"Honest?"
"You're the one that freezes me all the time. You're the one that keeps
me guessing and guessing where I stand with you."
A sudden lurch and he caught her as she swayed.
"Come, Sweetness, this is our corner. Quit your coughing, there, hon;
this ain't no T.B. hop we're going to."
"No what?"
"Come along; hurry! Look at the crowd already."
"This ain't no--what did you say, Charley?"
But they were pushing, shoving, worming into the great lighted entrance
of the hall. More lurching, crowding, jamming.
"I'll meet you inside, kiddo, in five minutes. Pick out a red domino;
red's my color."
"A red one? Gee! Looka; mine's got black pompons on it. Five minutes,
Charley five minutes!"
Flags of all nations and all sizes made a galaxy of the Sixth Avenue
hall. An orchestra played beneath an arch of them. Supper, consisting
of three-inch-thick sandwiches, tamales, steaming and smelling in
their buckets, bottles of beer and soda-water, was spread on a long
picnic-table running the entire length of the balcony.
The main floor, big as an armory, airless as a tomb, swarmed with
dancers.
After supper a red sateen Pierrette, quivering, teeth flashing beneath a
sucy half-mask, bowed to a sateen Pierrot, whose face was as slim as a
satyr's and whose smile was as upturned as the eye-slits in his mask.
"Gee! Charley, you look just like a devil in that costume--all red, and
your mouth squinted like that!"
"And you look just like a little red cherry, ready to bust."
And they were off in the whirl of the dance, except that the
close-packed dancers hemmed them in a swaying mob; and once she fell
back against his shoulder, faint.
"Ain't there a--a up-stairs somewheres, Charley, where they got air? All
this jam and no windows open! Gee! ain't it hot? Let's go outside where
it's cool--let's."
"There you go again! No wonder you got a cold on you--always wanting air
on you! Come, Sweetness; this ain't hot. Here, lemme show you the dip I
get the girls crazy with. One, two, three--dip! One, two, three--dip!
Ugh!"
"Gee! ain't it a jam, though?"
"One, two, three!"
"That's swell, Charley! Quit! You mustn't squeeze me like that
till--till you've asked me to be engaged, Charley. We--we ain't engaged
yet, are we, Charley?"
"Aw, what difference does that make? You girls make me sick--always
wanting to know that."
"It--it makes a lot of difference, Charley."
"There you go on that Amen talk again. All right, then; I won't squeeze
you no more, stingy!"
Her step was suddenly less elastic and she lagged on his arm. "I--I
never said you couldn't, Charley. Gee! ain't you a great one to get mad
so quick! Touchy! I only said not till we're engaged."
He skirted the crowd, guiding her skilfully. "Stingy! Stingy! I know 'em
that ain't so stingy as you."
"Charley!"
"What?"
"Aw, I'm ashamed to say it."
"Listen! They're playing the new one--'Up to Snuff!' Faster! Don't make
me drag you, kiddo. Faster!"
They were suddenly in the center of the maze, as tight-packed as though
an army had conspired to close round them. She coughed, and in her
effort of repression, coughed again.
"Charley, I--honest, I--I'm going to keel. I--I can't stand it packed
in here--like this."
She leaned to him, with the color drained out of her face; and the crowd
of black and pink and red dominoes, gnomes gone mad, pressed, batted,
surged.
"Look out, Sweetness! Don't give out in here! They'll crush us out.
'Ain't you got no nerve? Here; don't give out now! Gee! Watch out,
there! The lady's sick. Watch out! Here; now sit down a minute and get
your wind."
He pressed her shoulders downward and she dropped whitely on a little
camp-chair hidden underneath the balcony.
"I gotta get out, Charley; I gotta get out and get air. I feel like I'm
going to suffocate in here. It's this old cough takes the breath out of
me."
In the foyer she revived a bit and drank gratefully of the water he
brought; but the color remained out of her cheeks and the cough would
rack her.
"I guess I oughtta go home, Charley."
"Aw, cut it! You ain't the only girl I've seen give out. Sit here and
rest a minute and you'll be all right. Great Scott! I came here to
dance."
She rose to her feet a bit unsteadily, but smiling. "Fussy! Who said I
didn't?"
"That's more like it."
And they were off again to the lilt of the music, but, struggle as she
would, the coughing and the dizziness and the heat took hold of her, and
at the close of the dance she fainted quietly against his shoulder.
When she finally caught at consciousness, as it passed and repassed
her befuddled mind, she was on the floor of the cloak-room, her head
pillowed on the skirt of a pink domino.
"There, there, dearie; your young man's waiting outside to take you
home."
"I--I'm all right!"
"Certainly you are. The heat done it. Here; lemme help you out of your
domino."
"It was the heat done it."
"There; you're all right now. I gotta get back to my dance. You fainted
right up against him, dearie; and I seen you keel."
"Gee! ain't I the limit!"
"Here; lemme help on with your coat. Right there he is, waiting."
In the foyer Sara Juke met Charley Chubb shamefacedly. "I spoilt
everything, didn't I?"
"I guess you couldn't help it. All right?"
"Yes, Charley." She met the air gratefully, worming her little hand into
the curve of his elbow. "Gee! I feel fine now."
"Come; here's a car."
"Let's walk up Sixth Avenue, Charley; the air feels fine."
"All right."
"You ain't sore, are you, Charley? It was so jammed dancing, anyway."
"I ain't sore."
"It was the heat done it."
"Yeh."
"Honest, it's grand to be outdoors, ain't it? The stars and--and
chilliness and--and--all!"
"Listen to the garden stuff!"
"Silly!" She squeezed his arm, and drew back, shamefaced.
His spirits rose. "You're a right loving little thing when you wanna
be."
They laughed in duet; and before the plate-glass window of a furniture
emporium they paused to regard a monthly-payment display, designed to
represent the $49.50 completely furnished sitting-room, parlor,
and dining-room of the home felicitous--a golden-oak room, with an
incandescent fire glowing right merrily in the grate; a lamp redly
diffusing the light of home; a plaster-of-Paris Cupid shooting a dart
from the mantelpiece; and last, two figures of connubial bliss, smiling
and waxen, in rocking-chairs, their waxen infant, block-building on the
floor, completing the picture.
"Gee! it looks as snug as a bug in a rug! Looka what it says too: 'You
Get the Girl; We'll Do the Rest!' Some little advertisement, ain't it? I
got the girl all right--'ain't I, hon?"
"Aw!"
"Look at the papa--slippers and all! And the kid! Look at the kid,
Sweetness."
Her confusion nearly choked her and her rapid breath clouded the
window-glass. "Yeh, Charley! Looka the little kid! Ain't he cute?"
An Elevated train crashed over their heads, drowning out her words; but
her smile, which flickered like light over her face, persisted and her
arm crept back into his. At each shop window they lingered, but the glow
of the first one remained with her.
"Look, Sweetness--'Red Swag, the Train King! Performance going on now.'
Wanna go in?"
"Not to-night. Let's stay outside."
"Anything your little heart de-sires."
They bought hot chestnuts, city harbingers of autumn, from a vender, and
let fall the hulls as they walked. They drank strawberry ice-cream soda,
pink with foam. Her resuscitation was complete; his spirits did not
wane.
"I gotta like a queen pretty much not to get sore at a busted evening
like this. It's a good thing the ticket didn't cost me nothing."
"Ain't it, though?"
"Look! What's in there--a exhibit?"
They paused before a white-lighted store-front, and read, laboriously: