"Maybe you can come back another time, but now, keep away from him." "I think you'd better say more, Sam." "I can't." "Then you should have said less." "Are you offended?" "A little. You don't approve of me." "It isn't that." "Then you'd better explain what you mean." "How can I? This is something that has to be between Jake and me." "You don't like me," Gabby said with conviction. "Are you jealous? Aren't you willing to share him with me?" "Will you share him with himself?" "I really think you've been drinking too much, Sam. You aren't making sense." "How can I make sense? Look at me. Somebody threw me into the water. I'm trying to learn how to swim before I drown. I've got just enough breath left to shout a warning to you. I'm shouting, Gabby." Suidi, _Le Jazz Hot_, came up to get Cooper. As he led him away to be photographed again, Cooper called over his shoulder: "I'm shouting, Gabby. Listen to me." "What's he shouting?" Lennox asked, appearing out of the crush with canapes. "A long locomotive for Lennox. He admires you, Jordan." "You talked him into it. He's just the tool of a beautiful dame." "Yes, I am rather fatal. It's a dreadful responsibility. Who's the little man who told me he married eighteen feet of wives?" "Ned Bacon, my partner." "Did he really?" "Yep. Three six foot show girls, one after the other." "What an extensive married life. Who's the dark quiet man who stammers?" "Johnny Plummer." "And the bald man who sounds like a subway train? The one who's been pestering Sam." "Tooky Ween, Mason's agent. He wants Sam to sign with him." "They're all very nice," Gabby said. "But they all seem self-conscious. Like Roy. They live in the third person." "Live in the third person?" "Haven't you noticed? It was never 'I'm doing this' or 'I'd like that' with Roy. It was always 'Roy Audibon is getting an idea' or 'Roy Audibon would like a drink.' He was his own audience. What was the matter with you in the taxi, Jordan?" She took the wind out of him. He could never accustom himself to the sudden corners in her conversation. Each time he imagined he had concealed something from her, she waited patiently and then came around a corner unexpectedly into the heart of the concealment. "Was it anything to do with the enemies you were talking about?" she asked. "Yes," he said. "That's it exactly." "Do you want to talk about it now?" "Let's find a place." They pushed through the crowd. The party was getting high and many men laid loving hands on Gabby. When she gently disengaged herself, they persisted in following her, offering drinks, cigarettes, canapes, conversation, or any other service she required. Lennox was annoyed and reminded of the three men at the McVeagh party who had offered to take the drunken professor home for her. Gabby couldn't help acquiring a coterie of men anxious to make themselves useful.