He started; stuffed his note-book and papers into a drawer; drew the volume in Russian from his other pocket, made as if to lay it on the table, then hesitated. It was his custom to have some reading always by him. Sue might be late. She often was.
Suddenly he raised the book above his head and threw it against the wall at the other end of the room. Then he picked up his old soft hat (he never wore an overcoat) and rushed out.
The Muscovy is a basement restaurant near Washington Square. You get into it from the street by stumbling down a dark twisting flight of uneven steps and opening a door under a high stoop. Art dines here and Anarchism; Ideas sit cheek by jowl with the Senses.
Sue was not late. She sat in the far corner at one of the few small tables in the crowded room. Two men, a poet and a painter, lounged against the table and chatted with her languidly. She had brightened a little for them. There was a touch of color in her cheeks and some life in her eyes. The Worm noted this fact as he made his way toward her.
The poet and the painter wandered languidly away. The chatter of the crowded smoky room rose to its diurnal climax; passed it as by twos and threes the diners drifted out to the street or up-stairs to the dancing and reading-rooms of the Freewoman's Club; and then rapidly died to nothing.
Two belated couples strolled in, settled themselves sprawlingly at the long center table and discussed with the offhand, blandly sophisticated air that is the Village manner the currently accepted psychology of sex.
The Worm was smoking now—his old brier pipe—and felt a bit more like his quietly whimsical self. Sue, however, was moody over her coffee.
A pasty-faced, very calm young man, with longish hair, came in and joined in the discussion at the center table.
Sue followed this person with troubled eyes, “Listen, Henry!” she said then, “I'm wondering—”
He waited.