The merry little dinner was drawing to an end. Old Moche had positively sparkled with wit throughout the meal, but most of the time it was simply trouble wasted, for Ascott hardly listened to a word. Moche sat facing the two young people, who, as if by inadvertence, had taken their places on a narrow divan, so that as the festivity proceeded they were perpetually coming into casual contact with each other. At first the young man had discreetly kept his distance, but little by little, growing bolder under his senior’s indulgent eye—the old man seemed to be getting tipsy—the lover drew nearer to his charmer. From time to time he would squeeze her hand under the table or throw an arm around her waist. The child looked demure and a trifle startled, affecting to be embarrassed, sometimes even shocked, but at the same time casting occasional sidewise glances at the rich Englishman that were full of encouragement and spoke of passion only held in check by maiden modesty. Ascott, entering more and more into the spirit of the thing, kept on replenishing his guests’ glasses with champagne, hoping to intoxicate old Moche altogether and make the girl sufficiently tipsy to prove less obdurate in repelling the caresses he lavished on her. He himself, too, by way of stimulating his courage, was drinking pretty hard, and, all things considered, was very likely consuming on his own sole account a great deal more than his two companions both together. Once, as he was bending down behind Nini, pretending to pick something up from the floor, in reality in order to put his burning lips to the cool, inviting surface of the girl’s neck behind, Ascott failed to see how Père Moche, with the lightning quickness of a conjuring trick, sprinkled a whitey-grey powder over the frothing liquor in his champagne glass. Dessert was on the table. But while Nini, nibbling at the strawberries on her plate, refused to drink any more wine, Ascott, who was tormented with a thirst that grew momentarily more intense, had a fourth bottle of champagne uncorked, of which he poured a good third into a glass for himself and drained it off at a draught. The Englishman was rapidly getting drunk, and now threw discretion to the winds in his plaguing of Nini, who more than once, playing her part to perfection, administered some shrewd slaps on the young man’s over enterprising hands. She even sprang up from her seat, as if to fly for refuge to her uncle and demand his protection. Old Moche followed the whole scene with a very wide awake glance, humming a tune at intervals and mimicking the ways of a man excited by the fumes of a heady wine and viewing life under the most roseate aspect. At a given moment, however, the old fellow, after looking surreptitiously at his watch, noted that it was half past eleven. He rose from the table staggering. Ascott burst out laughing. “By the Lord! my dear Moche,” he cried out in a thick voice, “I verily believe you’re jolly well drunk!”