seemed
like a waste of atmosphere, a waste of fuel, pulling a rowboat with a
turbine--to be drinking lemonade in a place like this. Many bitter
similes occurred to him, but he banished them.

"The old girl looks like a rash, doesn't she?" he said, indicating the
singer who was wandering about amongst the tables in another part of
the room.

Mary Louise looked at him suspiciously. "How's that?"

"She's a-breakin' out."

Neither paid any further attention to this atrocity; she, because she
willed otherwise; he, because he was blissfully unaware.

But her apathy was noticeable. He made one or two violent efforts to
spur her flagging spirits and then, becoming touched by the contagion
of her reserve, lapsed himself into silence. They sat and sipped their
lemonades, thoughtfully inspecting their straws, dolefully ruminative.
Their little table was like a blot on a snow-white expanse of joy.

Joe came to the bottom of his glass and made a vicious noise in the
residue of cracked ice. He looked up to see how she might be taking
it and saw a gleam of pleasure pass across her face. It quickly
subsided and gave way to a look of preoccupation. He was watching her
intently now. And then she smiled and looked beyond him, stretching
her hand out in recognition. Someone touched the back of his chair. He
looked over his shoulder, saw a man's figure standing there, and then
he rose to his feet.

Dimly he heard Mary Louise's introduction. It was a Mr. Claybrook or
something like that.

"Won't you pull your chair up?" Joe invited.

Mr. Claybrook decided he would. He was a big man, a grave man, a man
of considerable poise, and possessed of whimsical crow's-feet in the
corners of his eyes. Mary Louise's apathy seemed to retire a little at
his approach.

"Glad to see you survived last night," he said to her with a faint
smile.

She flushed, and Joe felt a little roughness under his collar.

"How's the tea room coming? Roused out any hard drinkers yet?"

"Oh, we're not looking for that. We hope to make a few steady friends,
but we're depending on the ebb and flow." Her colour was mounting, and
had not Joe been so uncomfortable he would have seen how pretty she
was. But he sank deeper and deeper into a sullen and unreasoning
discomfort. The two had evidently had considerable in common before.
He felt awkward--knew of nothing to say. Claybrook, on the other
hand, was enjoying himself.

And apparently sensing the tension in Joe