"I don't, don't I? That's the way with you girls--a fellow ties hisself up like a broken arm in a sling, and that's the thanks he gets! Ain't I quit playin' pool? Didn't I swear to you on your little old Sunday-school book to cut out pool? Didn't the whole gang gimme the laff? Ain't I cuttin' everything--ain't I?--pool and cards--pool and all?" "I know, Joe; but--" "You gotta quit naggin' me about the fireside game, sis. I'm going to meet your dame some day--sure I am; but you gotta let me take my time. You gotta let me do it my way--you gotta quit naggin' me. A fellow can't stand for it." "She's sick, Joe." "Sure she is; and to-morrow night we'll buy her an oyster loaf or something and take it home to her. How's that, kiddo?" "That ain't what she wants, Joe--it's us." "I just ain't home-broke--that's all's the matter with me. Put me in a parlor, and I get weak-kneed as a cat--bashful as a banshee! You gotta let me do it my way, Peaches and Cream. Just like a twenty-five-cent order of 'em you look, with them eyes and cheeks and hair. To-morrow night, sweetness--huh?" "Honest, Joe?" "Cross my heart and bet on a dark horse!" She slid her hand into the curve of his elbow, her incertitude vanishing behind the filmy cloud of a smile. "All right, Joe; to-morrow night, sure. You walk as far as home with me now, and--" "Gawd bless my soul! You ain't going to leave me at the church, are you?" "I gotta go right home, Joe." "Gee! Why didn't you tell a fellow? I could have tied up ten times over for a Saturday night. There's a little dancer over at the Orpheum would have let out a six-inch smile for the pleasure of my company to-night. Gee! you're a swell little sport--nix!" "Joe!" "Come on in for ten minutes, and if you're right good I'll shoot you home in a taxi-cab just as quick as if we went now. Just ten minutes, sweetness." "No more, Joe." "Cross my heart and bet on a dark horse--just ten minutes." She smiled at him from the corners of her shadowed eyes and stepped into the tessellated foyer. "Satisfied now, Mr. Smarty?" she said, smiling at eight reflections of herself and swaying to the rippling flute notes and violin phrases that wandered out to meet them. "You're all right, sweetness!" Within the Sheban elegance of the overlighted, overheated, overgilded dining and dance hall his pressure of her arm tightened and the blood ran in her veins a searing flame. "Gee! Look at the jam, Joe!" "Over there's a table for two, sweet--right under them green lights." "Say, whatta you know about that? There's that same blonde girl, Joe, we been seein' everywhere. Honest, she follows us round every place we go--her and that fellow that was dancing up at the Crescent last night--remember?" They drew up before a marble-topped table, one of a phalanx that flanked a wide-open space of hard-wood floor, like coping round a sunken pool; and his eyes took a rapid resume of the polyphonic room.