Even now I can close my eyes and
feel the icy grip on my heart.
She came down to dinner about an hour later, dressed in a pink
wrapper, one of the last things she had bought, which Antoinette
(as she explained to excuse her delay) had been airing before the
fire. She sat opposite me, in her old place, penitent, subdued,
yet not shy or ill at ease. Stenson waited on us, grave and
imperturbable as if we had put back the clock of time a
twelvemonth. The only covert reference he made to the event was
to murmur discreetly in my ear:
"I have brought up a bottle of the Pommery, Sir Marcus, in the
hope you would drink some."
I was touched, for the good fellow had no other way of showing
his solicitude.
Carlotta allowed him to fill her glass. She sipped the wine, and
declared that it did her good. She was no longer a teetotaller,
she explained. Once she drank too much, and the next day had a
headache.
"Why should one have a headache?"
"Nemesis," said I.
"What is Nemesis?"
I found myself answering her question in the old half-jesting
way.
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