People in books drank it when they wished to be
merry and enjoy themselves, and it made their eyes bright and their
cheeks red. Mary had had the chance of reading very few novels, but she
recalled this bit of useful knowledge concerning champagne.
She tasted it, and found it nice, deliciously cold and sparkling. No
wonder it made the eyes bright! But after all, she could not drink much,
though it seemed a shame to waste anything so good. "You can have the
rest," she said to the waiter, when she had finished her first glass. He
was surprised, for most ladies, he noticed, could finish two or three
glasses, or even more.
Again the man with the profile of a young Dante was looking at her with
the grave, anxious look that puzzled her. She met his eyes for the third
or fourth time, and was so sorry for his apparent unhappiness where
every one else seemed merry, that she half smiled, very sweetly and
gently, as one would smile at a gloomy child.
The man did not return her kindness. An angry flash lit his eyes, and he
looked extremely haughty and unapproachable, no longer a lonely figure
needing sympathy, but a high personage. Mary lowered her lashes,
abashed; and when she did this Vanno, who was on the point of hating
her because she was not the white angel he had thought, doubted again,
and was more bewildered than ever. Her friendly smile had been sweet,
and he, who was here only because of her, had quenched its light! He
regretted passionately his own ungraciousness, no matter what the girl
might be.
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