Blind Love

All social ceremonies--including the curious English custom which sends

the ladies upstairs, after dinner, and leaves the gentlemen at the

table--found a devoted adherent in Mrs. Vimpany. She rose as if she had

been presiding at a banquet, and led Miss Henley affectionately to the

drawing-room. Iris glanced at Hugh. No; his mind was not at ease yet;

the preoccupied look had not left his face.

Jovial Mr. Vimpany pushed the bottle across the table to his guest, and

held out a handful of big black cigars.

"Now for the juice of the grape," he cried, "and the best cigar in all

England!"

He had just filled his glass, and struck a light for his cigar, when

the servant came in with a note. Some men relieve their sense of

indignation in one way, and some in another. The doctor's form of

relief was an oath. "Talk about slavery!" he shouted. "Find me such a

slave in all Africa as a man in my profession. There isn't an hour of

the day or night that he can call his own. Here's a stupid old woman

with an asthma, who has got another spasmodic attack--and I must leave

my dinner-table and my friend, just as we are enjoying ourselves. I

have half a mind not to go."

The inattentive guest suddenly set himself right in his host's

estimation. Hugh remonstrated with an appearance of interest in the

case, which the doctor interpreted as a compliment to himself: "Oh, Mr.

Vimpany, humanity! humanity!"

"Oh, Mr. Mountjoy, money! money!" the facetious doctor answered. "The

old lady is our Mayor's mother, sir. You don't seem to be quick at

taking a joke. Make your mind easy; I shall pocket my fee."

As soon as he had closed the door, Hugh Mountjoy uttered a devout

ejaculation. "Thank God!" he said--and walked up and down the room,

free to think without interruption at last.

The subject of his meditations was the influence of intoxication in

disclosing the hidden weaknesses and vices of a man's character by

exhibiting them just as they are, released from the restraint which he

exercises over himself when he is sober. That there was a weak side,

and probably a vicious side, in Mr. Vimpany's nature it was hardly

possible to doubt. His blustering good humour, his audacious

self-conceit, the tones of his voice, the expression in his eyes, all

revealed him (to use one expressive word) as a humbug. Let drink subtly

deprive him of his capacity for self-concealment! and the true nature

of his wife's association with Lord Harry might sooner or later show

itself--say, in after-dinner talk, under skilful management. The right

method of entrapping him into a state of intoxication (which might have

presented serious difficulties under other circumstances) was

suggested, partly by his ignorance of the difference between good wine

and bad, and partly by Mountjoy's knowledge of the excellent quality of

the landlady's claret. He had recognised, as soon as he tasted it, that

finest vintage of Bordeaux, which conceals its true strength--to a

gross and ignorant taste--under the exquisite delicacy of its flavour.

Encourage Mr. Vimpany by means of a dinner at the inn, to give his

opinion as a man whose judgment in claret was to be seriously

consulted--and permit him also to discover that Hugh was rich enough to

have been able to buy the wine--and the attainment of the end in view

would be simply a question of time. There was certainly the chance to

be reckoned with, that his thick head might prove to be too strong for

the success of the experiment. Mountjoy determined to try it, and did

try it nevertheless.