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Oh, yes; of Ruth herself he knew much; but the more he mulled over what he knew, the deeper grew his chagrin. The real Ruth was as completely hidden as though she stood behind the walls of Agra Fort. But after all, what did it matter whether she had secrets or not? To him she was not a woman but a symbol; and one did not investigate the antecedents of symbols.
The chain is broken, and the crystal cracked in one place, but otherwise it has come off wonderfully. Perhaps you'd hand it over to anybody it belongs to? Hope I haven't mulled many professional appointments. Remember me to Mrs. Saxham. Thanks frightfully! So long!"
So, stupefied with the gaiety of the 'faithful, drunken with comradeship, scandal and asseveration, Mme. Verdurin, perched on her high seat like a cage-bird whose biscuit has been steeped in mulled wine, would sit aloft and sob with fellow-feeling. "Leave him alone; don't bother him; he hasn't come here to be tormented," cried Mme. Verdurin. "I won't have him tormented."
Here highly coloured gentlemen had slept the sleep of the just, under the table, whilst the ladies waited in vain for them in the drawing-room, here Colonel Berknowles had drunk a glass of mulled wine on that black morning over a hundred-and-thirty years ago when he went out with Councillor Kinsella and shot him through the lungs by the Round House on the Arranakilty Road.
Never had she heard such a speech as this from her kindly master, and when from fright she tipped the tray which she was carrying and spilled some of the mulled wine over her gown, he cried sharply: "Where are your wits! First you forget to take the red hot warming-pan out of the bed and now you old goose you spill my good drink onto the floor."
He played but two or three more tunes that evening, did Peter Matthews, and played them rather sadly; then, as Quidd had finished his mulled cider and departed, he took his homeward way in thoughtful mood.
"I'll see you safe across the churchyard," he said; "and the vicar's servant will see you safe back." The tone in which he spoke instantly roused Sir Joseph. "I am not in my second childhood yet, Richard," he replied, testily. "I can find my way by myself." He kissed his daughter on the forehead. "No fear, Natalie. I shall be back in time for the mulled claret. No, Richard, I won't trouble you."
The sisters mulled over all they had heard or learned during the day and begged Stone to propound theories or make deductions therefrom. Stone obeyed, as that was what he was employed for. "I think Miss Van Allen is masquerading as somebody else," he affirmed.
There, of course, the Duke, being his kinsman, had to show him a civil face; and that was how he first came to the villa. "He was a fine young man, beautiful as a Saint Sebastian, a rare musician, who sang his own songs to the lute in a way that used to make my grandmother's heart melt and run through her body like mulled wine.
"D' you remember that night when the Mummers were here, and they had mulled port, and you went round and emptied all the glasses after they had gone away?" "Ow! I did feel funny that night," chuckled Harold. "Thought the house was comin' down, it jumped about so; and Martha had to carry me up to bed, 'cos the stairs was goin' all waggity!"
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