But she had gone far enough, and she would not let him finish. They had reached a saloon near to her new lodging-place, and she paused. There was, and she knew it, no word in his excuse that she would have credited. Nor did she mean, just yet, to let him see her hatred. In order that he might the better see it at a later moment, she wanted now to quiet his naturally ready fears. She had found that she could harass him, and that, for the present, was all that she needed to know. "Never mind," she said, "I told you I wasn't goin' to rake up nothin', an' I mean to keep my word. Come on in here. This is a quiet place. You're goin' to buy me a drink, anyhow, just to show that we're still friends." He brightened at this indicated avenue of escape. "_Sure_ we're still friends," he declared, "an' you can haf all you vant to _drink_, too." She slipped her hand into his--she could do it, she had learned, without the dumb flesh seeming to shrink from that contact--and pressed it. They went into the deserted "ladies' room" of the saloon to which she had referred, and sat down there, facing each other under a light turned kindly low. "Vhiskey?" asked Max. "Yes," said Mary. "Two of 'em," ordered Max of the waiter that had answered his ring, "an' don'd make 'em so _stingy_ like most you fellers ofer this vay." The man brought the liquor, placed it before them, and went away. "Vell," said Max, raising his glass, smiling his thin smile, and apparently forgetting that he had ever denied whiskey; "here ve are, _ain't_ it?" If Mary was remembering another night and another drink she did not say so; instead, as Max tilted his sleek head far back between his shoulders and dropped the whiskey down his throat, her hand watched for the instant when his gray eyes were on the ceiling and that instant poured the liquor from her own glass to the floor. When her companion's head came forward her fingers, wrapped about the glass, were just withdrawing it from her lips. "I can drink that better'n I used to," she said. Max grinned again. So long as she did not upbraid him for his part in it, so long as she did not go into the details of its earlier stages, he had no objection to hearing of her past, was even languidly curious about it, and was certainly sorry that it had not brought her to more seeming prosperity. "You sure didn't take that like you vasn't _used_ vith it," he said. "I'll take another just to show you how," she answered, and pressed the nearest button. This time his eyes were on her and she had to drink. But she did not scruple: so long as she retained her head and Max lost his, the effect of the alcohol on her system concerned her but little.