It came in a moment:  a little scuffle at the bar opposite, as a heavy, fair-bearded man disengaged himself from the crowd about him, a little flutter of interest as he made an unsteady way across the waxed floor, a little smothered scream from the girl as he lurched up to the table and paused, gazing at her with angry, bloodshot eyes.

For a second of silence the two looked at each other—­the girl with a frightened, fascinated gaze, the man with the slow insolence that drink induces.  At last, muttering some words in a guttural tongue unknown to the boy, he swayed forward and laid a heavy red hand upon her shoulder.

The gesture was brutal, masterful, expressive.  A sense of mental sickness seized upon Max; while the woman Lize suddenly braced herself, changing from the inert, half-hypnotized creature of a moment before into a being of fury.

“Sapristi!” she cried aloud.  “A pretty lover to come wooing!” And she added a phrase that had never found place in Max’s vocabulary, and at which the surrounding people laughed.

The words and the laugh were tow to the fire of the man’s rage.  He freed the girl’s arm and struck the table with a resounding violence that made the glasses dance.

It was the signal for a scene.  In a second people at the neighboring tables rose to their feet, chairs were overturned, a torrent of words poured forth from both actors and spectators, while through everything and above everything the band poured forth an intoxicating waltz.

Max, forgetful of himself, stood with wide eyes and white, absorbed face.  He saw the climax of the scene—­saw the bearded man lean across the table and seize the girl by the waist—­saw, to his breathless amazement, the woman Lize suddenly grasp the champagne bottle and fling it full into his face; then, abruptly, out of the maze of sensations, he felt some one grip him by the shoulder and march him straight through the crowd, into the vestibule, on into the open air.

Outside, in the glare of the lights, in the cold fresh air of the street, he turned, white and shaking, upon Blake.

“Why did you do it?” he demanded.  “I think you were a coward!  I would not have run away!”

Blake laughed, though his own voice was a little uneven, his own face looked a little pale.  “There are some battle-fields, boy, where discretion is obviously the better part of valor!  I’m sorry I brought you here, though they generally manage to avoid this sort of thing.”

Max still looked indignant.

“But she was a friend of yours!”

“A friend!  My God!”

“But she called you her friend!”

“Friendship is a much-defaced coin that poverty-stricken humanity will always pass!  Our friendship, boy, consists in the fact that she once loved and was loved by a man I knew.  Poor Lize!  She had a bit too much heart for the game she played.  And the heart is there still, for all the paint and powder and morphine she fights the world with!  Poor Lize!”