They protested cordially, but Bobbie was soon out on the street, walking toward the Subway.
He did not take the train for his own neighborhood, however. Instead he boarded a local which stopped at Sixty-sixth Street, the heart of what is called the "New Tenderloin."
In this district are dozens of dance halls, flashy restaurants and cafés chantantes. A block from the Subway exit was the well-known establishment called "Dawley's." This was the destination of Baxter and Craig, with Lorna Barton. Bobbie thought it well to take an observation of the social activities of these two young men.
He entered the big, glittering room, his coat and hat rudely jerked from his arms by a Greek check boy, at the doorway, without the useless formula of request.
The tables were arranged about the walls, leaving an open space in the center for dancing. Nearly every chair was filled, while the popping of corks and the clinking of glasses even so early in the evening testified to the popularity of Dawley's.
"They seem to prefer this sort of thing to theaters," thought Bobbie. "Anyway, this crowd is funnier than most comedies I've seen."
He looked around him, after being led to a corner seat by the obsequious head waiter. There was a preponderance of fat old men and vacuous looking young girls of the type designated on Broadway as "chickens." Here and there a slumming party was to be seen—elderly women and ill-at-ease men, staring curiously at the diners and dancers; young married couples who seemed to be enjoying their self-thrilled deviltry and new-found freedom. An orchestra of negro musicians were rattling away on banjos, mandolins, and singing obligatos in deep-voiced improvisations. The drummer and the cymbalist were the busiest of all; their rattling, clanging, banging addition to the music gave it an irresistible rhythmic cadence. Even Burke felt the call of the dance, until he studied the evolutions of the merrymakers. Oddly assorted couples, some in elaborate evening dress, women in shoulderless, sleeveless, backless gowns, men in dinner-coats, girls in street clothes with yard-long feathers, youths in check suits, old men in staid business frock coats—what a motley throng! All were busily engaged in the orgy of a bacchanalian dance in which couples reeled and writhed, cheek to cheek, feet intertwining, arms about shoulders. Instead of enjoying themselves the men seemed largely engaged in counting their steps, and watching their own feet whenever possible: the girls kept their eyes, for the most part, upon the mirrors which covered the walls, each watching her poises and swings, her hat, her curls, her lips, with obvious complacency.
Burke was nauseated, for instead of the old-time fun of a jolly dance, this seemed some weird, unnatural, bestial, ritualistic evolution.
"And they call this dancing?" he muttered. "But, I wonder where Miss Lorna is?"
He finally espied her, dancing with Baxter. The latter was swinging his arms and body in a snakey, serpentine one-step, as he glided down the floor, pushing other couples out of the way. Lorna, like the other girls, lost no opportunity to admire her own reflection in the mirrors.