Page:Stevenson - Prince Otto. A Romance.djvu/278

 your host; and I am sure you are both far too considerate of my embarrassing position to refuse to do me honour. Gentlemen, I drink to the Prince!’

‘Colonel,’ said Otto, ‘we have a jovial entertainer. I drink to Colonel Gordon.’

Thereupon all three took their wine very pleasantly; and even as they did so, the carriage with a lurch turned into the high-road and began to make better speed.

All was bright within; the wine had coloured Gotthold’s cheek; dim forms of forest trees, dwindling and spiring, scarves of the starry sky, now wide and now narrow, raced past the windows, through one that was left open the air of the woods came in with a nocturnal raciness; and the roll of wheels and the tune of the trotting horses sounded merrily on the ear. Toast followed toast; glass after glass was bowed across and emptied by the trio; and presently there began to fall upon them a luxurious spell, under the influence of which little but the sound of quiet and confidential laughter interrupted the long intervals of meditative silence.

‘Otto,’ said Gotthold, after one of these seasons of quiet, ‘I do not ask you to forgive me. Were the parts reversed, I could not forgive you.’