WILLIE ENSLEE brought the dancers off their pinions and back to earth by a fretful reminder that the bouillon was chilling in the cups, and the crab-meat was scorching in the chafing-dish.
The question of drinks came up anew. Forbes was in a champagne humor; his soul seemed to be effervescent with little bubbles of joy. But Mrs. Neff wanted a Scotch highball. Winifred was taking a reduction cure in which alcohol was forbidden. Persis wanted two more cocktails. Ten Eyck was on the water-wagon in penance for a recent outbreak. Bob Fielding was one of those occasional beings who combine with total abstinence a life of the highest conviviality. Offhand, one would have said that Bob was an incessant drinker and a terrific smoker. As a matter of fact, he had never been able to endure the taste of liquor or tobacco. When he ordered mineral water, or even milk, nobody was surprised; even the waiter assumed that the big man had just sworn off once more.
Forbes experienced a sinking of the heart as each of the guests named his choice, and nobody asked for any of the waiting champagne.
Yet when Willie turned to him and said, "Mr. Forbes, you have the two bottles of brut all to yourself," Forbes felt compelled to shake his head in declination. He never knew who got the champagne. He wondered if the waiter smuggled it out or juggled it on the accounts. And Willie forgot to ask Forbes what he would have instead! Willie ordered for himself that most innocent of beverages which masquerades ginger ale and a section of lemon peel under the ferocious name, the bloodthirsty and viking-like title of "a horse's neck." There was a lot of it in a very large glass, and Forbes noted how Willie's little hand looked like a child's as he clutched the beaker. And he guzzled it as a child mouths and mumbles a brim.
Forbes observed how variously people imbibed. There were curious differences. Some shot their glasses to their lips, jerked back their heads, snapped their tongues like triggers, and smote their throats as with a solid bullet. Some stuck their very snouts in their liquor like swine; others seemed hardly to know they were drinking as they flirted across the tops of their glasses.
Persis did not raise her eyes as she sipped her cocktail. She looked down, and her lips seemed to find other lips there. Forbes wondered whose.
There was some rapid stoking of food against the next dance. When it irrupted, Forbes, greatly as he longed to dance again with Persis, invited Winifred for decorum's sake. Winifred speedily killed the self-confidence he had gained from his first flight. His sense of rhythm was incommensurate with hers. When she foretold his next step, she foretold it wrong. He lost at once the power to act as leader, and when she usurped the post he was no better as follower.
As Forbes wrestled with her he caught glimpses of Persis dancing with Willie for partner. Little Willie's head barely reached her bare shoulder. He clutched her desperately as one who is doomed from babyhood not to be a dancer. Still he hopped ludicrously about, and almost made her ludicrous.
Forbes longed to exchange partners with Willie, for he felt that he and Winifred were equally ludicrous. They were making the heaviest of going. He gave up in despair and returned to the table.
When the music stopped there was another interlude of supper. People gulped hastily, as at a lunch-counter when the train is waiting. Forbes intended to sit out the next dance; but he found himself abandoned as on a desert island with Mrs. Neff.