"Well, that guy's not as green as he says his name is. He don't look like no crook, neither! I wonder what his stall is? Well, I should worry!"
And he went his way rejoicing in the possession of that peace of mind which comes to some men who let neither the joys nor woes of others break through the armament of their own comfortable placidity. Every night of his life was crowded with curious, sad and ridiculous incidents; had he let them linger long in his mind his hand and temperament would have suffered a loss of accumulative skill. That would have spelled ruin, and this particular waiter, like so many of his flabby-faced brothers, was a shrewd tradesman—in the commodities of his discreetly elastic memory—and the even more valuable asset, a talent for forgetting!
Burke was biding his time, and watching developments.
He saw the mealy-faced Baxter take Lorna out upon the dancing floor for the next dance. They swung into the rhythm of the dance with easy familiarity, which proved that the girl was no novice in this style of terpsichorean enjoyment.
"She has been to other dances like this," muttered Bobbie as he watched with a strange loathing in his heart. "It's terrible to see the girls of a great modern city like New York entering publicly into a dance which I used to see on the Barbary Coast in 'Frisco. If they had seen it danced out there I don't believe they'd be so anxious to imitate it now."
Lorna and Baxter returned through the crowded merrymakers to their seats, and sat down at the table.
"You need another cocktail," suggested Baxter, after sipping one himself and forgetting the need for reserve in his remarks. "You mustn't be a bum sport at a dance like this, Miss Barton."
"Oh, Mr. Baxter, I don't dare go home with a breath like cocktails. You know Mary and I sleep together," objected Lorna.
"Don't worry about that, little girlie," said Baxter. "She won't mind it to-night."
To Burke's keen ears there was a shade of hidden menace in the words.