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Dinner passed off with the decorous solemnity of that meal, at which the most emphatic utterances were the butler's 'Marcobrunner, or 'Johannisberg. The guests, indeed, spoke little, and the strangeness of their situation rather disposed to thought than conversation. 'You are going to Constantinople to-morrow, Mr. Atlee, my uncle tells me, said she, after a longer silence than usual.
Bude would have been the first to admit that, socially speaking, his present situation was not the equal of the positions he had held. There was none of the staid dignity about his present employer which was inborn in men like Lord Tipperary or Lord Bannister, and which Sir Herbert Marcobrunner, with the easy assimilative faculty of his race, had very successfully acquired.
He had a thin, tight mouth which in itself alone was a symbol of discreet reticence, the hall-mark of the trusted family retainer. Bude had spent his life in the service of the English aristocracy. The Earl of Tipperary, Major-General Lord Bannister, the Dowager Marchioness of Wiltshire, and Sir Herbert Marcobrunner, Bart., had in turn watched his gradual progress from pantry-boy to butler.
There is an excellent pate, and my friends are kind enough to say that my Rhine wine is better than any they get at the German Embassy, and before Lord Arthur had got over his surprise at being recognised, he found himself seated in the back- room, sipping the most delicious Marcobrunner out of a pale yellow hock-glass marked with the Imperial monogram, and chatting in the friendliest manner possible to the famous conspirator.
"We have got Marcobrunner sixty years in bottle," added the major-domo, "for it is a mistake of Madame Offenloch's to suppose that the French drank it all. And you had better order, while you are about it, now and then, a good bottle of Johannisberg. That is the best wine to set a man up again."
Any stranger looking into the room at that moment would have said, "What a charming picture! What a devoted wife!" "A tumbler of the old Marcobrunner, David, and a slice of the game pie before I say one word about what we owe to that angel upstairs. Off with the wine, my dear boy; you look as pale as death!" With those words Mr.
Bude mentioned the generous remuneration he was receiving from Sir Herbert Marcobrunner, whereupon Parrish had remarked: "Come to me and I'll double it. I'll give you a week to think it over. Let my secretary know!" After a few discreet enquiries, Bude, faithful to his maxim, had accepted Parrish's offer.
Marcobrunner was furiously angry, but, being anxious to interest Parrish in a deal, sagely kept his feelings to himself. And Bude had never regretted the change.
As it seemed expected of me, I expressed my surprise, on which Tobias Offenloch came to sit at my right hand, and said "Doctor, take my advice; order him a bottle a day of Marcobrunner." "And," chimed in Marie Lagoutte, "a wing of a chicken at every meal. The poor man is frightfully thin."
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