Part 58 (2/2)
”Look, will you? Read--'Tango Contest next Monday night!' Are you game, little one? We'd won the last if they'd kept the profesh off the floor.
Come on! Let's go in and practise for it.”
”Not to-night, Joe, please. We're only four blocks from home, and it ain't right, our keepin' company like this every night for three months and not goin'. It ain't right.”
He paused in the sea of green moonlight before the gold threshold of the Palais du Danse, whose caryatides were faun-eyed Maenads and aegipans. The gold figure of a Cybele in a gold chariot raced with eight reproductions of herself in an octagonal mirror-lined foyer, and a steady stream of Corybantes bought admission tickets at twenty-five cents a Corybant.
Phrygian music, harlequined to meet the needs of Forty-second Street and its anchorites, flared and receded with the opening and closing of gilded doors.
”Come on, girlie! To-morrow night we'll do the fireside proper.”
”You never--nev-er do anything I ask you to, Joe. You jolly me along and jolly me along, and then--do nothing.”
He released her suddenly, plunged his hands into his pockets, and slumped in his shoulders.
”I don't, don't I? That's the way with you girls--a fellow ties hisself up like a broken arm in a sling, and that's the thanks he gets! Ain't I quit playin' pool? Didn't I swear to you on your little old Sunday-school book to cut out pool? Didn't the whole gang gimme the laff? Ain't I cuttin' everything--ain't I?--pool and cards--pool and all?”
”I know, Joe; but--”
”You gotta quit naggin' me about the fireside game, sis. I'm going to meet your dame some day--sure I am; but you gotta let me take my time.
You gotta let me do it my way--you gotta quit naggin' me. A fellow can't stand for it.”
”She's sick, Joe.”
”Sure she is; and to-morrow night we'll buy her an oyster loaf or something and take it home to her. How's that, kiddo?”
”That ain't what she wants, Joe--it's us.”
”I just ain't home-broke--that's all's the matter with me. Put me in a parlor, and I get weak-kneed as a cat--bashful as a banshee! You gotta let me do it my way, Peaches and Cream. Just like a twenty-five-cent order of 'em you look, with them eyes and cheeks and hair. To-morrow night, sweetness--huh?”
”Honest, Joe?”
”Cross my heart and bet on a dark horse!”
She slid her hand into the curve of his elbow, her incert.i.tude vanis.h.i.+ng 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 Sat.u.r.day 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.”
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