Again the head was inclined in assent. And he heard her whisper, “Where?”
Peter thought swiftly. This was not a matter for his acquaintances of the Square and Greenwich Village. Then, too, a gentleman always “protected the girl.” Suddenly he remembered:
“Meet me at the old place—corner of Tenth. We can take the bus up-town. You can't get off early?” She shook her head.
“All right. Say twenty after to half-past seven. I'll leave my bags here for the present.”
This, after all, was living! It was best. You had to keep on. And it would be nice to give Maria a good time. She had been exacting in the past, given to unexpected outbursts, a girl of secretive ways, but of violent impulses, that she seemed always struggling to suppress. He had noted before now a passionate sort of gloom in the girl. To-day, though, she was charming, gentle enough for anybody. Yes, for old times' sake—in memory of certain intense little episodes they two had shared, he would give her a nice evening.... With such thoughts he complacently lighted a cigarette, smiled covertly at the girl, who was following him furtively, with her big dark eyes and went back through the crooked corridor to the bar.
Here we find Hy Lowe engaged in buying a drink for Sumner Smith, one of the best-known reporters on that most audaciously unscrupulously brilliant of newspapers, The Evening Earth. Sumner Smith was fat, sleepy-eyed, close-mouthed. He was a man for whom Peter felt profound if cautious respect.
But his thoughts were not now concerned with the locally famous reporter, were not concerned, for the moment, even with himself. He was impressed by the spectacle of Hy Lowe standing treat, casually tossing out a five-dollar bank note; so much so that he promptly and with a grin accepted Hy's nod as an invitation and settled, after a moment's thoughtful consideration, on an old-fashioned whisky cocktail.
It was not that Hy was stingy; simply that the task of dressing well, taking in all the new shows and entertaining an apparently inexhaustible army of extraordinarily pretty girls with taxis and even occasional wine was at times too much for the forty-five a week that Hy earned.
Now, as it happened, while Peter thought about Hy, Hy was thinking about Peter. Not six times in the more than three years of his life with Peter and the Worm had Hy seen so jovial an expression on the long face of the well-known playwright.
The man was self-conscious to the point of morbidity. This at all times, dating far, far back of his painful relationship with Sue Wilde, back of his tempestuous affair with Grace Derring, back of the curious little mix-up with that Tonifetti girl. Lately he had been growing worse. Why, it was not yet a fortnight since he had fought Zanin, over at the Muscovy. Then Sue had broken their engagement, and Peter had left town a crushed and desperate man. Hy had gone to the trouble of worrying about him; an exertion which he was now inclined to resent a bit. He had even mentioned his fears to the Worm; which sage young man had smiled and observed dryly and enigmatically, “Peter will never really love anybody else.”... And now, of all times, Peter was grinning!