As we took our seats in the cafe, he looked about him with boyish interest and pleasure; then squaring his arms on the little table, he asked me what I would drink. I protested that I was the host, a position which he, with the quick courtesy of the very rich, yielded to me at once. I feared he would ask for champagne, and was gladdened by his demand for water. "Apollinaris, St. Galmier, or what?" I asked. He preferred plain water. I ventured to warn him that such water was never "safe" in these places. He said he had often heard that, but would risk it. I remonstrated, but he was firm. "Alors," I told the waiter, "pour Monsieur un verre de l'eau fraiche, et pour moi un demi blonde." Pethel asked me to tell him who every one was. I told him no one was any one in particular, and suggested that we should talk about ourselves. "You mean," he laughed, "that you want to know who the devil I am?" I assured him that I had often heard of him. At this he was unaffectedly pleased. "But," I added, "it's always more interesting to hear a man talked about by himself." And indeed, since he had NOT handed his winnings over to me, I did hope he would at any rate give me some glimpses into that "great character" of his. Full though his life had been, he seemed but like a rather clever schoolboy out on a holiday. I wanted to know more. "That beer looks good," he admitted when the waiter came back. I asked him to change his mind, but he shook his head, raised to his lips the tumbler of water that had been placed before him, and meditatively drank a deep draft. "I never," he then said, "touch alcohol of any sort." He looked solemn; but all men do look solemn when they speak of their own habits, whether positive or negative, and no matter how trivial; and so, though I had really no warrant for not supposing him a reclaimed drunkard, I dared ask him for what reason he abstained. "When I say I NEVER touch alcohol," he said hastily, in a tone as of self-defense, "I mean that I don't touch it often, or, at any rate--well, I never touch it when I'm gambling, you know. It--it takes the edge off." His tone did make me suspicious. For a moment I wondered whether he had married the barmaid rather for what she symbolized than for what in herself she was. But no, surely not; he had been only nineteen years old. Nor in any way had he now, this steady, brisk, clear-eyed fellow, the aspect of one who had since fallen. "The edge off the excitement?" I asked.