When dinner was on the table she set out the bottle of Scotch and
the glasses. Bob declined.

"Tell you the truth, Jess," he said. "I've cut out the drink. Help
yourself, of course. If you don't mind I'll try some of the seltzer
straight."

"You've stopped drinking?" she said, looking at him steadily and
unsmilingly. "What for?"

"It wasn't doing me any good," said Bob. "Don't you approve of the
idea?"

Jessie raised her eyebrows and one shoulder slightly.

"Entirely," she said with a sculptured smile. "I could not
conscientiously advise any one to drink or smoke, or whistle on
Sunday."

The meal was finished almost in silence. Bob tried to make talk,
but his efforts lacked the stimulus of previous evenings. He felt
miserable, and once or twice his eye wandered toward the bottle, but
each time the scathing words of his bibulous friend sounded in his
ear, and his mouth set with determination.

Jessie felt the change deeply. The essence of their lives seemed to
have departed suddenly. The restless fever, the false gayety, the
unnatural excitement of the shoddy Bohemia in which they had lived
had dropped away in the space of the popping of a cork. She stole