The evening made a terrific impression on the ladies, whose eyes began to glow more kindly under the spell of the lights and the music and the awed recognition of what each dish must cost. They went to a comic opera in a box, in full view of an audience, took supper among the highest paying social strata, oblivious of the rising fear in the breasts of Flick and Tootles lest O’Leary might make an error in subtraction. King, in fact, had calculated so fine that he was forced to send the others ahead while he picked a quarrel with the waiter to save the tip for the journey home, where they ended, so to speak, in a dead heat. At that, disaster had hovered near while Flick was arguing Belle Shaler out of a second ice.
“Did you see him?” O’Leary found a moment to whisper to Flick.
“Never thought he’d get out of the door,” said Wilder, who had watched Dangerfield’s perilous exit.
“No, not Dangerfield—Drinkwater,” said O’Leary. “I was afraid Tootles would see him.”
“That ferret! Was he there? Chasing Pansy, eh?”
“No—he was there on other business,” said O’Leary. “Mark my words, he’s on Dangerfield’s trail, boy. There’s some dirty business in the wind.”
Tootles approached, and they switched the conversation. Each couple now showed such a desire to linger in the shadows that they arrived at the sixth floor well together.
“Mr. St. George Kidder has a few words to say,” said Flick gravely.
Tootles, the stage having been thus set, brought one lock of hair over his forehead in the wild, romantic way of a true genius, and said: