"Oh, I say," said Amory to himself, "we must put some strength in Jarvo's bones too--poor little brick!"
With that Amory drew the carven stopper, fitted in the little funnel that hung about the neck of the vase, poured a half-finger of the wine in each cup, and lifted one in his hand. But the mere odour was enough to make a man live ten lives, he thought, smiling at his own strange exultation. He must no more than touch it to his lips, for he wanted a clear head for what was coming.
"Come, Jarvo," he cried gaily--was he shouting, he wondered, and wasn't that what he was trying to do--to shout to make some far-away voice answer him? "Come and drink to the health of the prince. Long may he live, long may he live--without us!"
Amory had stood with his back to the little brown man while he poured the wine. As he turned, he lifted one cup to his lips and Rollo gravely presented the other to Jarvo. But with a bound that all but upset the velvet valet, the little man cleared the space between him and Amory and struck the cup from Amory's hand.
"Adôn!" he cried terribly, "adôn! Do not drink--do not drink!"
The precious liquid splashed to the floor with the falling cup and ran red about the tiles. Instantly a powerful and delightful fragrance rose, and the thick fumes possessed the air. Amory threw out his hands blindly, caught dizzily at Rollo, and was half dragged by Jarvo to the open window.
"Oh, I say, sir--" burst out Rollo, more upset over the loss of the wine than he was alarmed at the occurrence. If it came to losing a good, nitzy Burgundy, Rollo knew what that meant.
"Adôn," cried Jarvo, shaking Amory's shoulders, "did you taste the liquor--tell me--the liquor--did you taste?"
Amory shook his head. Jarvo's face and the hovering Rollo and the whole room were enveloped in mist, and the wine was hot on his lips where the cup had touched them. Yet while he stood there, with that permeating fragrance in the air, it came to him vaguely that he had never in his life known a more perfectly delightful moment. If this, he said to himself vaguely, was what they meant by wine in the old days, then so far as his own experience went, the best "nitzy" Burgundy was no more than a flabby, vin ordinaire beside it. Not that "flabby" was what he meant to call it, but that was the word that came. For he felt as if no less than six men were flowing in his veins, he summed it up to himself triumphantly.