But she went, and came back with ginger ale, and some cookies. Something in his face as he caught sight of these chaste viands smote her kindly and understanding heart. She knew her mother would disapprove, would oppose it. But the same boldness that had prompted her to speak at dinner now urged her to fresh flights of daring. "What would you say to a cup of nice hot coffee and some cold chicken sandwiches!" "Oh, say, Miss Lottie! I couldn't think--this is all right." But his eyes brightened. "Nonsense, Lottie!" said Mrs. Payson, sharply. "Mr. Gartz doesn't want coffee." "Yes he does. Don't you? Come on in the kitchen while I make it. We'll all have a bite at the dining room table. I'll cut the bread if you'll butter it." Ben Gartz got up with alacrity. "No man who lives in a hotel could resist an offer like that, Miss Lottie." He frisked heavily off to the kitchen in her wake. Mrs. Payson stood a moment, tasting the unaccustomed bitter pill of opposition. Then she took her stout cane from a corner where she had placed it and followed after them to the kitchen, sniffing the delicious scent of coffee-in-the-making as though it were poison gas. Later they played dummy bridge. Lottie did not play bridge well. She failed to take the red and black spots seriously. Mrs. Payson would overbid regularly. If you had told her that this was a form of dishonesty she would have put you down as queer. Ben Gartz squinted through his cigar smoke, slapped the cards down hard, roared at Mrs. Payson's tactics (he had been a good son to his mother, remember) and sought Lottie's knee under the table. "... going to marry at twenty and have five children, one right after the other----" "Lottie Payson, what are you thinking of!" Her mother's outraged voice. "Why--what----" "You trumped my ace!" CHAPTER IX Every morning between eight-thirty and nine a boy from the Élite Garage on Twenty-sixth Street brought the Payson electric to the door. He trundled it up to the curb with the contempt that it deserved. Your self-respecting garage mechanic is contemptuous of all electric conveyances, but this young man looked on the Payson's senile vehicle as a personal insult. He manipulated its creaking levers and balky brakes as a professional pitcher would finger a soft rubber ball--thing beneath pity. As he sprang out of it in his jersey and his tight pants and his long-visored green cap he would slam its ancient door behind him with such force as almost to set it rocking on its four squat wheels. Then he would pass round behind it, kick one of its asphalt-gnawed rubber tires with a vindictive boot and walk off whistling back to the Élite Garage. Lottie had watched this performance a thousand times, surely. She was always disappointed if he failed to kick the tire. It satisfied something in her to see him do it.