But suddenly he stopped short, and his eyes sank before the other, who had laid a hand upon his knee.
"But don't, Egyptian, don't! Don't have aught to do with me.

I'm only a drunken swine.

I kept sober four years, as she knows--as the Angel down yonder in the Red Mansion knows; but the day you came, going out to meet you, I got drunk--blind drunk.

I had only been pretending all the time.
I was being coaxed along--made believe I was a real man, I suppose.
But I wasn't.

I was a pillar of sand.