Slug drew further away. His mind was completely fuddled. His instincts told him to take this woman and break her as he had done others, but there was a barrier around her that he just could not break through. Her contempt held him at bay as effectively as if a bayonet were placed at his throat.
They sat in silence all the way to the barber’s shop, and when they got out into the street she said: “Thank you for the evening. I’m sorry it wasn’t as nice for you as it was for me. Perhaps we had better not meet again.”
Slug was too angry and too bewildered to say anything. He suddenly felt horribly deflated. The realization that he had lost all his money in one worthless evening, committed himself to a debt of fifty dollars to his manager and to the headwaiter, made the prospects of the next few weeks drab and colourless. His rules of life, though primitive, were simple enough. If you paid for anything, you got it. Well, he had given this dame a night out that ought to go down in history and she wasn’t playing ball. All he had from her was a kiss that could not even be termed sisterly.
She said quite brightly: “Well, good-bye, I live just across the way. You needn’t bother further,” and with a casual wave of her hand she crossed the road and disappeared into a large apartment house.
Slug spat on the pavement. A little spark of rage was beginning to kindle in his brain, but so far he was still too dazed to do anything about it. He wanted a drink badly, so he walked with great slouching strides to an all-night bar on Forty-ninth Street.
Joe Renshaw, his manager, was sitting at the bar drinking neat Scotch. He looked at Slug in astonishment.
“For Gawd’s sake,” he said, “where did you get the outfit from?”
Slug suddenly realized that he had still to meet the hire charge for his clothes. He sat down on the stool close to Joe’s and swore obscenely.
The barman and Joe regarded him with interest. They saw that he was in a very ugly mood and they wisely refrained from interrupting him.
Slug abruptly stopped swearing and snarled for whisky. After he had had a few quick drinks Joe ventured to ask him what was wrong, and glad to have someone to unburden to, Slug told him all about it.