“I have a job to offer if you care for it and if you are up to it,” he said.
“I want to learn something about you first. Will you come over to my table and talk it over?”
“What sort do you suppose me to be?” he inquired, amused.
She let her insolent eyes sweep him once more, from head to foot.
He was a well-built young man and in his evening dress he had that something about him which placed him very definitely where he really belonged.
“Would you mind looking at my card?” he asked.
He drew it out and laid it beside her, and without stirring she scanned it sideways.
“That’s my name and address,” he continued. “I’m not contemplating mischief. I’ve enough excitement in life without seeking adventure. Besides, I’m not the sort who goes about annoying women.”
“I’m sorry. I was quite honest. Good-night.”
He took his _congé_ with unhurried amiability; had already turned away when she said:
“Please ... what do you desire to say to me?” He came back to her table:
“I couldn’t tell you until I know a little more about you.”
“Several things. I could scarcely ask you—go over such matters with you—standing here.”
There was a pause; the girl juggled with the straw on the table for a few moments, then, partly turning, she summoned a waiter, paid him, adjusted her stole, picked up her gold bag and her violets and stood up. Then she turned to Cleves and gave him a direct look, which had in it the impersonal and searching gaze of a child.
When they were seated at the table reserved for him the place already was filling rapidly—backwash from the theatres slopped through every aisle—people not yet surfeited with noise, not yet sufficiently sodden by their worship of the great god Jazz.
“Jazz,” said Cleves, glancing across his dinner-card at Tressa Norne—“what’s the meaning of the word? Do you happen to know?”
“Doesn’t it come from the French ‘_jaser_’?”
He smiled. “Possibly. I’m rather hungry. Are you?”
She studied her card, and presently he gave the order.
“I’d like some champagne,” she said, “unless you think it’s too expensive.”
He smiled at that, too, and gave the order.
“I didn’t suggest any wine because you seem so young,” he said.
“I don’t know what you call trouble,” she remarked, indifferently, watching the arriving throngs.