Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 3.djvu/194

 surface, polished for so many years by the gustatory elbows of the Frenchman and his wife, and the lady's dirty pack of cards for 'patience' (she had apparently been engaged in this exercise when Schinkel came in), which indeed gave a little the impression of gamblers surprised, who might have shuffled away the stakes. Madame Poupin, who had dived into a cupboard, came back with a bottle of green chartreuse, an apparition which led the German to exclaim, 'Lieber Gott, you Vrench, you Vrench, how well you manage! What would you have more?'

The hostess distributed the liquor, but Hyacinth was scarcely able to swallow it, though it was highly appreciated by his companions. His indifference to this luxury excited much discussion and conjecture, the others bandying theories and contradictions, and even ineffectual jokes, about him, over his head, with a volubility which seemed to him unnatural. Poupin and Schinkel professed the belief that there must be something very curious the matter with a man who couldn't smack his lips over a drop of that tap; he must either be in love or have some still more insidious complaint. It was true that Hyacinth was always in love—that was no secret to his friends—and it had never been observed to stop his thirst. The Frenchwoman poured scorn on this view of the case, declaring that the effect of the tender passion was to make one enjoy one's victual (when everything went straight, bien entendu; and how could an ear be deaf to the whisperings of such a dear little bon-homme as Hyacinth?) in proof of which she deposed that she had never eaten and drunk with such relish as at the time—oh, it was far away now—when she had a soft spot in her heart for her rascal of a husband. For Madame