"They've got at the champagne!" exclaimed Mrs. Steffink.
"Perhaps it's the sparkling Moselle," said Luke hopefully.
Three or four more pops were heard.
"The champagne _and_ the sparkling Moselle," said Mrs. Steffink.
Luke uncorked an expletive which, like brandy in a temperance household,
was only used on rare emergencies. Mr. Horace Bordenby had been making
use of similar expressions under his breath for a considerable time past.
The experiment of "throwing the young people together" had been prolonged
beyond a point when it was likely to produce any romantic result.
Some forty minutes later the hall door opened and disgorged a crowd that
had thrown off any restraint of shyness that might have influenced its
earlier actions. Its vocal efforts in the direction of carol singing
were now supplemented by instrumental music; a Christmas-tree that had
been prepared for the children of the gardener and other household
retainers had yielded a rich spoil of tin trumpets, rattles, and drums.
The life-story of King Wenceslas had been dropped, Luke was thankful to
notice, but it was intensely irritating for the chilled prisoners in the
cow-house to be told that it was a hot time in the old town to-night,
together with some accurate but entirely superfluous information as to
the imminence of Christmas morning.
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