He had one drink ... two ... another. Then he lost count ... but the supply seemed inexhaustible. A sudden rush of high spirits keyed him tensely. He talked and laughed and waved his arms about, calling upon everybody to witness his light-heartedness. Through the confused blur of faces surrounding him he caught an occasional glimpse of the thin, cruel lips and the shifting, beady eyes of his pursuer sitting over a flat drink which he left untouched.
Presently somebody in the party suggested a round of the bohemian joints. The motion was noisily seconded... Fred staggered to his feet. They began with the uptown tenderloin, drifting in due time through the Greek cafes on Third Street. Finally they crossed Market Street and began to chatter into the tawdry dance halls of upper Kearny. Everywhere the drinks flowed in covert streams, growing viler and more nauseous as the pilgrimage advanced. Near Jackson Street they came upon a bedraggled pavilion of dubious gayety which lured them downstairs with its ear-splitting jazz orchestra. A horde of rapacious females descended upon them like starving locusts. Suddenly everybody in the party seemed moved with a desire for dancing--except Fred. While the others whirled away he sank into a seat, staring vacantly ahead. He had reached the extreme point of his drunkenness and he was pulling toward sobriety again... He came out of his tentative stupor with the realization that a woman was seating herself opposite him.
"What's your name?" he demanded, thickly.
He took a sharper look. A pale, somewhat freckled face, topped by a glory of fading red hair, thrust itself rather wistfully forward for his inspection.
"Go 'way!" he waved, disconsolately. "Go 'way. I don't wanna dance!"
She smiled with the passive resistance of her kind. "Neither do I," she assented. "Let's just sit here and talk."
"Don't wanna talk!" he threw back, sullenly.
"All right," she agreed; "anything you say... Got a cigarette?"
He drew out a box and she selected one. The waiter hovered about significantly. Fred ordered coffee ... Ginger took Whiterock. They were silent. The music crashed and banged and whinnied, and the air grew thick with the mingled odors of smoke and stale drinks and sex.