For a moment Miss Merk seemed inclined to sulk. Then she threw herself back in her chair and laughed. "Oh, well," she admitted, "'twas fun. Know what started her. Said something about showing her Life—making her eyes stick out. Adding her friends to the party changed the program. Brought 'em here instead. Seeing us drink cocktails started her panic. Harlem tango did the rest. Her imagination got busy."
I listened to her as one listens to a strange tongue in which one hears an occasional familiar word. She turned to me. "What that dance represents," she said, "is a suburbanite catching a cook. Least, that's what the inventor says."
"It's very graceful. My nieces dance it charmingly," Mrs. Hoppen added, mildly.
Mr. Morris smiled, but not as if he really wanted to. Then he turned to me. There was a beautiful, understanding look in his gray eyes.
"Do you realize what has happened, Miss Iverson?" he asked. "You've been having a bad dream. You expected something lurid, so you have seen something lurid in everything you have looked at to-night. In reality you are in one of the most eminently correct restaurants in New York. Of course it has its cabaret—most of them have, this season—but it's an extremely well-conducted and conservative one, with no objectionable features whatever. Now look around you and try to see things as they are."
He made a gesture with his hand, and I followed it slowly around the room. At most of the tables ordinary-looking couples sat contentedly munching food. A German woman near us was telling a friend how she cooked Wiener Schnitzel. A tired-looking girl was doing an acrobatic dance in the ring, but it was not vulgar. It was merely foolish and dull. Three men on our left were arguing over some business question and adding up penciled columns on the table-cloth. Our wild-hearted gipsy, Fritz, was having a glass of beer with some friends off in a corner. The musicians were playing "The Rosary," and several fat women were lost in mournful memories. Not far away a waiter dropped a tray and broke some glasses, and the head waiter hastened to him and swore under his breath. That was the only lurid thing in the room, and it was mild indeed to ears familiar with the daily conversation of Mr. Hurd and Colonel Cartwell. Everything else suddenly, unmistakably, was simple, cheerful, entirely proper, and rather commonplace.
"So much for the restaurant," remarked Mr. Morris, smiling as if he had observed my change of expression. "Now for the people. That's the editor of the Argus over there"—he pointed to a thin, blond man—"with his daughters. At the table next to them is Miss Blinn, the artist. The stout old lady who is eating too much is her mother. The chap with the white hair is the leading editorial-writer of the Modern Review, and the lady opposite is his sister. Almost every one prominent in New York drops into this place at one time or another. Many worthy citizens come regularly. It's quite the thing, though dull!"
"I know," I stammered. "I know." I did know, but I was humiliated to the soul. "Please don't say any more."
It is true that I form impressions quickly. It is also true that I can change them just as quickly when I am shown that I am wrong. Mr. Morris looked at my face, from which the blood now seemed to be bursting, and took pity on me.
"All I want," he ended, "is to make you realize that you're visiting a legitimate place of amusement and that the performers are honest, hard-working people, though I think myself they're going a bit stale."