eyes, he said, in a hard, sharp voice, “Une fine…. And you, monsieur?” he turned inquiringly toward Eugene, “I s’ink you have another drink?”
“No, not now”—his glass was not yet empty. “We—we have both already had something to drink.”
“I can see,” the Frenchman said politely, but with a swift flicker of cynical mirth across his thin mouth, that needed no translation. Raising his glass, he said courteously:
“A votre santé, messieurs,” and drank.
“Look!” cried Starwick. “You are our friend now, and you must call us by our names. My name is Frank; his is Eugene—what is yours?”
“My name ees Alec,” said the young Frenchman smiling. “Zat ees w’at zey call me.”
“But it’s perfect!” Starwick cried enthusiastically. “It’s a swell name—a wonderful name! Alec!—Ecoute!” he said to the soiled barman with the ugly eye, “Juh pawnse qu’il faut—encore du cognac,” he said drunkenly, making a confused and maudlin gesture with his arm. “Encore du cognac, s’il vous plaît!” And as the barman silently and sullenly filled the three glasses from a bottle on the bar, Starwick turned to Alec, shouting with dangerous hilarity: “Cognac for ever, Alec, Alec!—Cognac for you and me and all of us for ever!—Nothing but drunkenness—glorious drunkenness—divine poetic drunkenness for ever!”
“Eef you like,” said Alec, with a polite and acquiescent shrug. He raised his glass and drank.
It was four o’clock when they left the place. Arm in arm they reeled out into the street, Starwick holding on to Alec for support and shouting drunkenly:
“Nous sommes des amis!—Nous sommes des amis éternels! Mais oui! Mais oui!”
The whole dark and silent street rang and echoed with his drunken outcry. “Alec et moi—nous sommes des frères—nous sommes des artistes! Nothing shall part us! Non—jamais! Jamais!”
A taxi, which had been waiting in the darkness several doors away, now drove up swiftly and stopped before them at the kerb. Ann and Elinor were inside: Elinor opened the door and spoke gently:
“Frank, get in the taxi now, we’re going home.”
“Mais jamais! Jamais!” Starwick yelled hysterically. “I go nowhere without Alec!—We are brothers—friends—he has a poet’s soul.”
