“What did she say?”
“Her eyes just glittered at him. She’s a handsome little cat, but I’ll bet she can scratch. ‘Coming from you,’ she says, ‘that advice is thrilling.’ Her engine was still running. She slammed into gear, stepped on the gas, and shot over to Randolph Street.
“Potter looked after her and chuckled. ‘Promising kid,’ he said. ‘You chase along, Tom. They want me inside.’ So here I am. Guess he can take care of himself.”
“Here he comes,” said La Mothe. “Didn’t get locked up, anyhow.”
A tall young man who did not need padding in the shoulders of his coat was making his way between the tables. He wore a plaid cap jauntily on his yellow hair. He was not handsome, but at first glance one was apt to call him handsome—if he were in good humor. You liked his face, except at times when he was alone, or thoughtful. Then it distressed you, for you could not make out the meaning of its expression. Then his blue eyes, which were twinkling now, looked dark and brooding. He had a way of looking dissatisfied—and something worse, more disquieting—something not to be defined. Ordinarily his face was such as to draw men to him, even older men who quite disliked him and used his mode of life as a text for dissertations on what the young man of to-day was coming to.
One thing might be said with safety—he possessed personality. When he was one of a group he dominated it. He was not a boy to leave out of the reckoning.... When one of his “fits,” as his friends called them, was dark upon him, even those who knew him best and regarded themselves as closest to him were a bit uneasy in his company. The most hardy and reckless of them was moved at such times to go away from there, for Potter Waite usually set out on some mad enterprise when that mood was on him. He would set a pace few cared to follow.
“You never know what he’s thinking about,” Kraemer said, frequently. It was true. But you did not know that he was thinking, and that he could think. Also he never followed, he led. For him consequences did not exist. If he set out to do a thing, he did it, and let consequences take care of themselves. And, as the boys complained, he went his reprehensible way with a brass band. The idea of concealing his escapades seemed not to occur to him.
“What’ll you have?” called Randall, whose waiter had come to him.
“A stein, a quart of Scotch, and a bottle of soda,” said Potter.
“What’s that, sir?” said the waiter.