Lee didn't mean that this restlessness was confined to men; simply he
was intent on his own problem. The automobile turned into a cross-town
street; they met, entered, a mass of cars held at Broadway, advanced a
few feet, stopped, went on, and, twisting through the traffic, reached
Malmaison. He left his outer things at the door, but Mrs. Grove kept
her cloak, and they mounted in an elevator to the caf? floor. The place
was crowded with brightly filled tables surrounding the rectangular
open dancing space, and Lee signalled for a captain. That experienced
individual, with a covert glance at Lee Randon's companion, a hand
folded about a sum of money that would have paid the butcher for a week
at Eastlake, found, however, exactly what they wanted; and Mrs. Grove's
dominating slimness emerged by degrees, like a rare flower from leaves
of quiet gold.
They sat facing each other. At a table on Lee's left, on a floor a foot
higher, sat a woman, Spanish in color, with a face like a crumpled
petunia. The girls of a larger party, beyond Savina Grove, were young,
with the vigorous nakedness of their shoulders and backs traced by
black cobwebs of lace. The music began, and they left to dance; the
deserted tables bore their drinks undisturbed while the floor was
choked by slowly revolving figures distilling from the rhythm frank
gratification. There was an honesty of intention, the admission that
life and nights were short, lacking in the fever at the Eastlake
dancing; here, rather than unsettled restraint, was the determination
to spend every excited nerve on sensation, to obtain the last drop from
glasses the contents and odors of which uniquely resembled the drinks
of pre-prohibition.
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