"Thank you; that'll do." Then, waiting till she was gone, he crossed the room, fumbled open the sideboard door, and took out the bottle.
Reaching over the polished oak, he grasped a sherry glass; and holding the bottle with both hands, tipped the liquor into it, put it to his lips and sucked. Drop by drop it passed over his palate mild, very old, old as himself, coloured like sunlight, fragrant. To the last drop he drank it, then hugging the bottle to his shirt-front, he moved snail-like to his chair, and fell back into its depths. For some minutes he remained there motionless, the bottle clasped to his chest, thinking: 'This is not the attitude of a gentleman. I must put it down on the table-on the table;' but a thick cloud was between him and everything. It was with his hands he would have to put the bottle on the table! But he could not find his hands, could not feel them. His mind see-sawed in strophe and antistrophe: "You can't move!"--"I will move!" "You're beaten"--"I'm not beat." "Give up"--"I won't." That struggle to find his hands seemed to last for ever--he must find them! After that--go down--all standing--after that!
Everything round him was red. Then the red cloud cleared just a little, and he could hear the clock--"tick-tick-tick"; a faint sensation spread from his shoulders down to his wrists, down his palms; and yes--he could feel the bottle! He redoubled his struggle to get forward in his chair; to get forward and put the bottle down.
It was not dignified like this! One arm he could move now; but he could not grip the bottle nearly tight enough to put it down.
Working his whole body forward, inch by inch, he shifted himself up in the chair till he could lean sideways, and the bottle, slipping down his chest, dropped slanting to the edge of the low stool-table.
Then with all his might he screwed his trunk and arms an inch further, and the bottle stood. He had done it--done it! His lips twitched into a smile; his body sagged back to its old position. He had done it! And he closed his eyes ....
At half-past eleven the girl Molly, opening the door, looked at him and said softly: "Sirr! there's some ladies, and a gentleman!" But he did not answer. And, still holding the door, she whispered out into the hall:
"He's asleep, miss."
A voice whispered back:
"Oh! Just let me go in, I won't wake him unless he does. But I do want to show him my dress."The girl moved aside; and on tiptoe Phyllis passed in. She walked to where, between the lamp-glow and the fire-glow, she was lighted up.
White satin--her first low-cut dress--the flush of her first supper party--a gardenia at her breast, another in her fingers! Oh! what a pity he was asleep! How red he looked! How funnily old men breathed! And mysteriously, as a child might, she whispered:
"Guardy!"
No answer! And pouting, she stood twiddling the gardenia. Then suddenly she thought: 'I'll put it in his buttonhole! When he wakes up and sees it, how he'll jump!'
And stealing close, she bent and slipped it in. Two faces looked at her from round the door; she heard Bob Pillin's smothered chuckle;her mother's rich and feathery laugh. Oh! How red his forehead was!
She touched it with her lips; skipped back, twirled round, danced silently a second, blew a kiss, and like quicksilver was gone.
And the whispering, the chuckling, and one little out-pealing laugh rose in the hall.
But the old man slept. Nor until Meller came at his usual hour of half-past twelve, was it known that he would never wake.