Lottie said to herself, "Oh, Lottie, don't be so magnificent. He isn't so bad. He's enjoying himself, that's all. You're just a middle-aged old gal who ought to be glad of the chance to spend a cool evening in the Midway Garden, drinking claret lemonade. Glad of the chance." But she wasn't. Ben was all for dancing, of course. He had become amazingly proficient at it, as does your plump middle-aged playboy. Lottie liked to dance, too. She discovered that she didn't particularly like to dance with Ben, though he was light, expert, and skillful at avoiding collisions even on that crowded floor. Proximity proved him moist, soft, and protuberant. Seated at their table it was cool and almost restful. A row of slim trees showed a fairy frieze above the tiled balcony that enclosed the garden. The lights of the garden fell on them and gave them an unreal quality. They seemed weird, dazzling. Lottie thought they looked like trees in a Barrie fantasy. She opened her lips to utter this thought. Then, "He won't know what I mean," she said to herself. Ben was eating an ice out of a tall silver goblet. "Take a fruit ice like this," he had explained, "there's nothing fattening in it. Now ice cream, that's different. Not for me. Ice is all right, though. Raspberry ice." "Those trees," said Lottie, and nodded toward them. Ben turned heavily, a spoonful of raspberry ice poised halfway. "They're like fairy trees in a Barrie play. Fantastic." "Yeh," said Ben, and carried the laden spoon to his mouth. "Light's bad for 'em, I guess, shining on 'em that way. Look how yellow the leaves are already." "There!" shouted Lottie, not aloud, but to her inner self. "You can't expect me to marry a man who doesn't know what I'm talking about, can you?" "What are you smiling at, you little rascal!" Ben was saying. "Tell me the joke." "Was I smiling? I didn't know----" You little rascal! No one had ever called Lottie a little rascal. She tried, now, to think of herself as a little rascal and decided that the term was one that Ben had found useful, perhaps, in conversation with the young ladies of the Light revue. She did not resent being called a little rascal. She resented the fact that Ben could not see the absurdity of applying the term to a staid-appearing, conventionally-dressed, rather serious woman of thirty-three or -four. She thought of Beck. Beck, in the old days, would have shaken a forefinger at him and said, "Will you never grow up, you bad boy!" Suddenly Lottie felt a little sick. "Let's go," she said. "Do you mind? I'm--I've had a trying day." On the way home Ben grew expansive. "Some fellas in my position would have a shofe but I like to drive my own bus. I come home in the evening and have my bath and my dinner and go out in the little wagon and it rests me. Yessir! Rests me.... I'm thinking of moving north. A little flat, maybe, and a housekeeper. A fella gets pretty sick of hotels." "That would be nice. Everyone seems to be moving to the North Side."