"Do you mind?" he asked diffidently. "Sorry I haven't a glass, but this is the first time I've taken the cork out."
She lifted the flask obediently and took a draught that commanded his respect.
She smiled faintly as she met his wide-eyed regard. "My husband makes me live on this stuff. I was threatened with consumption. It affects me very little, but it helps me in more ways than one."
"Well, don't let it help you too much. I suppose the doctor knows best—but—well, it gets a hold on you when you are down on your luck."
"If it ever 'gets a hold' on me it will because I deliberately wish it to," she said haughtily. "If Langdon Masters—has gone as far as you say, I don't believe it is through any inherited weakness. He has done it deliberately."
"I grant that. And I'm sorry if I offended you—"
"I am only grateful to you. I feel better now and can think a little.
Something must be done. Surely he can be saved."
"I doubt it. When a man starts scientifically drinking himself to death nothing can be done when there is nothing better to offer him. May I be frank?"
"I have been frank enough!"
"Masters told me nothing of course, but I heard all the talk. Old Travers let out his part of it in his cups, and news travels from the Clubs like water out of a sieve. We don't publish that sort of muck, but there were innuendoes in that blackguard sheet, The Boom. They stopped suddenly and I fancy the editor had a taste of the horsewhip. It wouldn't be the first time…. When Masters sent for me and told me he was leaving San Francisco for good and all, he looked like a man who had been through Dore's Hell—was there still, for that matter. Of course I knew what had happened; if I hadn't I'd have known it the next day when I saw the doctor. He looked bad enough, but nothing to Masters. He had less reason! Of course Masters threw his career to the winds to save your good name. Noblesse oblige. Too bad he wasn't more of a villain and less of a great gentleman. It, might have been better all round. This town certainly needs him."