“Parbleu! Did you wish to go home and dress?”
“I don’t care if you don’t,” he said.
“Suppose,” she suggested, “we dine where there is something to see.”
“A Broadway joint?” he asked, amused.
“A joint?” she repeated, smilingly perplexed. “Is that a place where we may dine and see a spectacle too and afterward dance?”
“Something of that sort,” he admitted, laughing. But under his careless gaiety an ugly determination had been hardening; he meant to go no more to Palla; he meant to welcome any distraction of the moment to help tide him over the long, grey interval that loomed ahead––welcome any draught that might mitigate the bitter waters he was tasting––and was destined to drain to their revolting dregs.
They went to the Palace of Mirrors and were lucky enough to secure a box.
The food was excellent; the show a gay one.