n why I asked you to come to me at this
late hour--never dreaming my message would find you so overwrought.... You
quite see how needless it was to permit yourself to be upset by such a
trifling matter, don't you?"

"Oh, quite," Sofia murmured, with gaze fixed on the interlacing fingers in
her lap.

"That is sensible." Offering her shoulder one last accolade of approbation,
Victor moved toward his own chair. "And now that you are here, we may as
well have our little talk out," he continued, but broke off to stipulate:
"If, that is, you are sure you feel up to it?"

"Yes," Sofia assented, but without moving.

"I am not so sure. Perhaps a glass of wine might do you good."

"Oh, no!" the girl protested--"I don't need it, really."

But Victor wouldn't listen; and disappearing into shadowed distances,
returned presently with a brimming goblet.

"Drink this, dear. It will make you feel quite fit again."

Obediently, Sofia raised the goblet to her lips.

"You have never tasted a wine like that," Victor insisted, smiling down at
her.

It was true enough, what he claimed; though it had something of character
of a sound old Madeira, this wine had more, a surpassing richness, a
fruitiness in no way cloying, a peculiarly aromatic taste and fragrance,
elusive and provoking, with a hint of bitterness never to be analyzed by
the most experienced palate.

"What is it?" Sofia asked after her first sip.

"You like it, eh? An old wine of China, unknown to Western Europe." Victor
gave it a musical name in what Sofia took to be Chinese. "Outside my
cellars, I'll wager there's not another bottle of it this side of
Constantinople. Drink it all. It will do you good."

He seated himself. "And now my reason for wishing to talk with you
to-night.... A note came by the last delivery from Lady Randolph West. You
met her, I understand, through Sybil Waring, a few days ago. She was
apparently much taken with you."

"She is very kind."

Victor had found a sheet of notepaper and, bending to the light, was
searching its scrawled lines with narrowed eyes.

"'Too lovely,' she calls you--and quite justly, my dear. Yes; here it is:
'Too lovely for words.' And she wants me to bring my 'charming daughter'
down to Frampton Court for this week-end."

Sofia said nothing, but put her half-empty glass aside. The wine had done
her good, she thought. She felt better, stronger, mentally more alert, and
at the same time curiously soothed.

Victo