture on the mantel-piece of the drawing-room was painted for this young lady,--ay, and bating some twenty years, the gallant rover looks your very image, sir.”
Never was a more unlucky guess hazarded by a blundering Irishman! Had lightning struck the building, or a grenade dropped hissing through the ceiling, the effect could not have caused so fierce an explosion as that which followed this infelicitous discovery. In a moment a lurid glare flashed underneath the host’s contracted brows; while Isidora, pale as marble, leaned against the buffet for support. Persuaded that I had committed some villanous impertinence, I sprang forward to assist her; but, with extraordinary strength, her father pushed me like a child aside, led his daughter from the room, closed the door, and left me in undisturbed possession, to commune with my own thoughts, and congratulate myself on the brilliant effect that my first essay as a connoisseur in painting had produced.