"Would they let you sample the truck they cooked? Guess I could stand it, then! But I don't get much time for folderols."
Joyce saw that her escort was uneasy at the delay, so said good-night cheerily and followed him. But her fastidious ideas received a shock at the scene which met them before the refreshment-rooms. Two of the parlors had been fitted up with chairs, ranged closely around the walls, and a table heaped with cups and plates, in the center. About sixty could be accommodated in each, but three times that number were scrambling for admittance outside.
The attendants appointed at these doors seemed powerless to keep order, and Larry had planted himself before one and was trying to pacify the hungry crowd, and promote harmony. For the shoving, pushing and swearing were not all good-natured, though largely so.
"Hold on there!" he called to a bull-headed Pole, who had just thrust aside a little girl so roughly she cried out with pain, "Hold on! There's enough to eat, and time enough to eat it in, but nobody gets inside here unless he brings his manners with him. This isn't pay-day, nor the menagerie, nor a bread riot; it's just a party of ladies and gentlemen, and we've all got to brace up and remember it. Ladies first, now, and stand aside there to let these folks out, or there can't anybody get in. No hurry! No hurry! the cooks will keep the coffee hot, and the sandwiches haven't even begun to give out. Hello, Joyce! Do you want to come now?"
"No, no, we'll wait," nodding gaily. "Let these others in who have waited longer."
The Pole turned to look at her, while he stood stolidly in the path, as close to the door as he could crowd, and his expression startled her. The gaunt eyes gleamed like those of a wolf, and over the high bones above the sunken cheeks the skin glistened, as if so tightly stretched as to be in danger of bursting. She felt that the man had been in desperate straits, and while recoiling before the evil sullenness of his look, she felt a deep pity for the pain in it. She turned to Murfree. "Who is that?" she had it on her tongue's end to ask, but the look in his face drove the query out of her mind. With hands clenched at his side, eyes staring through his glasses, and lips curled fiercely back from his set teeth, yellowed horribly with tobacco, the man was also gazing at the Pole, too intent to remember her presence.
CHAPTER XIII.
SOME ENCOUNTERS.
Joyce watched him a moment, fascinated. Presently he drew a long breath, and the tense features relaxed. He seemed gathering himself, together, and after a short interval of silence, during which she pretended to be absorbed in the crowd which was streaming through the door, he said in a low, husky voice: