was permission: there was something
more, that was flattering to his vanity. He took the wine-glass, and,
slowly and in silence, filled it from the mysterious flask.

The wine fell into the glass clearly, transparently, heavily, but
still and cold as death. There was no sparkle, no cheap ebullition,
no evanescent bubble. Yet it was so clear, that, but for a faint
amber-tinting, the glass seemed empty. There was no aroma, no ethereal
diffusion from its equable surface. Perhaps it was fancy, perhaps it was
from nervous excitement; but a slight chill seemed to radiate from the
still goblet, and bring down the temperature of the terrace. Mr. Clinch
and his companion both insensibly shivered.

But only for a moment. Mr. Clinch raised the glass to his lips. As he
did so, he remembered seeing distinctly, as in a picture before him, the
sunlit terrace, the pretty girl in the foreground,--an amused spectator
of his sacrilegious act,--the outlying ivy-crowned wall, the grass-grown
ditch, the tall factory chimneys rising above the chestnuts, and the
distant poplars that marked the Rhine.

The wine was delicious; perhaps a TRIFLE, only a trifle, heady. He was
conscious of a slight exaltation. There was also a smile upon the girl's
lip and a roguish twinkle in her eye as she looked at him.

"Do you find the wine to your taste?" she asked.

"Fair enough, I warrant," said Mr. Clinch with ponderous gallantry; "but
methinks 'tis nothing compared with the nectar that grows on those ruby
lips. Nay, by St. Ursula, I swear it!"

No sooner had this solemnly ridiculous speech passed the lips of the
unfortunate man than he would have given worlds to have recalled it. He
knew that he must be intoxicated; that the sentiment and language were
utterly unlike him, he was miserably aware; that he did not even know
exactly what it meant, he was also hopelessly conscious. Yet feeling all
this,--feeling, too, the shame of appearing before her as a man who had
lost his senses through a single glass of wine,--nevertheless he rose
awkwardly, seized her hand, and by sheer force drew her towards him, and
kissed her. With an exclamation that was half a cry and half a laugh,
she fled from him, leaving him alone and bewildered on the terrace.

For a moment Mr. Clinch supported himself against the open window,
leaning his throbbing head on the cold glass. Shame, mortification, an
hysterical half-consciousness of his utter ridiculousness, and yet an
odd,