She gave him her hand, as he lifted his hat and cane, and he gratefully bowed over it, and ventured to kiss it; and then he took his leave, with a radiant smile on his face as he went downstairs. "Club. And, d—n it, be quick!" he said to his astonished coachman. Arrived there, he ordered the waiter to take up to the smoking-room a bottle of the pale port which the Count was in the habit of drinking there. Then he countermanded the order. "I needn’t make a beast of myself because I feel happy," he said to himself, wisely, as he went into the dining-room. "Alfred, I’ll have a bit of cold chicken, and a bottle of the wine that you flatter yourself is Château Yquem." Alfred, who was a tall and stately person, with red hair and no _h_’s, was not less astonished than the Count’s coachman had been. However, he brought the various dishes, and then the wine. The Count poured the beautiful amber fluid into a tumbler, and took a draught of it: "Here’s to her health, whether the wine came from Bordeaux or Biberich!" But as a rule the Château Yquem of clubs is a cold drink, which never sparkled under the warm sun of France; and so, as the Count went upstairs to the smoking-room, he returned to his old love, and told them to send him a pint-bottle of port. He had already put twenty-two shillings’ worth of wine into his capacious interior; and he had only to add a glass or two of port, and surround his face with the perfume of an old, hard, and dry cigar, in order to get into that happy mood when visions are born of the half-somnolent brain. "... I have done it—I have broken the ice, and there is still hope. Her face was pleased, her smile was friendly, her soft clear eyes—fancy having that smile and those eyes at your breakfast-table every morning, to sweeten the morning air for you, and make you snap your fingers at the outside world. ’Gad, I could write poetry about her. I’ll _live_ poetry—which will be something better...." At this moment there looked into the room a handsome and dressy young gentleman who was the funny fellow of the club. He lived by his wits, and managed to make a good income, considering the material on which he had to work. "What a courageous man—port in the forenoon!" he said, to the Count. The other said nothing, but inwardly devoted the newcomer to the deeps of Hades. "And smoking to our old port!" "A cigar doesn’t make much difference to club-wines, young gentleman," said the Count, grandly. "Heard a good thing just now. Fellow was abusing Scotchmen to a Scotch tradesman, and of course Bannockburn was mentioned. ’Why,’ says the Englishman, ’plenty of my countrymen were buried at Bannockburn, and there you have rich harvests of grain. Plenty of _your_ countrymen were buried at Culloden, and there you have only a barren waste. Scotchmen can’t even fatten the land.’" "Did he kill him?" "No; the Englishman was a customer." Once more the Count was left to his happy imaginings.