The settees behind the tables are occupied with those to whom night seems ever too short. A chansonnier before the piano is singing the waltz song “L’Amoureuse;” many at the tables have grown pensive under the spell of the singer. A girl in a décolleté gown at one of the tables is sobbing hysterically.
“It was the Bénédictine,” remonstrates her companion. “You were imbécile to drink so much, ma chérie.”
From the low ceiling glow electric lamps shaded with ground glass like those in the cabin of a yacht.
Three women and an old beau are dancing an impromptu quadrille before the tables.
Wisps of tobacco smoke curl lazily up from the little tables. Some of the cigarettes smoulder between lips of décolleté women, others are held shakily between the fingers of hands blue-veined, pallid and weighted with jewels. The scent of a score of perfumes hangs in the reek of smoke. Suddenly there is a scream and a crash of glass. A gentleman in a damaged shirt-front has slipped, dragging with him a table and upsetting the contents of an adjoining one.
He falls with a jar which set the lamp globes in the ceiling to shivering. The wine sweeps over the table and puddles down on the floor, soaking through the silk petticoat and lace stocking of a pretty brunette. Two waiters hurry with napkins to soak up the wet. When this bull in a china shop has sufficiently and substantially apologized, fresh wine bubbles in the glasses for the victims of the flood.
At last the heavy curtains over the windows are flung open and a white light from without floods the room, making the eyes sting. It is broad daylight. Cabs clatter up, are filled, and rattle away.
“By Gad! Charley,” says a portly American at a corner table to his friend, a short thick-set man whose mustache is curled in pomade, “We’d better git along and git some sleep if we’re going to sell Jake any goods before lunch. So long, Flossy,” he adds with a yawn, addressing mademoiselle who had been supping with them.
“Bonsoir, monsieur,” replied the girl in a gentle voice looking at him steadily as he sways and relights his cigar, pushing his silk hat in a cooler position on the back of his head. It did not occur to him to raise it.
“Cute gal,” says the portly man to his friend, his patent leather shoes squeaking as he walks ponderously to the door.