Moment by moment her distaste for Fowey was gaining strength. She was put to it to listen to his bragging and to make response civilly. She did not relish her food, her company, or her surroundings; and in utter ennui tried to stimulate herself with her favourite brand of sweet champagne, insisting on another bottle when they had emptied one between them. It served only to stimulate a fictitious gaiety in her, one swift to wane. For all this, she was reluctant to contemplate going home. Anything were preferable to that--at least until she could feel reasonably sure of finding Hattie abed and asleep. They finished their meal at an hour too late to make it worth while to patronize one of the open-air entertainments with which she had promised herself diversion; and since she would neither go home nor, at Fowey's mischievous suggestion, return to Coney Island, they moved to another table, nearer the railing, and whiled away one more hour listening to the band music over their cigarettes and liqueurs. Toward eleven o'clock, Joan suddenly announced that she was sick of it all and ready to go. Fowey revived his preference for a motor-car, and got his way against scanty opposition. In a saner humour, Joan would have stuck to her original plan. As it was, she accepted the motor ride with neither gratitude nor graciousness. Curiously enough, once established in the car, her hat off, the swift rush of night air cooling her moist brows, her head resting back against the cushions, she permitted Fowey to repeat his ardent love-making which had made their previous ride together memorable. Her dislike of him was no less thorough-paced, but had passed from an active to a passive stage; she was at once too indifferent to resist him and so bored that she welcomed anything that promised excitement. She suffered his kisses, confident in her power to control him, and drew a certain satisfaction from reminding him, now and again forcibly, that there were limits to her toleration. But for the most part she lay in his arms in passive languor, her eyes half closed, and tried to forget him, or rather to believe him someone else, one whose embraces she could have welcomed.... When they came to lighted streets, she bade Fowey "behave," and would not permit him even so slight a lapse from decorum as that of "holding hands." She sat up, rearranging the disorder of her hair, adjusted her hat, surreptitiously restored the brilliance of her lips with a stick of rouge. The man drew back sullenly into his corner, fuming.... At her door, dismissing the car, he followed her up to the stoop. "Joan--" he began angrily. She turned back from using her latch-key, with a wondering, child-like stare. "Yes, Hubert?" she enquired with hidden malice. "You're not--you're not going to send me off like this?" "Why not?" she demanded with fine assumption of simplicity. "It's awful' late." Fowey seized her wrist. "Now, listen to me!"