certain brand of wine, iced beyond recognition for any normal palate,
was always served to Aholibah. She loved "needles on her tongue," she
asseverated if any one offered her weaker stuff. That July night she
looked like a piratical craft that had captured a sleek merchantman for
prize. She was all smoothness; Ambroise alone detected the retracted
claws of the leopardess. She blazed in the electric illumination, and
her large hat, with its swelling plumes, threw her dusky features into
shadow--her eyes seemed far away under its brim and glowed with unholy
phosphorescence.

While he arranged the details of the silver wine-pail in the other room,
the chef asked him if the Princess Comet had arrived. Ambroise almost
snarled--much to the astonishment of the Gascon. And when the sommelier
attempted to help him with the wine, he was elbowed vigorously. Ambroise
must have been drinking too much, said the boys. Joseph rather curiously
inspected his waiter as he made his accustomed round in the café. But,
pale as usual, Ambroise stood near his table, his whole bearing an
intent and thoroughly professional one. Joseph was satisfied and drove
the chef back to the kitchen.

The young Alsatian had never seen Aholibah look so radiant. She was in
high spirits, and her pungent talk aroused her companion from incipient
moroseness. After midnight the party grew--some actresses from a near-by
theatre came in with their male friends, and another waiter was detailed
to the aid of Ambroise. But he stuck to the first-comers and served so
much wine to them that he had the satisfaction of seeing Aholibah's
disagreeable protector collapse. She hardly noticed it, for she was
talking vivaciously to Madeleine about the première of Donnay's comedy.
Thrice Ambroise sought to fill her glass; but she repulsed him. He was
sad. Something told him that Aholibah was farther away from him than