At length my godfather, leaning towards me glass in hand and smiling, said,
“To your five-and-twenty years, Philip.
Long life and happiness.”
The three of them looked at me, and whether it was the wine I had taken, or my own full heart within me, but I felt that both my godfather and Louise were dear and trusted friends, I liked them well, and Rachel, my love, with tears already in her eyes, was surely nodding her head and smiling her encouragement.
This was the moment then, opportune and fit.
The servants were from the room, so the secret could be held among the four of us.
I stood up and thanked them, and then with my own glass filled I said,
“I too have a toast I wish you to drink tonight.
Since this morning I have been the happiest of men.
I want you, godfather, and you Louise, to drink to Rachel, who is to be my wife.”
I drained my glass, and looked down upon them, smiling.
No one answered, no one moved, I saw perplexity in my godfather’s expression and turning to Rachel I saw that her smile had gone, and that she was staring at me, her face a frozen mask.
“Have you quite lost your senses, Philip?” she said.
I put my glass down upon the table.
I was uncertain of my hand, and placed it too near the edge.
It toppled over, and shivered in fragments on the floor.
My heart was thumping.
I could not take my eyes away from her still white face.
“I am sorry,” I said, “if it was premature to break the news.
Remember it is my birthday, and they are both my oldest friends.”
I gripped the table with my hands for steadiness, and there was a sound of drumming in my ears.
She did not seem to understand.
She looked away from me, back to my godfather and Louise.
“I think,” she said, “that the birthday and the wine have gone to Philip’s head.
Forgive this piece of schoolboy folly, and forget it, if you can.
He will apologize when he is himself again.
Shall we go to the drawing room?”
She rose to her feet and led the way from the room.
I went on standing there, staring at the debris of the dinner table, the crumbs of bread, the spilled wine on the napery, the chairs pushed back, and there was no feeling in me, none at all, but a kind of vacuum where my heart had been.
I waited awhile, and then, stumbling from the dining room before John and Seecombe should come to clear the table, I went into the library, and sat there in the darkness, beside the empty grate.
The candles had not been lighted, and the logs had fallen into ash.
Through the half-open door I could hear the murmur of the voices in the drawing room.
I pressed my hands to my reeling head, and the taste of the wine was sour on my tongue.
Perhaps if I sat still there, in the darkness, I would recover my sense of balance, and the numb emptiness would go.
It was the fault of the wine that I had blundered.
Yet why should she mind so much what I had said?
We could have sworn the pair of them to secrecy.
They would have understood.
I went on sitting there, waiting for them to go.
Presently—the time seemed endless but it may not have been more than ten minutes or so—the voices grew louder and they passed into the hall, and I heard Seecombe opening the front door, bidding them good night, and the wheels drive away, and the clanging and bolting of the door.
My brain was clearer now.
I sat and listened.
I heard the rustle of her gown.
It came near to the half-open door of the library, paused an instant, then passed away; and then her footstep on the stair.
I got up from my chair and followed her.
I came upon her at the turn of the corridor, where she had paused to snuff the candles at the stair-head.
We stood staring at one another in the flickering light.
“I thought you were gone to bed,” she said.
“You had better go, at once, before you do more damage.”
“Now that they are gone,” I said, “will you forgive me?