She was big-eyed, a tear showing. “Why, Billy—” was all she answered.
He clenched his hands to keep from bursting out with all the pitiful tears which were surging in his eyes. But he said nothing.
“Billy, what—”
He turned shyly around to her; his hand touched hers softly.
“Oh, I’m a beast,” he said, rapidly, low, his undertone trembling to her ears through the laughter of a group next to them. “I didn’t mean that, but I was—I felt like such a mutt—not being able to dance. Oh, Nelly, I’m awfully sorry. You know I didn’t mean—Come on! Let’s go get something to eat!”
As they consumed ice-cream, fudge, doughnuts, and chicken sandwiches at the refreshment counter they were very intimate, resenting the presence of others. Tom and Mrs. Arty joined them. Tom made Nelly light her first cigarette. Mr. Wrenn admired the shy way in which, taking the tiniest of puffs, she kept drawing out her cigarette with little pouts and nose wriggles and pretended sneezes, but he felt a lofty gladness when she threw it away after a minute, declaring that she’d never smoke again, and that she was going to make all three of her companions stop smoking, “now that she knew how horrid and sneezy it was, so there!”
With what he intended to be deep subtlety Mr. Wrenn drew her away to the barroom, and these two children, over two glasses of ginger-ale, looked their innocent and rustic love so plainly that Mrs. Arty and Tom sneaked away. Nelly cut out a dance, which she had promised to a cigar-maker, and started homeward with Mr. Wrenn.
“Let’s not take a car—I want some fresh air after that smoky place,” she said. “But it was grand…. Let’s walk up Fifth Avenue.”
“Fine…. Tired, Nelly?”
“A little.”