Part 59 (1/2)
”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 s.p.a.ce 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 att.i.tude of waiting. A bolder couple or two ventured out on the s.h.i.+ning floor-s.p.a.ce, 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?”
”Condensed milk!”
”Silly! I just can't get used to them bitter-tasting things you try out on me.”
”You're all right, little Lemonade Girl!”
He leaned across the table and peered under the pink sateen. Its reflection lay like a blush of pleasure across her features, and she kept her gaze averted, with a pretty _malaise_ trembling through her.
”You're all right, little Peaches and Cream.”
”You--you're all right, too, Joe.”
”You mean that, sweetness?”