“Frank, don’t be an idiot!” Elinor spoke quietly, but with crisp authority. “You’re drunk; get in the taxi; we’re going home.”
“Mais oui!” he shouted. “Je suis ivre! I am drunk! I will always be drunk—nothing but drunkenness for ever for Alec and me!”
“Listen!” Elinor spoke quietly, pleasantly to the Frenchman. “Won’t you go away, please, and leave him now? He is drunk, he does not know what he is doing; he really must go home now.”
“But, of course, madame,” said Alec courteously, “I go now.” He turned to Starwick and spoke quietly, with his thin, engaging smile: “I s’ink, Frank, eet ees bettaire eef you go home now, non?”
“But no! But no!” cried Starwick passionately. “I will go nowhere without Alec…. Alec!” he cried, clutching him with drunken desperation. “You cannot go! You must not go! You cannot leave me!”
“Tomorrow, perhaps,” said Alec, smiling. “Ees eet not bettaire eef we go to-gezzer tomorrow?—I s’ink zen you feel motch bettaire.”
“No! No!” Starwick cried obstinately. “Now! Now! Alec, you cannot leave me! We are brothers, we must tell each other everything…. You must show me all you know, all you have seen—you must teach me to smoke opium—take me where the opium-smokers go—Alec! Alec! J’ai la nostalgic pour la boue….”
“Oh, Frank, quit talking like a drunken idiot! Get in the car, we’re going home….”
“But no! But no!” Starwick raved on in his high drunken voice. “Alec and I are going on together—he has promised to take me to the places that he knows—to show me the dark mysteries—the lower depths….”
“Oh, Frank, for God’s sake get in the car; you’re making a damned fool of yourself!”
“—But no! I will not go without Alec—he must come with us—he is going to show me….”
“But I show you, Frank,” said Alec smoothly. “Tonight, non!” He spoke firmly, waved a hand. “Eet ees impossible. I wet’ere for someone. I must meet, I’ave engagement—yes. Tomorrow, eef you like, I meet you’ere! Tonight, non!” His voice was harsh, sharp with irrevocable refusal. “I cannot. Eet ees impossible.”
By dint of infinite prayers and persuasions, and by Alec’s promises that he would meet him next day to take him on a tour of “the lower depths,” they finally got Starwick into the taxi. All the way down the
