ugh to make a man live ten lives, he thought, smiling at his own
strange exultation. He must no more than touch it to his lips, for
he wanted a clear head for what was coming.

"Come, Jarvo," he cried gaily--was he shouting, he wondered, and
wasn't that what he was trying to do--to shout to make some far-away
voice answer him? "Come and drink to the health of the prince. Long
may he live, long may he live--without us!"

Amory had stood with his back to the little brown man while he
poured the wine. As he turned, he lifted one cup to his lips and
Rollo gravely presented the other to Jarvo. But with a bound that
all but upset the velvet valet, the little man cleared the space
between him and Amory and struck the cup from Amory's hand.

"Adon!" he cried terribly, "adon! Do not drink--do not drink!"

The precious liquid splashed to the floor with the falling cup and
ran red about the tiles. Instantly a powerful and delightful
fragrance rose, and the thick fumes possessed the air. Amory threw
out his hands blindly, caught dizzily at Rollo, and was half dragged
by Jarvo to the open window.

"Oh, I say, sir--" burst out Rollo, more upset over the loss of the
wine than he was alarmed at the occurrence. If it came to losing a
good, nitzy Burgundy, Rollo knew what that meant.

"Adon," cried Jarvo, shaking Amory's shoulders, "did you taste the
liquor--tell me--the liquor--did you taste?"

Amory shook his head. Jarvo's face and the hovering Rollo and the
whole room were enveloped in mist, and the wine was hot on his lips
where the cup had touched them. Yet while he stood there, with that
permeating fragrance in the air, it came to him vaguely that he had
never in his life known a more perfectly delightful moment. If this,
he said to himself vaguely, was what they meant by wine in the old
days, then so far as his own experience went, the best "nitzy"
Burgundy was no more than a flabby, _vin ordinaire_ beside it. Not
that "flabby" was what he meant to call it, but that was the word
that came. For he felt as if no less than six men were flowing in
his veins, he summed it up to himself triumphantly.

But after all, the effect was only momentary. Almost as quickly as
those strange fumes had arisen they were dissipated. And when
presently Amory stood up unsteadily from the seat of the window, he
could see clearly enough that Jarvo, with terrified eyes, was
turning the vase in his hands.

"It is the same," he was saying, "it mu