Page:Arthur Machen, The Secret Glory, 1922.djvu/271

The Secret Glory "Yes; I have talked so much that I am hungry. We will have some supper."

They looked over the list of strange eatables and, with the waiter's help, decided on Leberwurst and potato-salad as light and harmless. With this they ate crescent loaves, sprinkled with caraway seeds: there was more Munich Lion-Brew and more flowery drink, with black coffee, a fine and a Maraschino to end all. For Nelly the kobolds began to perform a grotesque and mystic dance in the shadows, the glass tankards on the rack glittered strangely, the white walls with the red and black texts retreated into vast distances, and the bouquet of hops seemed suspended from a remote star. As for Ambrose, he was certainly not ebrius according to the Baron's definition; he was hardly ebriolus; but he was sensible, let us say, of a certain quickening of the fancy, of a more vivid and poignant enjoyment of the whole situation, of the unutterable gaiety of this mad escape from the conventions of Lupton.

"It was a Thursday night," said Ambrose in the after years, "and we were thinking of starting for Touraine either the next morning or on Saturday at latest. It will always be bright in my mind, that picture—the low room with the oak beams, the glittering tankards, the hops hanging from the ceiling, and Nelly sitting before 255