rustling white mist; she was gone; and he heard the sputtering and growling of her taxi, bearing her to the ball.  So!  She tyrannised and bullied, even before she had him at her mercy, did she?  She should see!  Anger had brightened his eyes; the room came clear again.  And slowly raising himself he sounded the bell twice, for the girl, not for that fellow Meller, who was in the plot.  As soon as her pretty black and white-aproned figure stood before him, he said: 

“Help me up.”

Twice her soft pulling was not enough, and he sank back.  The third time he struggled to his feet.

“Thank you; that’ll do.”  Then, waiting till she was gone, he crossed the room, fumbled open the sideboard door, and took out the bottle.  Reaching over the polished oak, he grasped a sherry glass; and holding the bottle with both hands, tipped the liquor into it, put it to his lips and sucked.  Drop by drop it passed over his palate mild, very old, old as himself, coloured like sunlight, fragrant.  To the last drop he drank it, then hugging the bottle to his shirt-front, he moved snail-like to his chair, and fell back into its depths.  For some minutes he remained there motionless, the bottle clasped to his chest, thinking:  ’This is not the attitude of a gentleman.  I must put it down on the table-on the table;’ but a thick cloud was between him and everything.  It was with his hands he would have to put the bottle on the table!  But he could not find his hands, could not feel them.  His mind see-sawed in strophe and antistrophe:  “You can’t move!”—­“I will move!” “You’re beaten”—­“I’m not beat.”  “Give up”—­“I won’t.”  That struggle to find his hands seemed to last for ever—­he must find them!  After that—­go down—­all standing—­after that!  Everything round him was red.  Then the red cloud cleared just a little, and he could hear the clock—­“tick-tick-tick”; a faint sensation spread from his shoulders down to his wrists, down his palms; and yes—­he could feel the bottle!  He redoubled his struggle to get forward in his chair; to get forward and put the bottle down.  It was not dignified like this!  One arm he could move now; but he could not grip the bottle nearly tight enough to put it down.  Working his whole body forward, inch by inch, he shifted himself up in the chair till he could lean sideways, and the bottle, slipping down his chest, dropped slanting to the edge of the low stool-table.  Then with all his might he screwed his trunk and arms an inch further, and the bottle stood.  He had done it—­done it!  His lips twitched into a smile; his body sagged back to its old position.  He had done it!  And he closed his eyes ....

At half-past eleven the girl Molly, opening the door, looked at him and said softly:  “Sirr! there’s some ladies, and a gentleman!” But he did not answer.  And, still holding the door, she whispered out into the hall: 

“He’s asleep, miss.”

A voice whispered back: