"To the name of Max!" he said. "May it be known from here to the back of God's speed!" He swallowed the brandy and laid down his glass.
"To M. Max!" The Frenchwoman smiled. "A great future, monsieur!" She sipped and bowed.
Of the three, the boy alone sat motionless. His heart felt strangely full, the tears in his eyes were dangerously near to falling.
"Come, Max! Up with your glass!"
"Monsieur, I—I beg you to excuse me! My heart is very full of your kindness."
"Nonsense, boy! Drink!"
The boy laughed with a catch in his breath, then he drank a little with nervous haste, coughing as he laid his glass down. The cognac of the Maison Gustav was of a fiery nature.
The Irishman laughed. "Ah, another peep behind the mask! You may be an artist, young man—- you may have advanced ideas—but, for all that, you're only out of the nursery! It's for me to make a man of you, I see. Come, madame, the addition, if you please! We must be going."
For a moment madame was lost in calculation, then she decorously mentioned the amount of their debt.
The Irishman paid with the manner of a prince, and, slipping his arm again through the boy's, moved to the door; there he looked back.