“What’s the good of thinking about that, anyway?  There’s no time like the present, so I’ll have Oku bring it in and I’ll drink to your pretty eyes.  My, but you look sweet to-night!  I’ll ring for Oku.”

He started towards the door and had almost reached it when he heard a movement and rustle of skirts behind him.  Turning quickly, he saw Virginia standing at the entrance to her own bedroom, as if hesitating as to whether to go into it or not.  Her first impulse had been to take refuge in there and bolt herself in.  But it seemed so cowardly, so undignified.  So she stopped on the threshold and just looked at him in silence, and for a few moments neither spoke.  At last he said: 

“You won’t run away?”

Slowly, deliberately, he advanced towards her.  Virginia, cowed, intimidated, stood still as if glued to the spot.  Impatiently he exclaimed: 

“It wouldn’t be a pretty thing for you to run away from your husband!  So you won’t do it, will you?”

She made no answer, and he repeated more loudly: 

“Will you?”

She looked up at him bravely.  Her face was white, but determined.  Almost defiantly, she replied: 

“No.  I won’t run away.”

“That’s the way to talk,” he cried and going to the door leading to the outside hall, he opened it and called out: 

“Oku, open the wine and bring it in here—­two glasses.”

Returning, he sat down, waiting for the butler to bring the champagne.  His face was more flushed than ever.  Instead of having a sobering effect, his wife’s resistance seemed only to inflame him more.  But just now his thoughts were not so much on her as on her brother-in-law.

“Oku’s—­a good boy,” he hiccoughed.  “A very—­good boy.  But he isn’t half as funny as Jimmie.  It’s worth twice Jimmie’s salary just to have him around to make me laugh.  How he does make me laugh!  He doesn’t know that I’m laughing at him, but I know it.  That’s what makes it so funny—­”

He was interrupted by the appearance of Oku with wine and glasses, which the butler placed on the table.

“Shall I serve?” asked the servant.

“Yes, fill ’em up,” replied his master.

After he had drawn the cork and filled the glasses with the hissing, golden beverage, Stafford stammered thickly: 

“That’s—­all for you—­to-night.”

“I must not wait?” inquired Oku.

“No!  I’ll ring—­when I want you in the morning.”

“Yes!  Excuse, please.  Excuse!”

The butler bowed himself out of the room and the millionaire, turning to his wife, pushed one of the glasses over to her.  Then, raising his own glass to his lips, he gave her a toast: 

“Here’s to you, sweetheart!”

He drained the contents and put the glass down.  As he did so he noticed that her glass was untouched.

“You didn’t drink!” he exclaimed in a surprised, aggrieved tone.