He stood there near the door, trying to listen. He was too excited to sit down. Turbulent emotions were rioting within him, making consecutive thought impossible. He caught bits of Zanin's rough dialogue. He saw Sue make her entrance, heard the shout of delighted approval that greeted her, the prolonged applause, the cries of “Bully for you, Sue!”... “You're all right, Sue!”
Then Peter plunged out the door and walked feverishly about the Village streets. He stopped at a saloon and had a drink.
But the Crossroads Theater fascinated him. He drifted back there and looked in. The first play was over. Hy was in a dim corner of the lobby, talking confidentially with Betty Deane.
Then Sue came out with the Worm, of all persons, at her elbow. So he had managed to meet her, too? She wore her street dress and looked amazingly calm.
Peter dodged around the corner. “The way to get on with women,” he reflected savagely, “is to have no feelings, no capacity for emotion, be perfectly cold blooded!”
He walked up to Fourteenth Street and dropped aimlessly into a moving-picture show.
Toward eleven he went back to Tenth Street. He even ran a little, breathlessly, for fear he might be too late, too late for what, he did not know.
But he was not. Glancing in at the door, he saw Sue, with Betty, Hy, the Worm, Zanin and a few others.
Hurriedly, on an impulse, he found an envelope in his pocket, tore off the back, and scribbled, in pencil—
“May I walk back with you? I want vary much to talk with you. If you could slip away from these people.”