ushed him too. And so I said,
smiling as well as I could:

'And I you.'

'Won't you sit down here?' he suggested, avoiding my eyes.

And thus I found myself seated outside a cafe, at night, conspicuous for
all Montparnasse to see. We never know what may lie in store for us at
the next turning of existence.

'Then I am not much changed, you think?' he ventured, in an anxious tone.

'No,' I lied. 'You are perhaps a little stouter. That's all.'

How hard it was to talk! How lamentably self-conscious we were! How
unequal to the situation! We did not know what to say.

'You are far more beautiful than ever you were,' he said, looking at me
for an instant. 'You are a woman; you were a girl--then.'

The waiter brought another glass and saucer, and a second waiter
followed him with a bottle, from which he poured a greenish-yellow
liquid into the glass.

'What will you have?' Diaz asked me.

'Nothing, thank you,' I said quickly.

To sit outside the cafe was already much. It would have been impossible
for me to drink there.

'Ah! as you please, as you please,' Diaz snapped. 'I beg your pardon.'

'Poor fellow!' I reflected. 'He must be suffering from nervous
irritability.' And aloud, 'I'm not thirsty, thank you,' as nicely
as possible.

He smiled beautifully; the irritability had passed.

'It's awfully kind of you to sit down here with me,' he said, in a lower
voice. 'I suppose you've heard about me?'

He drank half the contents of the glass.

'I read in the papers some years ago that you were suffering from
neurasthenia and nervous breakdown,' I replied. 'I was very sorry.'

'Yes,' he said; 'nervous breakdown--nervous breakdown.'

'You haven't been playing lately, have you?'

'It is more than two years since I played. And if you had heard me that
time! My God!'

'But surely you have tried some cure?'

'Cure!' he repeated after me. 'There's no cure. Here I am! Me!'

His glass was empty. He tapped on the window behind us, and the
procession of waiters occurred again, and Diaz received a third glass,
which now stood on three saucers.

'You'll excuse me,' he said, sipping slowly. 'I'm not very well to-night.
And you've--Why did you run away from me? I wanted to find you, but I
couldn't.'

'Please do not let us talk about that,' I stopped him. 'I--I must go.'

'Oh, of course, if I've offended you--'

'No,' I said; 'I'm not at all offended. But I think--'

'Then, if you aren't offended, stop a little