From time to time she would lean and whisper intently to him, and he would answer by inclining his head heavily or by a particularly ghoulish and repellent wink.
Rose scrutinized them dumbly for some minutes, until the woman gave him a quick, resentful look; then he shifted his gaze to two of the most conspicuously hilarious of the promenaders who were on a protracted circuit of the tables.
To his surprise he recognized in one of them the young man by whom he had been so ludicrously entertained at Delmonico's.
This started him thinking of Key with a vague sentimentality, not unmixed with awe.
Key was dead.
He had fallen thirty-five feet and split his skull like a cracked cocoanut.
"He was a darn good guy," thought Rose mournfully.
"He was a darn good guy, o'right. That was awful hard luck about him."
The two promenaders approached and started down between Rose's table and the next, addressing friends and strangers alike with jovial familiarity.
Suddenly Rose saw the fair-haired one with the prominent teeth stop, look unsteadily at the man and girl opposite, and then begin to move his head disapprovingly from side to side.
The man with the blood-shot eyes looked up.
"Gordy," said the promenader with the prominent teeth,
"Gordy."
"Hello," said the man with the stained shirt thickly.
Prominent Teeth shook his finger pessimistically at the pair, giving the woman a glance of aloof condemnation.
"What'd I tell you Gordy?"
Gordon stirred in his seat.
"Go to hell!" he said.
Dean continued to stand there shaking his finger.
The woman began to get angry.
"You go way!" she cried fiercely.
"You're drunk, that's what you are!"
"So's he," suggested Dean, staying the motion of his finger and pointing it at Gordon.
Peter Himmel ambled up, owlish now and oratorically inclined.
"Here now," he began as if called upon to deal with some petty dispute between children.
"Wha's all trouble?"
"You take your friend away," said Jewel tartly.
"He's bothering us."
"What's at?"
"You heard me!" she said shrilly.
"I said to take your drunken friend away."
Her rising voice rang out above the clatter of the restaurant and a waiter came hurrying up.
"You gotta be more quiet!"
"That fella's drunk," she cried.
"He's insulting us."
"Ah-ha, Gordy," persisted the accused.
"What'd I tell you."
He turned to the waiter.
"Gordy an' I friends.
Been tryin' help him, haven't I, Gordy?"
Gordy looked up.
"Help me?
Hell, no!"
Jewel rose suddenly, and seizing Gordon's arm assisted him to his feet.
"Come on, Gordy!" she said, leaning toward him and speaking in a half whisper.
"Let's us get out of here.
This fella's got a mean drunk on."
Gordon allowed himself to be urged to his feet and started toward the door.
Jewel turned for a second and addressed the provoker of their flight.
"I know all about you!" she said fiercely.