“Confound his impudence!” ejaculated Ellis Whitford as he saw Blanche vanish through the library door.  Rising from the table he stood with an irresolute air, then went slowly from the apartment and mingled with the company, moving about in an aimless kind of way, until he drifted again into the supper-room, the tables of which the waiters were constantly replenishing, and toward which a stream of guests still flowed.  The company here was noisier now than when he left it a short time before.  Revelry had taken the place of staid propriety.  Glasses clinked like a chime of bells, voices ran up into the higher keys, and the loud musical laugh of girls mingled gaily with the deeper tones of their male companions.  Young maidens with glasses of sparkling champagne or rich brown and amber sherry in their hands were calling young men and boys to drink with them, and showing a freedom and abandon of manner that marked the degree of their exhilaration.  Wine does not act in one way on the brain of a young man and in another way on the brain of a young woman.  Girls of eighteen or twenty will become as wild and free and forgetful of propriety as young men of the same age if you bring them together at a feast and give them wine freely.

We do not exaggerate the scene in Mr. Birtwell’s supper-room, but rather subdue the picture.  As Whitford drew nigh the supper-room the sounds of boisterous mirth struck on his ears and stirred him like the rattle of a drum.  The heaviness went out of his limbs, his pulse beat more quickly, he felt a new life in his veins.  As he passed in his name was called in a gay voice that he did not at first recognize, and at the same moment a handsome young girl with flushed face and sparkling eyes came hastily toward him, and drawing her hand in his arm, said, in a loud familiar tone: 

“You shall be my knight, Sir Ellis.”

And she almost dragged him down the room to where half a dozen girls and young men were having a wordy contest about something.  He was in the midst of the group before he really understood who the young lady was that had laid such violent hands upon him.  He then recognized her as the daughter of a well-known merchant.  He had met her a few times in company, and her bearing toward him had always before been marked by a lady-like dignity and reserve.  Now she was altogether another being, loud, free and familiar almost to rudeness.

“You must have some wine, Sir Knight, to give you mettle for the conflict,” she said, running to the table and filling a glass, which she handed to him with the air of a Hebe.

Whitford did not hesitate, but raised the glass to his lips and emptied it at a single draught.

“Now for knight or dragon, my lady fair.  I am yours to do or die,” he exclaimed, drawing up his handsome form with a mock dignity, at which a loud cheer broke out from the group of girls and young men that was far more befitting a tavern-saloon than a gentleman’s dining-room.