“What’s the matter with you anyhow? Last summer, you used to run out every few weeks. This year, have to beg you to come!”
[180]
] “Not a bit of it,” laughed Brooks. “Wait till we get this opening off our chests and you won’t be able to get rid of me.”
“Can’t come it too strong to suit us, eh kiddo?”
Gloria’s eyes had drifted out to the swaying throng once more. “Of course not,” she said quickly, and pushed back her chair. “If you don’t mind, ’Dolph, I believe I am tired.”
Cleeburg noticed as they went down to the car that her step lagged. When they had dropped Brooks at his flat and were speeding up Fifth Avenue, sleepy under the quiet hour when life in New York closes one eye, she turned swiftly. “’Dolph—you remember what you called yourself in the theater to-night—before the others came?”
He thought a moment. Then his face went alight, all but the eyes. “Your old back drop, y’mean?”
She nodded. “Don’t ever do that again—don’t!”
Her vehemence made him shift his position so that he faced her.
“Why, honey—”
The break in her voice had been poignant. Her hand clasping his arm was feverish. He felt the heat of it through his thin coat. Even in the dark he could see her eyes, brilliant, with something of the fright he had read in them earlier in the evening. Only it was intensified.