Clyde watched the play of her mouth and the brightness of her eyes and the swiftness of her gestures without thinking so much of what she said — very little.
“Wallace Trone was along with us — gee, he’s a scream of a kid — and afterwards when we was sittin’ down to eat ice cream, he went out in the kitchen and blacked up an’ put on a waiter’s apron and coat and then comes back and serves us.
That’s one funny boy.
An’ he did all sorts of funny stuff with the dishes and spoons.”
Clyde sighed because he was by no means as gifted as the gifted Trone.
“An’ then, Monday morning, when we all got back it was nearly four, and I had to get up again at seven.
I was all in.
I coulda chucked my job, and I woulda, only for the nice people down at the store and Mr. Beck.
He’s the head of my department, you know, and say, how I do plague that poor man.
I sure am hard on that store.
One day I comes in late after lunch; one of the other girls punched the clock for me with my key, see, and he was out in the hall and he saw her, and he says to me afterwards, about two in the afternoon,
‘Say look here, Miss Briggs’ (he always calls me Miss Briggs, ‘cause I won’t let him call me nothing else.
He’d try to get fresh if I did), ‘that loanin’ that key stuff don’t go.
Cut that stuff out now. This ain’t no Follies.’
I had to laugh.
He does get so sore at times at all of us.
But I put him in his place just the same.
He’s kinda soft on me, you know — he wouldn’t fire me for worlds, not him.
So I says to him,
‘See here, Mr. Beck, you can’t talk to me in any such style as that.
I’m not in the habit of comin’ late often.
An’ wot’s more, this ain’t the only place I can work in K.C.
If I can’t be late once in a while without hearin’ about it, you can just send up for my time, that’s all, see.’
I wasn’t goin’ to let him get away with that stuff.
And just as I thought, he weakened.
All he says was,
‘Well, just the same, I’m warnin’ you.
Next time maybe Mr. Tierney’ll see you an’ then you’ll get a chance to try some other store, all right.’
He knew he was bluffing and that I did, too.
I had to laugh.
An’ I saw him laughin’ with Mr. Scott about two minutes later.
But, gee, I certainly do pull some raw stuff around there at times.”
By then she and Clyde, with scarcely a word on his part, and much to his ease and relief, had reached Frissell’s.
And for the first time in his life he had the satisfaction of escorting a girl to a table in such a place.
Now he really was beginning to have a few experiences worthy of the name.
He was quite on edge with the romance of it.
Because of her very high estimate of herself, her very emphatic picture of herself as one who was intimate with so many youths and girls who were having a good time, he felt that up to this hour he had not lived at all.
Swiftly he thought of the different things she had told him — Burkett’s on the Big Blue, skating and dancing on the ice — Charlie Trone — the young tobacco clerk with whom she had had the engagement for to-night — Mr. Beck at the store who was so struck on her that he couldn’t bring himself to fire her.
And as he saw her order whatever she liked, without any thought of his purse, he contemplated quickly her face, figure, the shape of her hands, so suggestive always of the delicacy or roundness of the arm, the swell of her bust, already very pronounced, the curve of her eyebrows, the rounded appeal of her smooth cheeks and chin.
There was something also about the tone of her voice, unctuous, smooth, which somehow appealed to and disturbed him.
To him it was delicious.
Gee, if he could only have such a girl all for himself!
And in here, as without, she clattered on about herself, not at all impressed, apparently, by the fact that she was dining here, a place that to him had seemed quite remarkable.
When she was not looking at herself in a mirror, she was studying the bill of fare and deciding what she liked — lamb with mint jelly — no omelette, no beef — oh, yes, filet of mignon with mushrooms.
She finally compromised on that with celery and cauliflower.
And she would like a cocktail.
Oh, yes, Clyde had heard Hegglund say that no meal was worth anything without a few drinks, so now he had mildly suggested a cocktail.
And having secured that and a second, she seemed warmer and gayer and more gossipy than ever.
But all the while, as Clyde noticed, her attitude in so far as he was concerned was rather distant — impersonal.
If for so much as a moment, he ventured to veer the conversation ever so slightly to themselves, his deep personal interest in her, whether she was really very deeply concerned about any other youth, she threw him off by announcing that she liked all the boys, really.