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In a trice the student found himself seated at a shining table before a simple meal and a flagon of cool white wine with a sprig of green floating on the surface. His companions were two merchants of Lyons, a vintner of Dijon, and a taciturn, soberly clad professor.
And let me add," evenly, "that my interest in her is not of the order you would infer. She is good and patient and brave, and my interest in her is impersonal. It is not necessary for me to make any explanations, but I do so." "Pardon me!" The vintner was plainly abashed. "Granted. But you, you seem to possess a peculiar interest." The vintner flushed.
On second thoughts though, he added, putting up a pocket-book he had produced while speaking, 'I'll not give you a card, for if it was found upon you, it might get you into trouble. Langdale that's my name vintner and distiller Holborn Hill you're heartily welcome, if you'll come.
The vintner, active as a cat, saw Carmichael coming on a run. He darted toward him, and before Carmichael could prevent him, dragged the sword-cane away. The blade, thin and pliant, flashed. And none too soon. The colonel had already drawn his saber. "Save him!" Gretchen wrung her hands. The two blades met spitefully, and there were method and science on both sides.
The professor was the first to rise and retire; on which the two merchants drew up their seats to the table with an air of relief. The vintner looked after the retreating figure. "Of Lausanne, I should judge?" he said, with a jerk of the elbow. "Probably," one of the others answered. "Is he not of Geneva, then?" our student asked.
It traversed the lumpy cobbles of the narrow streets, under hanging gables, past dim little shops and markets, often unintentionally crowding pedestrians into doorways or against the walls. One among those so inconvenienced was a youth dressed as a vintner. He was tall, pliantly built, blond as a Viking, possessing a singular beauty of the masculine order.
"I live above the agency." "Good! I shall expect to see you in the morning." But the vintner was determined that he shouldn't. He would be at work in the royal vineyards on the morrow. "To-morrow?" repeated Gretchen, to whom this by-play was a blank. "Why should he wish to see you?" "Who knows? Let us be going. They are pressing us too close to the gates."
He knew to the last pound of grapes how much wine there should be, how much beer to the last measure of hops. The entrance to the vineyards was made through a small lodge where the ducal vintner lived, and kept his books and moneys till such time as he should be required to place them before the proper official.
Are we, then, afraid of Jugendheit?" "No!" roared his auditors, banging their stems and tankards. The vintner joined the demonstration, banging his stein as lustily as the next one. "Have you thought what this marriage will cost us in taxes?" "What?" "Thousands of crowns, thousands! Do we not always pay for the luxuries of the rich? Do not their pleasures grind us so much deeper into the dirt?
The quartet stole along in the darkness, noiselessly and secretly. The vintner had indeed heard something. He knew not what this noise was, but it was enough to set his heels to flying. A phase had developed in his character that defied analysis; suspicion, suspicion of daylight, of night, of shadows moving by walls, of footsteps behind.
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