stood with wide eyes and white, absorbed
face. He saw the climax of the scene--saw the bearded man lean across
the table and seize the girl by the waist--saw, to his breathless
amazement, the woman Lize suddenly grasp the champagne bottle and fling
it full into his face; then, abruptly, out of the maze of sensations, he
felt some one grip him by the shoulder and march him straight through
the crowd, into the vestibule, on into the open air.

Outside, in the glare of the lights, in the cold fresh air of the
street, he turned, white and shaking, upon Blake.

"Why did you do it?" he demanded. "I think you were a coward! I would
not have run away!"

Blake laughed, though his own voice was a little uneven, his own face
looked a little pale. "There are some battle-fields, boy, where
discretion is obviously the better part of valor! I'm sorry I brought
you here, though they generally manage to avoid this sort of thing."

Max still looked indignant.

"But she was a friend of yours!"

"A friend! My God!"

"But she called you her friend!"

"Friendship is a much-defaced coin that poverty-stricken humanity will
always pass! Our friendship, boy, consists in the fact that she once
loved and was loved by a man I knew. Poor Lize! She had a bit too much
heart for the game she played. And the heart is there still, for all the
paint and powder and morphine she fights the world with! Poor Lize!"

Max's eyes were still wide, but the anger had died down.

"And the girl?" he questioned. "The girl, and the brute, and the man
with the clever head? What have they all to do with each other and with
her?"

Blake's lips parted to reply, but closed again.

"Never mind, boy!" he said, gently. "Come along back to your hotel;
you've seen enough life for one night."

CHAPTER X

With a new day began a new epoch. On the morning following the night, of
first adventure Max woke in his odd, mountainous bed at the Hotel
Railleux kindling to fresh and definite sensations. In a manner
miraculously swift, miraculously smooth and subtle, he had discovered a
niche in this strange city, and had elected to fit himself to it. A
knowledge of present, a pledge of future interests seemed to permeate
the atmosphere, and he rose and dressed with the grave deliberation of
the being who sees his way clear before him.

It was nine o'clock when he entered the _salle-a-manger_, and one sharp
glance brought the satisfying conviction that it was desert