more indifferent he made
himself appear, slouching low and lower in his chair, his eyes
listless and half closed--his look one of the most pronounced apathy:
the while he conned the circumstances, physical as well as psychical,
with the narrowest attention. Certainly, it would seem, a man who had
enough instinctive decency to wish to escape the degradation of deeper
drunkenness, should be humoured rather than opposed....

The table on which his attention was focussed stood against the wall,
the young man sitting in the corner between November and the woman. Of
two tables between it and P. Sybarite's, one was vacant, the other
occupied by a brace of hatchet-faced male intimates of the dive and
creatures of November's--or their looks libelled them shamefully.

It seemed unlikely that the boy could get away against the wishes of
the gang leader, however steadfastly he might stand upon his
determination to drink no more. For nothing was to be hoped for from
the sots, prostitutes, and parasites who made up the balance of that
company: one and all, either too indifferent or too sophisticated, if
not in active sympathy with the practices of the establishment, to
lift a hand to interfere....

Testimony in support of this inference P. Sybarite received within the
next few minutes, when the boy's temper abruptly veered from
good-natured obduracy to open irritation.

"Damn it, no!" he cried in a high voice and with an impatient movement
struck the glass from November's hand.

Though it went to the floor with a splintering crash, the incident
attracted little more than casual glances from those at neighbouring
tables....

November's countenance, however, turned grey with anger beneath its
olive shade.

Momentarily his glance clashed with the woman's; and of a sudden the
paint upon her cheeks and lips stood out as starkly artificial as
carmine splashed upon a whitewashed wall. At the same time he flashed
a like warning to his two followers at the next table; and the legs of
their chairs grated on the tiled flooring as they shifted position,
making ready for the signal to "mix in."

At this, P. Sybarite rose and nonchalantly moved over to November; his
approach remarked by the latter with an evil leer; by the woman with a
start of consternation; by the boy with sudden suspicion. Indubitably
this last was beginning to question a hospitality that would not
permit him to do as to him seemed best. With relief P. Sybarite noted