I was glad to do so. It flashed across my mind that yonder on the terrace
he might suddenly blurt out: "I say, look here, don't think me awfully
impertinent, but this money's no earthly use to me. I do wish you'd
accept it as a very small return for all the pleasure your work has given
me, and-- There, PLEASE! Not another word!"--all with such
candor, delicacy, and genuine zeal that I should be unable to refuse. But
I must not raise false hopes in my reader. Nothing of the sort happened.
Nothing of that sort ever does happen.

We were not long on the terrace. It was not a night on which you could stroll
and talk; there was a wind against which you had to stagger, holding your hat
on tightly, and shouting such remarks as might occur to you. Against that
wind acquaintance could make no headway. Yet I see now that despite
that wind, or, rather, because of it, I ought already to have known Pethel
a little better than I did when we presently sat down together inside the
cafe of the casino. There had been a point in our walk, or our stagger,
when we paused to lean over the parapet, looking down at the black
and driven sea. And Pethel had shouted that it would be great fun
to be out in a sailing-boat to-night, and that at one time he had been very
fond of sailing.

As we took our seats in the cafe, he looked about him with
boyish interest and pleasure; then squaring his arms on the little table, he
asked me what I would drink. I protested that I was the host, a position
which he, with the quick courtesy of the very rich, yielded to me at once.
I feared he would ask for champagne, and was gladdened by his demand
for water.

"Apollinaris, St. Galmier, or what?" I asked. He preferred plain
water. I ventured to warn him that such water was never "safe" in these