"How," said Cally.
She touched it to her lips, giving back his smile over the rim of her glass, and feeling gay, indeed. Two cocktails before one dinner--well!
"What kind of one is this, Hugo?" she demanded, quite knowingly.
Canning named it.
"Well, then," said she, "it was a Bronx I had before."
She did not say before what, and nobody asked. About them, as they sat in the lively hum, circled servitors without end. One fellow had brought their bit of caviare; another bore away the traces of it; another had no share of them but to fetch crisp rolls. Little omnibuses in white suits moved about, gathering up papers or napkins dropped by careless diners; bigger omnibuses in dinner jackets exported trays of dishes which the lordly artists of the serving force were above touching. Other varlets merely stood about and cooed....
Dinner, having begun with the cocktails, swept on with a rattle of talk. There was debate about the theatre afterwards. The girl's eyes turned often toward the door.
"What do you think of it all, Carlisle?"
"Sweet, Hugo!... So simple and artless and homey!"
"Exactly," said Canning; and obtained permission for a cigarette. "But yet interesting as a vaudeville show, don't you think? What so amusing as to see human vanity displaying itself not merely without reserve but with a terrific blowing of horns?"