"
But Victor wouldn't listen; and disappearing into shadowed distances,
returned presently with a brimming goblet.
"Drink this, dear. It will make you feel quite fit again."
Obediently, Sofia raised the goblet to her lips.
"You have never tasted a wine like that," Victor insisted, smiling down at
her.
It was true enough, what he claimed; though it had something of character
of a sound old Madeira, this wine had more, a surpassing richness, a
fruitiness in no way cloying, a peculiarly aromatic taste and fragrance,
elusive and provoking, with a hint of bitterness never to be analyzed by
the most experienced palate.
"What is it?" Sofia asked after her first sip.
"You like it, eh? An old wine of China, unknown to Western Europe." Victor
gave it a musical name in what Sofia took to be Chinese. "Outside my
cellars, I'll wager there's not another bottle of it this side of
Constantinople. Drink it all. It will do you good."
He seated himself. "And now my reason for wishing to talk with you
to-night.... A note came by the last delivery from Lady Randolph West. You
met her, I understand, through Sybil Waring, a few days ago. She was
apparently much taken with you."
"She is very kind."
Victor had found a sheet of notepaper and, bending to the light, was
searching its scrawled lines with narrowed eyes.
"'Too lovely,' she calls you--and quite justly, my dear. Yes; here it is:
'Too lovely for words.' And she wants me to bring my 'charming daughter'
down to Frampton Court for this week-end.
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