scended the staircase,
"I never saw such a mouth in my life. It looks as if it would melt if
you kissed it---"

The dinner, which was pompously served by Abednego and a younger butler,
seemed to him tasteless and stale, and he complained querulously of
a bit of cork he found in his wine glass. His mother, supported by
cushions in her chair at the head of the table, to which he had brought
her in his arms, lamented his lack of appetite, and inquired tenderly if
he were suffering? For the first time in his life he discovered that
he was extinguishing, with difficulty, a smouldering resentment against
her. Kesiah's ugliness became a positive affront to him, and he felt as
bitterly toward her as though she had purposely designed her appearance
in order to annoy him. The wine she drank showed immediately in her
face, and he determined to tell his mother privately that she must
forbid her sister to drink anything but water. By the dim gilt framed
mirror above the mantel he discovered that his own features were
flushed, also, but a red face was not, he felt, a cause of compunction
to one of his sex.

"You haven't eaten your mutton, dear," said Mrs. Gay anxiously. "I
ordered it especially because you like it. Are you feeling unwell?"

"I'm not hungry," he replied, rather crossly. "This place gets on my
nerves, and will end by driving me mad."

"I suppose you'd better go away," she returned, plaintively wounded. "I
wouldn't be so selfish as to want to keep you by me if you are unhappy."

"I don't want to leave you, mother--but, I ought to get back to the
stock market. It's no good idling around--I don't think I was cut out
for a farmer."

"Try this sherry. Your uncle brought if from Spain, and it was buried
during the war."

He filled his glass, drained it quickly, and with an effort recovered
his temper.

"Yes, I'd better go," he repeated, and knew while he spoke that he could
not leave as long as the thought of Blossom tormented him. Swift half
visions of her loveliness--of certain delectable details of her face
or figure flitted always before him. He saw her eyes, like frosted
periwinkles under their warm white lids, which appeared too heavy
to open wide; the little brown mole that played up and down when she
laughed; and the soft, babyish creases that encircled her throat. Each
of these memories set his heart to a quicker beating and caused a warm
sensation, like the caress of a burning sun, to pass over his body.