He seized her hand to wring it with ardor, but its pressure was so lax that he refrained. His eyes, however, were so fervid that she looked away. For lack of support his hopes dropped like a flying-machine that meets a "hole in the air."
CHAPTER XIII
SHE was talking the most indifferent nothings as they went up the stairs to the dancing-room, a largish space with an encircling gallery. As usual the dancing-floor was a clearing in a thicket of tables. It was swarming already with couples engaged in the same jig as the night before.
The costumes were duller than at night, of course. Most of the men wore business suits; the women were not décolletées, and they kept on their hats.
Only Forbes noted at once that the crowd included many very young girls and mere lads. Here, too, there was a jumbled mixture of plebeian and aristocrat and all the grades between. There were girls who seemed to have been wanton in their cradles, and girls who were aureoled with an innocence that made their wildest hilarity a mere scamper of wholesome spirits.
An eccentricity of this restaurant was a searchlight stationed in the balcony. The operator swept the floor with its rays, occasionally fastening on a pair of professional dancers, and following it through the maze, whimsically changing the colors of the light to red or green or blue. For the general public the light was kept rosy.
When Forbes arrived a certain couple whirled madly off the dancing-floor straight into the midst of Persis' guests, with the havoc of a strike in a game of tenpins.
The young man's heel ground one of the buttons of Forbes' shoe deep into his instep, and the young girl's flying hand smote him in the nose. He needed all his self-control to repress a yowl of pain and dismay. Persis must have suffered equal battery, but she quietly straightened out the dizzy girl and smiled.
"Come right in, Alice; don't stop to knock."