Then she made a queer, gurgling sound in her throat, tried to speak, and ended by weeping with her face held between her hands.
As the car sped on Mauney sat regarding her in absolute mystification.
“Why on earth does the girl weep?” he meditated. “What have I done to her? Is my proffer of love an insult?”
It was a hoax of a drive. It became unbearable. After a long silence he ventured to change the subject entirely, and found her presently quite agreeable to talk about other matters. He was glad when he at last put her down at her home and said good-night. Then, returning to the car, he drove to the Medical Building, where the windows of Lee’s laboratory were brilliantly lighted. After paying the driver he stood for a few moments on the walk trying to collect his self-control. He wanted to see Max, but knew that unless he paused he would stamp into the laboratory like a madman. He owed Lee some deference on account of the latter’s important work. It was ten minutes before he opened the great front door of the building and ascended the iron staircase to the first floor. He rapped on the laboratory door.
“Who’s there?” came Lee’s voice, in an unnatural tone.
“Mauney.”
“All right.”
In a moment Max unlocked the door and stepped back. He had a bottle of whiskey in his hand with a corkscrew stuck into the cork. Without noticing Mauney’s surprised expression, he turned to walk to a table where he continued his occupation of trying to draw the cork. His lean body was clothed in his long, white, laboratory gown, and his black hair hung in confusion over his pale face. He evidently forgot that something in the present scene was bound to be dramatically new to Mauney. Without explanation he drawled, in his gentle voice:
“This whiskey, Mauney, is neither Olympian nectar nor fixed bayonets. I’ve frequently sipped better spirits, and I’ve occasionally tasted worse. Like you and me, my son, it was made before the war. Fortunately it lacks the throaty sting of recent distillation, but, on the other hand, it can hardly be said to possess the superb smoothness, the velvety, liqueur-like softness of real old spirits, such as I, and such as you, no doubt, have, at sundry times and in divers places, imbibed. I use the word ‘imbibed’ advisedly, and with nice selection from the swarm of verbs meaning to drink, such as sip, taste, sample, swallow, tipple, to say nothing of swig, and to leave out of consideration entirely such inelegant terms as snort, or even gargle.”