I wanted to see you, Gordon, but you seem to prefer your somebody else."
He denied this bitterly.
"Then get your hat and come along," she suggested.
Gordon hesitated --and she came suddenly close to him and slipped her arms around his neck.
"Come on with me, Gordon," she said in a half whisper.
"We'll go over to Devineries' and have a drink, and then we can go up to my apartment."
"I can't, Jewel, -- --"
"You can," she said intensely.
"I'm sick as a dog!"
"Well, then, you oughtn't to stay here and dance."
With a glance around him in which relief and despair were mingled, Gordon hesitated; then she suddenly pulled him to her and kissed him with soft, pulpy lips.
"All right," he said heavily.
"I'll get my hat.
VIII
When Edith came out into the clear blue of the May night she found the Avenue deserted.
The windows of the big shops were dark; over their doors were drawn great iron masks until they were only shadowy tombs of the late day's splendor.
Glancing down toward Forty-second Street she saw a commingled blur of lights from the all-night restaurants.
Over on Sixth Avenue the elevated, a flare of fire, roared across the street between the glimmering parallels of light at the station and streaked along into the crisp dark.
But at Forty-fourth Street it was very quiet.
Pulling her cloak close about her Edith darted across the Avenue. She started nervously as a solitary man passed her and said in a hoarse whisper --"Where bound, kid do?"
She was reminded of a night in her childhood when she had walked around the block in her pajamas and a dog had howled at her from a mystery-big back yard.
In a minute she had reached her destination, a two-story, comparatively old building on Forty-fourth, in the upper window of which she thankfully detected a wisp of light.
It was bright enough outside for her to make out the sign beside the window --the New York Trumpet.
She stepped inside a dark hall and after a second saw the stairs in the corner.
Then she was in a long, low room furnished with many desks and hung on all sides with file copies of news-papers.
There were only two occupants.
They were sitting at different ends of the room, each wearing a green eye-shade and writing by a solitary desk light.
For a moment she stood uncertainly in the doorway, and then both men turned around simultaneously and she recognized her brother.
"Why, Edith!"
He rose quickly and approached her in surprise, removing his eye-shade.
He was tall, lean, and dark, with black, piercing eyes under very thick glasses.
They were far-away eyes that seemed always fixed just over the head of the person to whom he was talking.
He put his hands on her arms and kissed her cheek.
"What is it?" he repeated in some alarm.
"I was at a dance across at Delmonico's, Henry," she said excitedly, "and I couldn't resist tearing over to see you."
"I'm glad you did."
His alertness gave way quickly to a habitual vagueness. " You oughtn't to be out alone at night though, ought you?"
The man at the other end of the room had been looking at them curiously, but at Henry's beckoning gesture he approached.
He was loosely fat with little twinkling eyes, and, having removed his collar and tie, he gave the impression of a Middle-Western farmer on a Sunday afternoon.
"This is my sister," said Henry.
"She dropped in to see me."
"How do you do?" said the fat man, smiling.
"My name's Bartholomew, Miss Bradin.
I know your brother has forgotten it long ago."
Edith laughed politely.
"Well," he continued, "not exactly gorgeous quarters we have here, are they?"
Edith looked around the room.
"They seem very nice," she replied.
"Where do you keep the bombs?"
"The bombs?" repeated Bartholomew, laughing.