They drank. "To your love, my son," said the Prince de Gâtinais,--"to the true love of a de Soyecourt." And afterward he laughingly drank: "To your happiness, my daughter,--to your eternal happiness."
Nelchen sipped. The two men stood with drained glasses. Now on a sudden the Prince de Gâtinais groaned and clutched his breast.
"I was always a glutton," he said, hoarsely. "I should have been more moderate--I am faint--"
"Salts are the best thing in the world," said Nelchen, with fine readiness. She was half-way up the stairs. "A moment, monseigneur,--a moment, and I fetch salts." Nelchen Thorn had disappeared into her room.
The Prince sat drumming upon the table with his long white fingers. He had waved the Marquis and Vanringham aside. "A passing weakness,--I am not adamant," he had said, half-peevishly.
"Then I prescribe another glass of this really excellent wine," laughed little Louis de Soyecourt. At heart he was not merry, and his own unreasoning nervousness irritated him, for it seemed to the Marquis, quite irrationally, that the atmosphere of the cheery room was, without forerunnership, become tense and expectant, and was now quiet with much the hush which precedes the bursting of a thunder-storm. And accordingly he laughed.
"I prescribe another glass, monsieur," said he. "Eh, that is the true panacea for faintness--for every ill. Come, we will drink to the most beautiful woman in Poictesme--nay, I am too modest,--to the most beautiful woman in France, in Europe, in the whole universe! _Feriam sidera_, my father! and confound all mealy-mouthed reticence, for you have both seen her. Confess, am I not a lucky man? Come, Vanringham, too, shall drink. No glasses? Take Nelchen's, then. Come, you fortunate rascal, you shall drink to the bride from the bride's half-emptied glass. To the most beautiful woman--Why, what the devil--?"
Vanringham had blurted out an odd, unhuman sound. His extended hand shook and jerked, as if in irresolution, and presently struck the proffered glass from de Soyecourt's grasp. You heard the tiny crash, very audible in the stillness, and afterward the irregular drumming of the old Prince's finger-tips. He had not raised his head, had not moved.