“Oh, well, never mind about it; don't take on so,” coaxed Bartley. “It's all over now, and it can't be helped. And I can promise you,” he added, “that it shall never happen again, no matter what you do,” and in making this promise he felt the glow of virtuous performance. “I think we've both had a lesson. I suppose,” he continued sadly, as one might from impersonal reflection upon the temptations and depravity of large cities, “that it's common enough. I dare say it isn't the first time Ben Halleck has taken a fellow home in a hack.” Bartley got so much comfort from the conjecture he had thrown out for Marcia's advantage, that he felt a sort of self-approval in the fact with which he followed it up. “And there's this consolation about it, if there isn't any other: that it wouldn't have happened now, if it had ever happened before.”
Marcia lifted her head and looked into his face: “What—what do you mean, Bartley?”
“I mean that I never was overcome before in my life by—wine.” He delicately avoided saying whiskey.
“Well?” she demanded.
“Why, don't you see? If I'd had the habit of drinking, I shouldn't have been affected by it.”
“I don't understand,” she said, anxiously.
“Why, I knew I shouldn't be able to sleep, I was so mad at you—”
“Oh!”
“And I dropped into the hotel bar-room for a nightcap,—for something to make me sleep.”
“Yes, yes!” she urged eagerly.