CHAPTER XVI
AT THE FLOWER GARDEN
1
"And after all I've done for her," said Mr. Reginald Cracknell, his
voice tremulous with self-pity and his eyes moist with the combined
effects of anguish and over-indulgence in his celebrated private stock,
"after all I've done for her she throws me down."
Sally did not reply. The orchestra of the Flower Garden was of a
calibre that discouraged vocal competition; and she was having,
moreover, too much difficulty in adjusting her feet to Mr. Cracknell's
erratic dance-steps to employ her attention elsewhere. They manoeuvred
jerkily past the table where Miss Mabel Hobson, the Flower Garden's
newest "hostess," sat watching the revels with a distant hauteur. Miss
Hobson was looking her most regal in old gold and black, and a sorrowful
gulp escaped the stricken Mr. Cracknell as he shambled beneath her eye.
"If I told you," he moaned in Sally's ear, "what... was that your ankle?
Sorry! Don't know what I'm doing to-night... If I told you what I had
spent on that woman, you wouldn't believe it. And then she throws me
down. And all because I said I didn't like her in that hat. She hasn't
spoken to me for a week, and won't answer when I call up on the 'phone.
And I was right, too. It was a rotten hat. Didn't suit her a bit. But
that," said Mr. Cracknell, morosely, "is a woman all over!"
Sally uttered a stifled exclamation as his wandering foot descended on
hers before she could get it out of the way. Mr. Cracknell interpreted
the ejaculation as a protest against the sweeping harshness of his last
remark, and gallantly tried to make amends.
"I don't mean you're like that," he said. "You're different. I could
see that directly I saw you. You have a sympathetic nature. That's why
I'm telling you all this. You're a sensible and broad-minded girl and
can understand. I've done everything for that woman. I got her this job
as hostess here--you wouldn't believe what they pay her. I starred her
in a show once. Did you see those pearls she was wearing? I gave her
those. And she won't speak to me. Just because I didn't like her hat. I
wish you could have seen that hat. You would agree with me, I know,
because you're a sensible, broad-minded girl and understand hats. I
don't know what to do. I come here every night." Sally was aware of
this. She had seen him often, but this was the first time that Lee
Schoenstein, the gentlemanly master of ceremonies, had inflicted him on
her. "I come here every night and dance past her table, but she won't
look at me. What," asked Mr. Cracknell, tears welling in his pale eyes,
"would you do about it?"
"I don't know," said Sally, frankly.
"Nor do I. I thought you wouldn't, because you're a sensible,
broad-minded... I mean, nor do I. I'm having one last try to-night, if
you can keep a secret. You won't tell anyone, will you?" pleaded Mr.
Cracknell, urgently. "But I know you won't because you're a sensible...
I'm giving her a little present. Having it brought here to-night. Little
present. That ought to soften her, don't you think?"
"A big one would do it better."
Mr. Cracknell kicked her on the shin in a dismayed sort of way.
"I never thought of that. Perhaps you're right. But it's too late now.
Still, it might. Or wouldn't it? Which do you think?"
"Yes," said Sally.
"I thought as much," said Mr. Cracknell.
The orchestra stopped with a thump and a bang, leaving Mr. Cracknell
clapping feebly in the middle of the floor. Sally slipped back to her
table. Her late partner, after an uncertain glance about him, as if he
had mislaid something but could not remember what, zigzagged off in
search of his own seat. The noise of many conversations, drowned by the
music, broke out with renewed vigour. The hot, close air was full of
voices; and Sally, pressing her hands on her closed eyes, was reminded
once more that she had a headache.
Nearly a month had passed since her return to Mr. Abrahams' employment.
It had been a dull, leaden month, a monotonous succession of lifeless
days during which life had become a bad dream. In some strange nightmare
fashion, she seemed nowadays to be cut off from her kind. It was weeks
since she had seen a familiar face. None of the companions of her old
boarding-house days had crossed her path. Fillmore, no doubt from
uneasiness of conscience, had not sought her out, and Ginger was working
out his destiny on the south shore of Long Island.
She lowered her hands and opened her eyes and looked at the room. It
was crowded, as always. The Flower Garden was one of the many
establishments of the same kind which had swum to popularity on the
rising flood of New York's dancing craze; and doubtless because, as its
proprietor had claimed, it was a nice place and run nice, it had
continued, unlike many of its rivals, to enjoy unvarying prosperity. In
its advertisement, it described itself as "a supper-club for
after-theatre dining and dancing," adding that "large and spacious, and
sumptuously appointed," it was "one of the town's wonder-places, with
its incomparable dance-floor, enchanting music, cuisine, and service de
luxe." From which it may be gathered, even without his personal
statements to that effect, that Isadore Abrahams thought well of the
place.
There had been a time when Sally had liked it, too. In her first period
of employment there she had found it diverting, stimulating and full of
entertainment. But in those days she had never had headaches or, what
was worse, this dreadful listless depression which weighed her down and
made her nightly work a burden.
"Miss Nicholas."
The orchestra, never silent for long at the Flower Garden, had started
again, and Lee Schoenstein, the master of ceremonies, was presenting a
new partner. She got up mechanically.
"This is the first time I have been in this place," said the man, as
they bumped over the crowded floor. He was big and clumsy, of course.
To-night it seemed to Sally that the whole world was big and clumsy.
"It's a swell place. I come from up-state myself. We got nothing like
this where I come from." He cleared a space before him, using Sally as a
battering-ram, and Sally, though she had not enjoyed her recent
excursion with Mr. Cracknell, now began to look back to it almost with
wistfulness. This man was undoubtedly the worst dancer in America.
"Give me li'l old New York," said the man from up-state,
unpatriotically. "It's good enough for me. I been to some swell shows
since I got to town. You seen this year's 'Follies'?"
"No."
"You go," said the man earnestly. "You go! Take it from me, it's a
swell show. You seen 'Myrtle takes a Turkish Bath'?"
"I don't go to many theatres."
"You go! It's a scream. I been to a show every night since I got here.
Every night regular. Swell shows all of 'em, except this last one. I
cert'nly picked a lemon to-night all right. I was taking a chance,
y'see, because it was an opening. Thought it would be something to say,
when I got home, that I'd been to a New York opening. Set me back
two-seventy-five, including tax, and I wish I'd got it in my kick right
now. 'The Wild Rose,' they called it," he said satirically, as if
exposing a low subterfuge on the part of the management. "'The Wild
Rose!' It sure made me wild all right. Two dollars seventy-five tossed
away, just like that."
Something stirred in Sally's memory. Why did that title seem so
familiar? Then, with a shock, she remembered. It was Gerald's new play.
For some time after her return to New York, she had been haunted by the
fear lest, coming out other apartment, she might meet him coming out of
his; and then she had seen a paragraph in her morning paper which had
relieved her of this apprehension. Gerald was out on the road with a new
play, and "The Wild Rose," she was almost sure, was the name of it.
"Is that Gerald Foster's play?" she asked quickly.
"I don't know who wrote it," said her partner, "but let me tell you he's
one lucky guy to get away alive. There's fellows breaking stones on the
Ossining Road that's done a lot less to deserve a sentence. Wild Rose!
I'll tell the world it made me go good and wild," said the man from
up-state, an economical soul who disliked waste and was accustomed to
spread out his humorous efforts so as to give them every chance. "Why,
before the second act was over, the people were beating it for the
exits, and if it hadn't been for someone shouting 'Women and children
first' there'd have been a panic."
Sally found herself back at her table without knowing clearly how she
had got there.
"Miss Nicholas."
She started to rise, and was aware suddenly that this was not the voice
of duty calling her once more through the gold teeth of Mr. Schoenstein.
The man who had spoken her name had seated himself beside her, and was
talking in precise, clipped accents, oddly familiar. The mist cleared
from her eyes and she recognized Bruce Carmyle.
