All social ceremonies--including the curious English custom which sends
the ladies upstairs, after dinner, and leaves the gentlemen at the
table--found a devoted adherent in Mrs. Vimpany. She rose as if she had
been presiding at a banquet, and led Miss Henley affectionately to the
drawing-room. Iris glanced at Hugh. No; his mind was not at ease yet;
the preoccupied look had not left his face.
Jovial Mr. Vimpany pushed the bottle across the table to his guest, and
held out a handful of big black cigars.
"Now for the juice of the grape," he cried, "and the best cigar in all
England!"
He had just filled his glass, and struck a light for his cigar, when
the servant came in with a note. Some men relieve their sense of
indignation in one way, and some in another. The doctor's form of
relief was an oath. "Talk about slavery!" he shouted. "Find me such a
slave in all Africa as a man in my profession. There isn't an hour of
the day or night that he can call his own. Here's a stupid old woman
with an asthma, who has got another spasmodic attack--and I must leave
my dinner-table and my friend, just as we are enjoying ourselves. I
have half a mind not to go."
The inattentive guest suddenly set himself right in his host's
estimation. Hugh remonstrated with an appearance of interest in the
case, which the doctor interpreted as a compliment to himself: "Oh, Mr.
Vimpany, humanity! humanity!"
"Oh, Mr. Mountjoy, money! money!" the facetious doctor answered. "The
old lady is our Mayor's mother, sir. You don't seem to be quick at
taking a joke. Make your mind easy; I shall pocket my fee."
As soon as he had closed the door, Hugh Mountjoy uttered a devout
ejaculation. "Thank God!" he said--and walked up and down the room,
free to think without interruption at last.
The subject of his meditations was the influence of intoxication in
disclosing the hidden weaknesses and vices of a man's character by
exhibiting them just as they are, released from the restraint which he
exercises over himself when he is sober. That there was a weak side,
and probably a vicious side, in Mr. Vimpany's nature it was hardly
possible to doubt. His blustering good humour, his audacious
self-conceit, the tones of his voice, the expression in his eyes, all
revealed him (to use one expressive word) as a humbug. Let drink subtly
deprive him of his capacity for self-concealment! and the true nature
of his wife's association with Lord Harry might sooner or later show
itself--say, in after-dinner talk, under skilful management. The right
method of entrapping him into a state of intoxication (which might have
presented serious difficulties under other circumstances) was
suggested, partly by his ignorance of the difference between good wine
and bad, and partly by Mountjoy's knowledge of the excellent quality of
the landlady's claret. He had recognised, as soon as he tasted it, that
finest vintage of Bordeaux, which conceals its true strength--to a
gross and ignorant taste--under the exquisite delicacy of its flavour.
Encourage Mr. Vimpany by means of a dinner at the inn, to give his
opinion as a man whose judgment in claret was to be seriously
consulted--and permit him also to discover that Hugh was rich enough to
have been able to buy the wine--and the attainment of the end in view
would be simply a question of time. There was certainly the chance to
be reckoned with, that his thick head might prove to be too strong for
the success of the experiment. Mountjoy determined to try it, and did
try it nevertheless.