The waiter brought another glass and saucer, and a second waiter followed him with a bottle, from which he poured a greenish-yellow liquid into the glass.

‘What will you have?’ Diaz asked me.

‘Nothing, thank you,’ I said quickly.

To sit outside the cafe was already much.  It would have been impossible for me to drink there.

‘Ah! as you please, as you please,’ Diaz snapped.  ‘I beg your pardon.’

‘Poor fellow!’ I reflected.  ’He must be suffering from nervous irritability.’  And aloud, ‘I’m not thirsty, thank you,’ as nicely as possible.

He smiled beautifully; the irritability had passed.

‘It’s awfully kind of you to sit down here with me,’ he said, in a lower voice.  ‘I suppose you’ve heard about me?’

He drank half the contents of the glass.

’I read in the papers some years ago that you were suffering from neurasthenia and nervous breakdown,’ I replied.  ‘I was very sorry.’

‘Yes,’ he said; ‘nervous breakdown—­nervous breakdown.’

‘You haven’t been playing lately, have you?’

’It is more than two years since I played.  And if you had heard me that time!  My God!’

‘But surely you have tried some cure?’

‘Cure!’ he repeated after me.  ‘There’s no cure.  Here I am!  Me!’

His glass was empty.  He tapped on the window behind us, and the procession of waiters occurred again, and Diaz received a third glass, which now stood on three saucers.

‘You’ll excuse me,’ he said, sipping slowly.  ’I’m not very well to-night.  And you’ve—­Why did you run away from me?  I wanted to find you, but I couldn’t.’

‘Please do not let us talk about that,’ I stopped him.  ‘I—­I must go.’

‘Oh, of course, if I’ve offended you—­’

‘No,’ I said; ‘I’m not at all offended.  But I think—­’

’Then, if you aren’t offended, stop a little, and let me see you home.  You’re sure you won’t have anything?’

I shook my head, wishing that he would not drink so much.  I thought it could not be good for his nerves.

‘Been in Paris long?’ he asked me, with a slightly confused utterance.  ‘Staying in this quarter?  Many English and Americans here.’

Then, in setting down the glass, he upset it, and it smashed on the pavement like the first one.

‘Damn!’ he exclaimed, staring forlornly at the broken glass, as if in the presence of some irreparable misfortune.  And before I could put in a word, he turned to me with a silly smile, and approaching his face to mine till his hat touched the brim of my hat, he said thickly:  ’After all, you know, I’m the greatish pianist in the world.’

The truth struck me like a blow.  In my amazing ignorance of certain aspects of life I had not suspected it.  Diaz was drunk.  The ignominy of it!  The tragedy of it!  He was drunk.  He had fallen to the beast.  I drew back from that hot, reeking face.