Part 6 (1/2)

Willie was lowered ash.o.r.e first. Bob What's-his-name bulged through next, then Ten Eyck, then Forbes. Ten Eyck dropped into the gutter the three lighted cigarettes that had been hastily pressed into his hand, and turned to help the women out.

Forbes, wondering where they were, looked up and read with difficulty a great sign in vertical electric letters, ”Reisenweber's.”

Willie told his chauffeur to wait, and the car drew down the street to make room for a long queue of other cars. Ten Eyck led the flock into a narrow hall, and filled the small elevator with as many as could get in.

He included Forbes with the three women, and remained behind with Willie and Bob.

Crowded into the same s.p.a.ce were two young girls, very pretty till they spoke, and then so plebeian that their own beauty seemed to flee affrighted. The blonde seraph was chanting amid her chewing-gum:

”He says to me, 'If you was a lady you wouldn't 'a' drank with a party you never sor before,' and I come back at him, 'If you was a gempmum you'd 'a' came across with the price of a pint when you seen I was dyin'

of thoist.'”

And the brunette answered: ”You can't put no trust in them kind of Johns. Besides, he tangoes like he had two left feet.”

Forbes was uneasy till Persis whispered, ”Don't you just love them?”

Then a door opened and they debarked into a crowded anteroom. While they waited for the car to descend and rise again with the rest of the party the women gave their wraps to a maid, and Forbes delivered his coat and hat and stick across a counter to a hat-boy.

When Ten Eyck, Willie, and Bob appeared and had checked their things the seven climbed a crowded staircase into an atmosphere riotous with chatter and dance-music of a peculiarly rowdy rhythm.

But they could only hear and feel the throb of it. They could not see the dancers, so thick a crowd was ahead of them.

A head waiter appeared, and, curt as he was with the rest of the mob, he was pitifully regretful at losing Mr. Enslee, who had failed to reserve a table and who would not wait.

It was disgusting to slink back down the stairs, regain the wraps and coats and hats, and make two elevator-loads again. Willie alone was cheerful.

”Now, maybe you'll go to the Plaza or some place and have a human supper.”

”I'm going to have a trot and a tango if I have to hunt the town over,”

said Persis.

Willie gnashed his teeth, but had the car recalled, and asked her where she would go.

”Let's try the Beaux Arts,” she said; and they huddled together once more.

”It's too bad we were thrown out of Reisenweber's,” Winifred pouted. ”I was dying to see Francois dance and have a dance with him.”

Forbes felt well enough acquainted by now to ask: ”Pardon my ignorance, but who is Francois?”

”Oh, he's a love of a French lad,” said Winifred. ”Everybody's mad over him. I used to see him in Paris dancing between the tables at the Cafe de Paris or the Pre-Catalan with some girl or other. Then somebody brought him over here for a musical comedy, and he's been on the crest of the wave ever since.”

”They say he's getting rich dancing in theaters and restaurants and giving lessons at twenty-five per.”

”Somebody was telling me he actually makes fifteen hundred to two thousand dollars a week,” said Mrs. Neff.

”If I had that much, would you marry me, Persis?” said Ten Eyck.

”In a minute,” said Persis. ”We might earn it ourselves. You dance as well as he does, and you could practise whirling me round your neck.”

”Then we're engaged,” said Ten Eyck.