Any one reading the face of Lovering would have seen a change in its expression, the evidence of some quickly formed purpose, and he would have seen also something more than simple admiration of the beautiful girl leaning on the arm of his friend.  His manner toward Whitford became more hearty.

“My dear old friend,” he said, catching up the hand he had dropped and giving it a tighter grip than before, “this is a pleasure.  How it brings back our college days!  We must have a glass of wine in memory of the good old times.  Come!”

And he moved toward the table.  With an impulse she could not restrain, Blanche drew back toward the door, pulling strongly on Whitford’s arm: 

“Come, Ellis; I am faint with the heat of this room.  Take me out, please.”

Whitford looked into her face, and saw that it had grown suddenly pale.  If his perceptions had not been obscured by drink, he would have taken her out instantly.  But his mind was not clear.

“Just a moment, until I can get you a glass of wine,” he said, turning hastily from her.  Lovering was filling three glasses as he reached the table.  Seizing one of them, he went back quickly to Blanche; but she waved her hand, saying:  “No, no, Ellis; it isn’t wine that I need, only cooler air.”

“Don’t be foolish,” replied Whitford, with visible impatience.  “Take a few sips of wine, and you will feel better.”

Lovering, with a glass in each hand, now joined them.  He saw the change in Blanche’s face, and having already observed the exhilarated condition of Whitford, understood its meaning.  Handing the latter one of the glasses, he said: 

“Here’s to your good health, Miss Birtwell, and to yours, Ellis,” drinking as he spoke.  Whitford drained his glass, but Blanche did not so much as wet her lips.  Her face had grown paler.

“If you do not take me out, I must go alone,” she said, in a voice that made itself felt.  There was in it a quiver of pain and a pulse of indignation.

Lovering lost nothing of this.  As his college friend made his way from the room with Blanche on his arm, he stood for a moment in an attitude of deep thought, then nodded two or three times and said to himself: 

“That’s how the land lies.  Wine in and wit out, and Blanche troubled about it already.  Engaged, they say.  All right.  But glass is sharp, and love’s fetters are made of silk.  Will the edge be duller if the glass is filled with wine?  I trow not.”

And a gleam of satisfaction lit up the young man’s face.

With an effort strong and self-controlling for one so young, Blanche Birtwell laid her hand upon her troubled heart as soon as she was out of the supper-room, and tried to still its agitation.  The color came back to her cheeks and some of the lost brightness to her eyes, but she was not long in discovering that the glass of wine taken with his college friend had proved too much for the already confused brain of her lover who began talking foolishly and acting in a way that mortified and pained her exceedingly.  She now sought to get him into the library and out of common observation.  Her father had just received from France and England some rare books filled with art illustrations, and she invited him to their examination.  But he was feeling too social for that.