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330 The valet de chambre carried away only what he could use; discarded shirts and socks and old shoes. It seemed a rather dismal place to have a party.

When the waiter came, he dusted off the table with his apron and put on a clean cloth, napkins, and glasses. Victor and his guest sat down under an electric light bulb with a broken shade, around which a silent halo of flies moved unceasingly. They did not buzz, or dart aloft, or descend to try the soup, but hung there in the centre of the room as if they were a part of the lighting system. The constant attendance of the waiter embarrassed Claude; he felt as if he were being watched.

“By the way,” said Victor while the soup plates were being removed, “what do you think of this wine? It cost me thirty francs the bottle.”

“It tastes very good to me,” Claude replied. “But then, it’s the first champagne I’ve ever drunk.”

“Really?” Victor drank off another glass and sighed. “I envy you. I wish I had it all to do over. Life’s too short, you know.”

“I should say you had made a good beginning. We’re a long way from Crystal Lake.”

“Not far enough.” His host reached across the table and filled Claude’s empty glass. “I sometimes waken up with the feeling I’m back there. Or I have bad dreams, and find myself sitting on that damned stool in the glass cage and can’t make my books balance; I hear the old man coughing in his private room, the way he coughs when he’s going to refuse a loan to some poor devil who needs it. I’ve had a narrow escape, Wheeler; as a brand from the burning. That’s all the Scripture I remember.”