But she thought nothing of it, really, and when they returned to the table and sat down and kept looking at each other, completely ignoring her, it was a full ten or fifteen minutes before her color began to rise a little and a look of concern crept into her eyes.
She wasn't angry at Roger even then ... or with Lathrup. She put their behavior down to a momentary infatuation brought on by Roger's five Manhattans, and Lathrup's three Old Fashioneds, an infatuation which would evaporate like dew in bright sunlight the instant the next dance number began and she and Roger would get out on the floor together, and she'd mold her body to his and he'd hold her more tightly than he'd have dared to hold Lathrup, and their lips would come together at least once in the course of the dance in a long and passionate kiss.
The lights were dim; no one would see. It would not cause a scandal. It would be in bad taste and unacceptable on such a dance floor in the presence of patrons who would never think of going so far, however much they might want to do so, and if in a brighter light it might even have brought a tap on the shoulder from an irate head waiter.
But she'd do it anyway ... she'd prove to Lathrup that she was a woman who was not afraid to dance with her man like a hellion on a Village cellar dance floor, like a real gone Beat nineteen years of age with a rose pinned in her hair and an upthrust of breasts that could make the most distinguished of midtown, gray-templed, capital-gains league patrons feel as primitive as a Dawn Man.
There were swanky night clubs where it was winked at and took place all the time, of course—the danse primeval. But this just didn't happen to be that kind of night club. She'd make it that kind, however—for Roger and herself alone. And if anyone saw or objected or tried to interfere she'd really show them what a hellion she could be. If the protests really angered her—she'd take off her clothes.
She suddenly realized that she'd allowed herself to become more drunk that she'd ever imagine she could be. She'd had five Manhattans too, and the last one she hadn't sipped. She downed it in a gulp, her eyes on Roger's face.
Roger had apparently forgotten that there was more than one woman seated at the table with him. And that woman wasn't herself. He was looking at Lathrup now in a way that made her turn away with a half-sob of shock. The pure animal flamed in his eyes. He was undressing her with his eyes and she was smiling back at him, apparently not caring in the least, giving him the kind of encouragement that could only be characterized as lascivious, the look of a wanton lost to all shame.
Ladylike as well ... that was the most shocking, revolting, unbelievable part of it.
Ruth Porges had an impulse to get up, lean across the table and slap Lathrup's face.
In her present state of intoxication it would not have been a ladylike slap. She was quite sure of that. She'd lose her job, of course, along with the man she'd already lost—her satyr-lover whom she'd allowed herself to idealize. And to think that he'd held her in his arms, and she'd yielded her virginal body to him, surrendering utterly to his fiercely insistent, madly passionate caresses. A man incapable of loyalty, a man consumed by the kind of gross sensuality that degraded a woman by its complete lack of respect for her as an individual.