hand into the curve of his elbow, her incertitude vanishing
behind the filmy cloud of a smile.

"All right, Joe; to-morrow night, sure. You walk as far as home with me
now, and--"

"Gawd bless my soul! You ain't going to leave me at the church, are
you?"

"I gotta go right home, Joe."

"Gee! Why didn't you tell a fellow? I could have tied up ten times over
for a Saturday night. There's a little dancer over at the Orpheum would
have let out a six-inch smile for the pleasure of my company to-night.
Gee! you're a swell little sport--nix!"

"Joe!"

"Come on in for ten minutes, and if you're right good I'll shoot you
home in a taxi-cab just as quick as if we went now. Just ten minutes,
sweetness."

"No more, Joe."

"Cross my heart and bet on a dark horse--just ten minutes."

She smiled at him from the corners of her shadowed eyes and stepped into
the tessellated foyer.

"Satisfied now, Mr. Smarty?" she said, smiling at eight reflections of
herself and swaying to the rippling flute notes and violin phrases that
wandered out to meet them.

"You're all right, sweetness!"

Within the Sheban elegance of the overlighted, overheated, overgilded
dining and dance hall his pressure of her arm tightened and the blood
ran in her veins a searing flame.

"Gee! Look at the jam, Joe!"

"Over there's a table for two, sweet--right under them green lights."

"Say, whatta you know about that? There's that same blonde girl, Joe, we
been seein' everywhere. Honest, she follows us round every place we
go--her and that fellow that was dancing up at the Crescent last
night--remember?"

They drew up before a marble-topped table, one of a phalanx that flanked
a wide-open space of hard-wood floor, like coping round a sunken pool;
and his eyes took a rapid resume of the polyphonic room.

"Good crowd out to-night, sweetness. They all know us, too."

"Yes."

"Wanna dance and show 'em we're in condition?"

"No, Joe."

The music flared suddenly; chairs were pushed back from their tables,
leaving food and drink in the attitude of waiting. A bolder couple or
two ventured out on the shining floor-space, hesitant like a premonitory
ripple on the water before the coming of the wind; another and yet
another. And almost instanter there was the intricate maze of a crowded
floor--women swaying, men threading in, out, around.

"What'll you have to drink, sweetness?"

"Lemonade, please."

"I know a better one than that."

"What?"