‘I think you ought to go home,’ I suggested.
‘That is only to get rid of me!’ he cried.
‘No, no,’ I appealed to him persuasively. ‘Do not wound me. I will go with you as far as your house, if you like. You are too ill to be alone.’
At that moment an empty open cab strolled by, and, without pausing for his answer, I signalled the driver. My heart beat wildly. My spirit was in an uproar. But I was determined not to desert him, not to abandon him to a public disgrace. I rose from my seat.
‘You’re very good,’ he said, in a new voice.
The cab had stopped.
‘Come!’ I entreated him.
He rapped uncertainly on the window, and then, as the waiter did not immediately appear, he threw some silver on the table, and aimed himself in the direction of the cab. I got in. Diaz slipped on the step.
‘I’ve forgotten somethin’,’ he complained. ‘What is it? My umbrella—yes, my umbrella—pépin as they say here. ‘Scuse me moment.’
His umbrella was, in fact, lying under a chair. He stooped with difficulty and regained it, and then the waiter, who had at length arrived, helped him into the cab, and he sank like a mass of inert clay on my skirts.