“Nay, there’s sarcasm in that tone,” she said, shaking her head. “More respect, I beg of you, Sir David, for this little borage. Does it not look quaint and simple with its baby-blue flowers and its white downy stem? Ah, I warrant me you have had borage in your wine ere this—but you never knew why or how it came there! Oh, sir, it is no less—on authority, mark me—than one of the four great cordial flowers most deserving of esteem for cheering the spirits. The other three are the violet, the rose, and alkanet. And what the alkanet is I should much like to know!” ... “You know so much,” he said, “that I have no thought to spare for what you do not know.” “Sarcastic again—take care, cousin! Do not mock at Jupiter’s own cordial. And I tell you more, sir: conjoined with hellebore—black hellebore—that dark and gloomy plant will, as one Robert Burton has it: ‘Purge the veins Of Melancholy and cheer the Heart Of those black fumes that make it smart; And clear the brain of misty fogs Which dull our senses, our souls’ clogs.... “It’s a favourite quotation of my father’s. Would you drink of it, if I brewed it for you?” There fell a sudden silence—a something dividing their pleasant warmth of sympathy as of a chill breeze blowing between them. And she knew a thoughtless word had struck upon his hidden sore. She stood, as if convicted, with eyes averted from his face. Then he spoke: “Every man in his youth brews the cup of his own life and spends his age in drinking of it, willy nilly. Sometimes, I think, it is blind fate that has gathered the ingredients to his hand. Sometimes I see they are but the choice of his own perversity. But once brewed, he must drink, be they bitter or sweet.” “Cousin—” she began timidly. Then, after her woman’s way, courage came to her on a sudden turn of passion: “I’ll not believe it!” she cried, flashing upon him. “Throw the poison away, David. There is glad wine yet in this beautiful world.” His face relaxed as he looked upon her; the gloomy cloud passed from it. But the melancholy remained. “Do you remember,” said he, “for I too can quote—what Lady Macbeth says: ‘All the perfumes of Araby cannot sweeten this little hand!’ My bright cousin, believe me, there is a bitterness which no sweetness that ever was distilled, nay, I fear, not even such as you could distil, can ever mitigate. Have you not learned,” he added, and a certain inner agitation made his lips twitch and the pupils of his eyes dilate and found a distant echo in his voice as of some roaring waters deeply hidden—“have you not learned, over your father’s crucibles and phials, that the sweetest essence does but lose its nature and become bitter too for ever, when mingled with but a few drops of the acrid draught. Ellinor, I have warned you already.”