kward glance at her standing there so frankly
indeterminate.

Suddenly Miss Slayback adjusted her tam-o'-shanter to its flop over her
right ear, and, drawing off a pair of dark-blue silk gloves from over
immaculately new white ones, entered Ceiner's Cafe Hungarian. In its
light she was not so obviously blonder than young, the pink spots in her
cheeks had a deepening value to the blue of her eyes, and a black velvet
tam-o'-shanter revealing just the right fringe of yellow curls is no
mean aid.

First of all, Ceiner's is an eating-place. There is no music except at
five cents in the slot, and its tables for four are perpetually set each
with a dish of sliced radishes, a bouquet of celery, and a mound of
bread, half the stack rye. Its menus are well thumbed and badly
mimeographed. Who enters Ceiner's is prepared to dine from barley soup
to apple strudel. At something after six begins the rising sound of
cutlery, and already the new-comer fears to find no table.

Off at the side, Mr. Jimmie Batch had already disposed of his hat and
gray overcoat, and tilting the chair opposite him to indicate its
reservation, shook open his evening paper, the waiter withholding the
menu at this sign of rendezvous.

Straight toward that table Miss Slayback worked quick, swift way,
through this and that aisle, jerking back and seating herself on the
chair opposite almost before Mr. Batch could raise his eyes from off the
sporting page.

There was an instant of silence between them--the kind of silence that
can shape itself into a commentary upon the inefficacy of mere speech--a
widening silence which, as they sat there facing, deepened until, when
she finally spoke, it was as if her words were pebbles dropping down
into a well.

"Don't look so surprised, Jimmie," she said, propping her face calmly,
even boldly, into the white-kid palms. "You might fall off the Christmas
tree."

Above the snug, four-inch collar and bow tie Mr. Batch's face was taking
on a dull ox-blood tinge that spread back, even reddening his ears. Mr.
Batch had the frontal bone of a clerk, the horn-rimmed glasses of the
literarily astigmatic, and the sartorial perfection that only the rich
can afford not to attain.

He was staring now quite frankly, and his mouth had fallen open. "Gert!"
he said.

"Yes," said Miss Slayback, her insouciance gaining with his
discomposure, her eyes widening and then a dolly kind of glassiness
seeming to set in. "You wasn't expecti