“They're going to dance the Swiss dance,” said Aggie, “and the M. C. wants me to tyke a place; but I hate these fellows to be hugging me. Will you be my partner, dear?”
“Well—just for a minute or two,” said Glory, with nervous gaiety. And then the dance began.
It proved to be a musical version of odd man out, and Glory soon found herself being snapped up by other partners and addressed familiarly by the waiters and their women. She could feel the moisture of their hands and smell the oil of their hair, and a feeling like a spasm of physical pain came over her.
“Let us go,” she whispered.
“Yes, it's getting lyte,” said Aggie, and they crushed through the crowded bar and out into the street.
The twanging of the fiddles, the thud of the dancing, and the peals of coarse laughter followed them from the stifling atmosphere within, and Glory felt sick and faint.
“Do you say that managers of good places call at these clubs sometimes?”
“Often,” said Aggie, and she hummed a music-hall tune as she skipped and tripped along.
The streets, which had been dark and quiet when they arrived in Soho, were now ablaze with lights in every window, and noisy with people on every pavement. The last club they had to visit was a German one, and as they came near it they saw that a man was standing at the door bareheaded and looking out for somebody.
“It's Charlie,” said Aggie with a little jump of joy. But when they came up to him a scowl darkened his dark face, and he said: