''Surprise you?'' he says, with a curious laugh. ''Oh, Maud, sweet Maud, we haven''t begun to do that.''
I don''t understand him. I hardly try to. I am thinking still of my uncle, my mother—my mother, ill, ruined, coming here . . . Richard puts his hand to his chin, works his lips. ''Mrs Sucksby,'' he says, ''do you keep any drink up here? I find myself rather dry about the
mouth. It''s the anticipation, I think, of sensation. I am the same at the casino, at the spinning of the wheel; and at the pantomime, when they''re about to let fly the fairies.''
Mrs Sucksby hesitates, then goes to a shelf, opens a box, lifts out a bottle. She produces three short tumblers with gold about the rim- She wipes them, on a fold of her skirt.
''I hope, Miss Lilly, you won''t suppose this sherry,'' she says, as she pours. The scent of the liquid comes sharp and sickly upon the close air of the room. ''Sherry in a lady''s chamber I could never agree to; but a bit of honest brandy, meant for use now and then as a bracer—well, you tell me, where''s the harm in that?''
''No harm at all,'' says Richard. He holds a glass to me and, so confused am I—so dazed and enraged—I take it at once, and sip it as if it were wine. Mrs Sucksby watches me swallow.∴∴