"Oh, I was with some crowd. Don't know where they are. Haven't got the car," he answered.
"Stick around with us then." "I bet you've been hitting the high spots, and smashed it!" Bob and Duddy said simultaneously. But the orchestra was beginning another tune, and only Helen noticed that in the general pushing back of chairs he did not reply.
She shook her head at the question in his eyes, and he asked no one else to dance. Of course, after that, she had to refuse the others, too, and they were left sitting at the bare table ringed with the imprints of wet glasses. An unaccountable depression was settling on her; she felt sorry and full of pity, she did not know why, and an impulse to put her hand on his smooth, fair hair surprised and horrified her.
"Rotten life, isn't it?" he said. It was a tone so new in him that she did not know how to reply.
"I'm sorry," she answered.
"Sorry? Good Lord, what for?"
"I don't know. I just am. I'm sorry for—whatever it is that's happened." She saw that she had made a mistake, and the remnant of her exhilaration fluttered out like a spent candle. She sat looking at the dancers in silence, and they appeared to her peculiar and curious, going round and round with terrific energy, getting nowhere. The music had become an external thing, too, and she observed the perspiring musicians working wearily, with glances at the clock.
"Funny," she said at length.
"What?"
"All these people—and me, too—doing this kind of thing. We don't get anything out of it. What do we do it for?"