So sure had been her triumph, so abrupt its collapse, that Max—smoking his cigarette, sipping his coffee—turned, with a little exclamation, to Blake.
"Have you observed, mon ami? Oh, why was that?"
Blake was carefully lighting a cigar.
"'Twould be hard to say," he answered, meditatively. "In a matter of emotion, an Englishman has a way of getting frightened of himself. This particular specimen has come over to Paris to play—and he doesn't fancy fire for a toy!"
"And what will happen? What will be the end?" Max had laid his cigarette aside; his fingers were interlaced, sure sign that his emotions were running high; and his eyes, when he fixed them on Blake's, held a touch of their rare sombre fire.
"How will it end, you say? Guess, my child!"
Max shook his head.
"Well, boy, Eve will be Eve to the end of time—and Adam will be Adam!"
"You mean—? Oh, but look!"
This last was called forth by the rising from table of the trio—the quiet passing from the room of the fair man in the train of his friend and the little dark lady.