“I have had a few adventures, something like yours, only not so widely diversified.  I wrote some successful short stories about China once.  I have had some good sport, too, here and there.”

“You live well for a newspaper correspondent,” suggested Breitmann, nodding at the bottle of twenty-eight-year-old Burgundy.

“Oh, it’s a habit we Americans have,” amiably.  “We rough it for a few months on bacon and liver, and then turn our attention to truffles and old wines and Cabanas at two-francs-fifty.  We are collectively, a good sort of vagabond.  I have a little besides my work; not much, but enough to loaf on when no newspaper or magazine cares to pay my expenses in Europe.  Anyhow, I prefer this work to staying home to be hampered by intellectual boundaries.  My vest will never reach the true proportions which would make me successful in politics.”

“You are luckier than I am,” Breitmann replied.  He sipped his wine slowly and with relish.  How long was it since he had tasted a good chambertin?

Perhaps Fitzgerald had noticed it when Breitmann came in.  The latter’s velvet collar was worn; there was a suspicious gloss at the elbows; the cuff buttons were of cheap metal; his fingers were without rings.  But the American readily understood.  There are lean years and fat years in journalism, and he himself had known them.  For the present this man was a little down on his luck; that was all.

A party came in and took the near table.  There were four; two elderly men, an elderly woman, and a girl.  Fitzgerald, as he side-glanced, was afforded a shiver of pleasure.  He recognized the girl.  It was she who had given the flowers to the veteran.

“That is a remarkably fine young woman,” said Breitmann, echoing Fitzgerald’s thought.

The waiter opened the champagne.

“Yes.  I saw her give some violets this afternoon to an old soldier in the tomb.  It was a pretty scene.”

“Well,” said Breitmann, raising his glass, “a pretty woman and a bottle!”

It was the first jarring note, and Fitzgerald frowned.

“Pardon me,” added Breitmann, observing the impression he had made, smiling, and when he smiled the student slashes in his cheeks weren’t so noticeable.  “What I should have said is, a good woman and a good bottle.  For what greater delight than to sip a rare vintage with a woman of beauty and intellect opposite?  One glass is enough to loose her laughter, her wit, her charm.  Bah!  A man who knows how to drink his wine, a woman who knows when to laugh, a story-teller who stops when his point is told; these trifles add a little color as we pass.  Will you drink to my success?”

“In what?” with Yankee caution.

“In whatever the future sees fit to place under my hand.”

“With pleasure!  And by the same token you will wish me the same?”

“Gladly!”