"
At length he succeeded in seating them at the table. Thenceforward there
was no difficulty. The ample and diversified cold supper began to
disappear steadily, and the wine with it. And as the wine disappeared so
did Mr Cotterill (who had been pompous and taciturn) grow talkative,
offering to the company the exact figures of the cost of the house, and
so forth. But ultimately the sheer joy of life killed arithmetic.
Mrs Machin, however, could not quite rid herself of the notion that she
was in a dream that outraged the proprieties. The entire affair, for an
unromantic spot like Bursley, was too fantastically and wickedly
romantic.
"We must be thinking about home, Denry," said she.
"Plenty of time," Denry replied. "What! All that wine gone! I'll see if
there's any more in the sideboard."
He emerged, with a red face, from bending into the deeps of the
enamelled sideboard, and a wine-bottle was in his triumphant hand. It
had already been opened.
"Hooray!" he proclaimed, pouring a white wine into his glass and raising
the glass: "here's to the health of Mr Cecil Wilbraham."
He made a brave tableau in the brightness of the electric light.
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