When she and Jim had first entered the restaurant they had received a polite but casual recognition from the head waiter, whose duty it was to know all the stage favorites; but there attentions had ceased. With Wharton as a member of the party, however, there came a change. The head waiter himself hustled forward and, catching Lorelei's eye, signaled her with an appreciative droop of the lid. Her arrangement with Proctor's was of long standing, and her percentage was fixed, but this time she did not respond to the sign. Mr. Proctor himself paused momentarily at the table and rested a hand upon Wharton's shoulder while he voiced a few platitudes. Then in some inexplicable manner Robert found himself not only ordering for himself, but supplementing Jim's MENU with rare and expensive viands. As a great favor, he was advised of a newly imported vintage wine which the proprietor had secured for his own use; if Mr. Wharton wished to try it the steward would appeal directly to Mr. Proctor and secure the keys as a personal favor. Nothing like this wine had been seen in New York for years, possibly in a lifetime; it was an opportunity, and Mr. Proctor was eager to accommodate those who really knew wines. A visiting prince had offered him a fabulous price for the remaining bottles, but he had refused. To partake of this vintage was almost like drinking up the sunshine; darkness, complete and eternal, would follow when this precious shipment was exhausted.
Of course Mr. Wharton wished to sample such a vintage, any vintage, in fact, since a thousand fires were consuming him, and his nerves were on edge from the night before. The first draught electrified him, his spirits rose and he swept his companions along with his enthusiasm. From surrounding tables people accosted him; men paused in passing to exchange a word about stocks, polo, scandal, Newport, tennis, Tuxedo; none were in the least stiff or formal, and all expressed in one way or another their admiration for Lorelei. Women whom she knew were not of her world beamed and smiled at the young millionaire. It was a new experience for the girl, who felt herself, as the supper progressed, becoming conspicuous without the usual disagreeable accompaniments. Men no longer openly ogled her; women did not nudge each other and whisper; her presence in company with a member of the idolized rich was causing gossip, but gossip of a flattering kind.
All this attention, however, had quite the contrary effect upon Campbell Pope. Much to Jim's relief, he excused himself shortly, whereupon the former, after allowing Wharton to pay the score, suggested a dance, breezily sweeping aside his sister's mild objection. Of course, Bob was delighted, and soon the trio had set out upon a round of the dancing-cafes.
At the first place they visited they had difficulty in gaining entrance, for a crowd was held in check by the heavy plush cord stretched across the door to the restaurant proper; but here again Wharton's name proved potent. The barrier was lowered, and the party managed to squeeze their way into a badly ventilated Turkish room, where a demented darky orchestra was drumming upon various instruments ranging in resonance from a piano to a collection of kitchen utensils. Tables had been crowded around the walls and into the balcony so closely that the occupants rubbed shoulders, but the center of the lower floor was occupied by a roped corral in which a mass of dancers were revolving like a herd of milling cattle. Dusty, tobacco-smoked oriental rugs, banners and lanterns, suspended from walls and balcony railings, lent a semblance of "color" to the place; little Moorish alcoves were set into the walls, in and out of which undersized waiters dodged like rabbits in a warren. The attendants were irritable; they perspired freely, they bumped into people, squeezed past, or, failing in that, crawled over the seated guests.
After a breathless half-hour of this the three sought a resort farther up-town, where they found the entire upper floors of a restaurant building given over to "trotting." During the previous winter the craze for dancing had swept New York like a plague, and the various Barbary Coast figures had reached their highest popularity. Here, too, the rooms were thronged and the tables taken, despite the lateness of the season, but for a second time Wharton demonstrated that to a man about town of his accomplishments no place is really closed.
However loud the protest against this latest fad, it is doubtful if its effect is wholly harmful, for it at least introduced vigorous exercise and rhythmic movement into the midnight life of the city. Women went home in the gray dawn with faces flushed from natural causes; exquisite youths of nocturnal habits learned to perspire and to know the feeling of a wilted collar.
Bob Wharton had drunk heavily, but up to this time he had shown little effect from his potations beyond a growing exhilaration; now, however, the wine was taking toll, and Lorelei felt a certain pity for him. Waste is shocking; it grieved her to see a man so blessed with opportunity flinging himself away so fatuously. The hilarity which greeted him on every hand spoke of misspent nights and a reckless prodigality that betokened long habitude. Only his splendid constitution—that abounding vitality which he had inherited from sturdy, temperate forebears—enabled him to keep up the pace; but Lorelei saw that he was already beginning to show its effect. Judging from to-night's experience, he was still, in his sober moments, a normal person; but once he had imbibed beyond a certain point his past excesses uncovered themselves like grinning faces. Alcohol is a capricious master, seldom setting the same task twice, nor directing his slaves into similar pathways. He delights, moreover, in reversing the edge of a person's disposition, making good-natured people pettish or morose, while he sometimes improves those of naturally evil temper. Often under his sway the somber and the stoical become gay and impulsive, while the joyful sink into despondency. But with Robert Wharton, liquor intensified a natural agreeableness until it cloyed. His amenities were monstrously magnified; he became convivial to the point of offensiveness. In the course of this metamorphosis he was many things, and through such a cycle he worked to-night while the girl looked on.
Overcoming his niggardly instincts, Jimmy Knight, as the evening progressed, assumed the burden of entertainment. He, too, adopted a spendthrift gaiety and encouraged Wharton's libations, although he drank little himself.
There came a time when Bob could no longer dance—when, in fact, he could barely walk—and then it was that Jim proposed leaving. Bob readily agreed—having reached a condition of mellowness where he agreed enthusiastically to anything—and Lorelei was only too glad to depart. She had witnessed the pitiful breaking-down of Bob's faculties with a curious blending of concern and dismay, but her protests had gone unheeded. Having had a glimpse of his real self earlier in the evening, and being wise in the ways of intemperance, she felt only pity for him now as the three made their way down-stairs.
While Jim went in search of their belongings Bob propped himself against the wall and regarded her admiringly through eyes that were filmed and unfocusable.