“Sure,” said Key, winking broadly at Rose.
“My case, for instance,” continued Peter, finishing his glass. “I got a girl up here that’s spoiled. Spoildest darn girl I ever saw. Refused to kiss me; no reason whatsoever. Led me on deliberately to think sure I want to kiss you and then plunk! Threw me over! What’s the younger generation comin’ to?”
“Say tha’s hard luck,” said Key—“that’s awful hard luck.”
“Oh, boy!” said Rose.
“Have another?” said Peter.
“We got in a sort of fight for a while,” said Key after a pause, “but it was too far away.”
“A fight?—tha’s stuff!” said Peter, seating himself unsteadily. “Fight ’em all! I was in the army.”
“This was with a Bolshevik fella.”
“Tha’s stuff!” exclaimed Peter, enthusiastic. “That’s what I say! Kill the Bolshevik! Exterminate ’em!”
“We’re Americuns,” said Rose, implying a sturdy, defiant patriotism.
“Sure,” said Peter. “Greatest race in the world! We’re all Americans! Have another.”
They had another.
VI
At one o’clock a special orchestra, special even in a day of special orchestras, arrived at Delmonico’s, and its members, seating themselves arrogantly around the piano, took up the burden of providing music for the Gamma Psi Fraternity. They were headed by a famous flute-player, distinguished throughout New York for his feat of standing on his head and shimmying with his shoulders while he played the latest jazz on his flute. During his performance the lights were extinguished except for the spotlight on the flute-player and another roving beam that threw flickering shadows and changing kaleidoscopic colors over the massed dancers.
Edith had danced herself into that tired, dreamy state habitual only with débutantes, a state equivalent to the glow of a noble soul after several long highballs. Her mind floated vaguely on the bosom of her music; her partners changed with the unreality of phantoms under the colorful shifting dusk, and to her present coma it seemed as if days had passed since the dance began. She had talked on many fragmentary subjects with many men. She had been kissed once and made love to six times. Earlier in the evening different under-graduates had danced with her, but now, like all the more popular girls there, she had her own entourage—that is, half a dozen gallants had singled her out or were alternating her charms with those of some other chosen beauty; they cut in on her in regular, inevitable succession.
Several times she had seen Gordon—he had been sitting a long time on the stairway with his palm to his head, his dull eyes fixed at an infinite spark on the floor before him, very depressed, he looked, and quite drunk—but Edith each time had averted her glance hurriedly. All that seemed long ago; her mind was passive now, her senses were lulled to trance-like sleep; only her feet danced and her voice talked on in hazy sentimental banter.
But Edith was not nearly so tired as to be incapable of moral indignation when Peter Himmel cut in on her, sublimely and happily drunk. She gasped and looked up at him.
“Why, Peter!”
“I’m a li’l’ stewed, Edith.”
“Why, Peter, you’re a peach, you are! Don’t you think it’s a bum way of doing—when you’re with me?”
Then she smiled unwillingly, for he was looking at her with owlish sentimentality varied with a silly spasmodic smile.
“Darlin’ Edith,” he began earnestly, “you know I love you, don’t you?”
“You tell it well.”
“I love you—and I merely wanted you to kiss me,” he added sadly.
His embarrassment, his shame, were both gone. She was a mos’ beautiful girl in whole worl’. Mos’ beautiful eyes, like stars above. He wanted to ’pologize—firs’, for presuming try to kiss her; second, for drinking—but he’d been so discouraged ’cause he had thought she was mad at him——
The red-fat man cut in, and looking up at Edith smiled radiantly.
“Did you bring any one?” she asked.
No. The red-fat man was a stag.
“Well, would you mind—would it be an awful bother for you to—to take me home to-night?” (this extreme diffidence was a charming affectation on Edith’s part—she knew that the red-fat man would immediately dissolve into a paroxysm of delight).
“Bother? Why, good Lord, I’d be darn glad to! You know I’d be darn glad to.”
“Thanks loads! You’re awfully sweet.”
She glanced at her wrist-watch. It was half-past one. And, as she said “half-past one” to herself, it floated vaguely into her mind that her brother had told her at luncheon that he worked in the office of his newspaper until after one-thirty every evening.
Edith turned suddenly to her current partner.
“What street is Delmonico’s on, anyway?”
“Street? Oh, why Fifth Avenue, of course.”
“I mean, what cross street?”
“Why—let’s see—it’s on Forty-fourth Street.”
This verified what she had thought. Henry’s office must be across the street and just around the corner, and it occurred to her immediately that she might slip over for a moment and surprise him, float in on him, a shimmering marvel in her new crimson opera cloak and “cheer him up.” It was exactly the sort of thing Edith revelled in doing—an unconventional, jaunty thing. The idea reached out and gripped at her imagination—after an instant’s hesitation she had decided.
“My hair is just about to tumble entirely down,” she said pleasantly to her partner; “would you mind if I go and fix it?”
“Not at all.”
“You’re a peach.”
A few minutes later, wrapped in her crimson opera cloak, she flitted down a side-stairs, her cheeks glowing with excitement at her little adventure. She ran by a couple who stood at the door—a weak-chinned waiter and an over-rouged young lady, in hot dispute—and opening the outer door stepped into the warm May night.
VII
The over-rouged young lady followed her with a brief, bitter glance—then turned again to the weak-chinned waiter and took up her argument.
“You better go up and tell him I’m here,” she said defiantly, “or I’ll go up myself.”
“No, you don’t!” said George sternly.
The girl smiled sardonically.
“Oh, I don’t, don’t I? Well, let me tell you I know more college fellas and more of ’em know me, and are glad to take me out on a party, than you ever saw in your whole life.”
“Maybe so—”
“Maybe so,” she interrupted. “Oh, it’s all right for any of ’em like that one that just ran out—God knows where she went—it’s all right for them that are asked here to come or go as they like—but when I want to see a friend they have some cheap, ham-slinging, bring-me-a-doughnut waiter to stand here and keep me out.”
“See here,” said the elder Key indignantly, “I can’t lose my job. Maybe this fella you’re talkin’ about doesn’t want to see you.”
“Oh, he wants to see me all right.”
“Anyways, how could I find him in all that crowd?”
“Oh, he’ll be there,” she asserted confidently. “You just ask anybody for Gordon Sterrett and they’ll point him out to you. They all know each other, those fellas.”
She produced a mesh bag, and taking out a dollar bill handed it to George.
“Here,” she said, “here’s a bribe. You find him and give him my message. You tell him if he isn’t here in five minutes I’m coming up.”
George shook his head pessimistically, considered the question for a moment, wavered violently, and then withdrew.
In less than the allotted time Gordon came down-stairs. He was drunker than he had been earlier in the evening and in a different way. The liquor seemed to have hardened on him like a crust. He was heavy and lurching—almost incoherent when he talked.
“’Lo, Jewel,” he said thickly. “Came right away, Jewel, I couldn’t get that money. Tried my best.”
“Money nothing!” she snapped. “You haven’t been near me for ten days. What’s the matter?”
He shook his head slowly.
“Been very low, Jewel. Been sick.”
“Why didn’t you tell me if you were sick. I don’t care about the money that bad. I didn’t start bothering you about it at all until you began neglecting me.”
Again he shook his head.
“Haven’t been neglecting you. Not at all.”
“Haven’t! You haven’t been near me for three weeks, unless you been so drunk you didn’t know what you were doing.”
“Been sick, Jewel,” he repeated, turning his eyes upon her wearily.
“You’re well enough to come and play with your society friends here all right. You told me you’d meet me for dinner, and you said you’d have some money for me. You didn’t even bother to ring me up.”
“I couldn’t get any money.”
“Haven’t I just been saying that doesn’t matter? I wanted to see you, Gordon, but you seem to prefer your somebody else.”
He denied this bitterly.
“Then get your hat and come along,” she suggested. Gordon hesitated—and she came suddenly close to him and slipped her arms around his neck.
“Come on with me, Gordon,” she said in a half whisper. “We’ll go over to Devineries’ and have a drink, and then we can go up to my apartment.”
“I can’t, Jewel,——”
“You can,” she said intensely.
“I’m sick as a dog!”
“Well, then, you oughtn’t to stay here and dance.”
With a glance around him in which relief and despair were mingled, Gordon hesitated; then she suddenly pulled him to her and kissed him with soft, pulpy lips.
“All right,” he said heavily. “I’ll get my hat.”
VIII
When Edith came out into the clear blue of the May night she found the Avenue deserted. The windows of the big shops were dark; over their doors were drawn great iron masks until they were only shadowy tombs of the late day’s splendor. Glancing down toward Forty-second Street she saw a commingled blur of lights from the all-night restaurants. Over on Sixth Avenue the elevated, a flare of fire, roared across the street between the glimmering parallels of light at the station and streaked along into the crisp dark. But at Forty-fourth Street
