"Another glass can't hurt you," he said, laughing with her.
"Here--I'll fill mine--there"--he held up the bottle for her to
see--"Now you have the remainder. You don't want me to drink it all,
do you? I should like to know what you'd do--I suppose you'd give
me in charge of the head waiter? I guess you'd shirk your
responsibilities more than I would." And as he talked, he emptied
the bottle into her glass beneath the fringe of the conversation.
"Ever hear that story," he began again, and caught her attention once
more with an idle tale that had worn its way through half the clubs
in Town. His yarns were all fresh to her, and, moreover, he spun them
amazingly well. There was none of that disconcerting fear of their
staleness to thwart him--no need for the tentative preface--"You'll
say if you've heard this before." One suggested another--they rolled
off his tongue. And while she sipped her champagne, he kept her
amused; never allowed her the moments of inaction in which to relent.
He amused himself. The old, worn-out story has all the humour still
keen in it for you--if _you_ tell it. It was no effort, no strain
to Devenish. He laughed as heartily as she did over the stale old
jests.
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