Just Around the Corner Part 59

"No more, Joe."

"Cross my heart and bet on a dark horse--just ten minutes."

She smiled at him from the corners of her shadowed eyes and stepped into the tessellated foyer.

"Satisfied now, Mr. Smarty?" she said, smiling at eight reflections of herself and swaying to the rippling flute notes and violin phrases that wandered out to meet them.

"You're all right, sweetness!"

Within the Sheban elegance of the overlighted, overheated, overgilded dining and dance hall his pressure of her arm tightened and the blood ran in her veins a searing flame.

"Gee! Look at the jam, Joe!"

"Over there's a table for two, sweet--right under them green lights."

"Say, whatta you know about that? There's that same blonde girl, Joe, we been seein' everywhere. Honest, she follows us round every place we go--her and that fellow that was dancing up at the Crescent last night--remember?"

They drew up before a marble-topped table, one of a phalanx that flanked a wide-open s.p.a.ce of hard-wood floor, like coping round a sunken pool; and his eyes took a rapid resume of the polyphonic room.

"Good crowd out to-night, sweetness. They all know us, too."

"Yes."

"Wanna dance and show 'em we're in condition?"

"No, Joe."

The music flared suddenly; chairs were pushed back from their tables, leaving food and drink in the att.i.tude of waiting. A bolder couple or two ventured out on the shining floor-s.p.a.ce, hesitant like a premonitory ripple on the water before the coming of the wind; another and yet another. And almost instanter there was the intricate maze of a crowded floor--women swaying, men threading in, out, around.

"What'll you have to drink, sweetness?"

"Lemonade, please."

"I know a better one than that."

"What?"

"Condensed milk!"

"Silly! I just can't get used to them bitter-tasting things you try out on me."

"You're all right, little Lemonade Girl!"

He leaned across the table and peered under the pink sateen. Its reflection lay like a blush of pleasure across her features, and she kept her gaze averted, with a pretty _malaise_ trembling through her.

"You're all right, little Peaches and Cream."

"You--you're all right, too, Joe."

"You mean that, sweetness?"

"I mean it if you mean it."

"Do I mean it! Say, do I give a little queen like you my company eight nights out of seven for the fun of kiddin' myself along?"

"I know you ain't, Joe; that's what I keep tellin' ma."

"Sittin' there s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g your lips at me like that! You got a mouth just like--just like red fruit, like a cherry that would bust all over the place if a bird took a peck at it."

Her bosom, little as Juliet's, rose to his words, and she giggled after the immemorial fashion of women.

"Oh, Joe! If only--if only--if only--"

"If only what, sweetness?"

"If only--"

"Huh?"

"Aw, I can't say it."

"Whistle it, then, sweetness."

"It don't do us no good to talk about things, Joe. We--we never get anywhere."

"What's the use o' talking, then, sweetness? Here's your lemonade. I wish I was in the baby-food cla.s.s--'pon my soul I do! Look, sweetness; this is the stuff, though. Look at its color, will you? Red as a moonshiner's eye! Here, waiter, leave that siphon; I might wanna shoot up the place."

"You promised, Joe, not--"

"Sure; I ain't goin' to, neither. Did I keep my pool promise? Ain't heard a ball click for weeks! Will I keep this one? Watch! Two's my limit, Peaches. I'd swear off sleepin' if you wanted me to."

"Would you, Joe? That's what I want you to tell ma when--"

"Aw, there you go again! Honest, the minute a fellow feels hisself warming up inside you begin tryin' to reach up to the church-tower and ring the bells."

"Joe!"

"Sure you do."

"You make me ashamed when you talk like that."

"Then cut it, sweetness. Come on; let's finish out this dance."

"It worries her so, Joe. She asks and asks till I--I don't know what to say no more when I see her wastin' away and all. I--Gawd, I don't know!"

"For Gawd's sakes, don't leak any tears here, Ess! This gang here knows me. Ain't I told you I like you, girl? I like you well enough to do anything your little heart de-sires; but this ain't the place to talk about it."

"That's what you always say, Joe; no place is the place."