"You see, it is a simple ceremony, Nina," he said, as he put the little
goblet on the table again. "But at the same time it is very
confidential. I mean, you wouldn't ask everybody to go through it with
you--it would hardly, for example, be quite circumspect for you to ask
any young man you didn't know very well--"
"Leo!"
The sound of her voice startled him; there were tears of indignation in
it; he looked up and found she had grown suddenly pale.
"You," she said, with quivering lips, "you and I, Leo--we have drunk
together out of these--and you think I allow any one else--any one
living in the world--to drink out of them after that?--I would rather
have them dashed to pieces and thrown into the sea!"
Her vehemence surprised him--and might have set any other person
thinking; but he was used to Nina's proud and wayward moods; so he
merely went on to tell her that there was nothing, after all, so very
solemn in the ceremony of drinking from a loving-cup; and then he asked
her whether she ought not to call Miss Girond, for it was about time
they were going down to the theatre.
Of course the forthcoming dinner that Mr. Lehmann was about to give at
the Star and Garter created quite a stir behind the scenes, where the
routine of life is much more monotonous than the people imagine who sit
in the stalls and regard the antics of the merry folk on the stage.
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