She made a great pretense of choking.

“O-oh! burns!”

“Drink it down-like a major.”

She bubbled into the glass, her eyes laughing at him above its rim.

“Aw gone!”

He clicked again with his fingers.

“Once more, Charlie!” he said, shoving their pair of glasses to the table-edge.

“You ain’t the only money-bag around the place!” she cried, flopping down on the table-cloth a bulky wad tied in one corner of her handkerchief.

“Well, whatta you know about that?  Pay-day?”

“Yeh-while it lasts.  I hear there ain’t goin’ to be no more cabarets or Camembert cheese till after the war.”

“What you going to do with it—­buy us a round of fizz?”

She bit open the knot, a folded bill dropping to the table, uncurling.

“Lord!” she said, contemplating and flipping it with her finger-tip.  “Where
I come from that twenty-dollar bill every week would keep me like a queen. 
Here it ain’t even chicken feed.”

“You know where there’s more chicken feed waitin’ when you get hard up, sister.  You’re slower to gobble than most.  You know what I told you last night, kiddo—­you need lessons.”

“What makes me sore, Lew, is there ain’t an act on this bill shows under seventy-five.  It goes to show the higher skirts the higher the salary in this business.”

“You oughta be singin’ in grand op’ra.”

“Yeh—­sure!  The diamond horseshoe is waitin’ for the chance to land me one swift kick.  It only took me twelve weeks and one meal a day to land this after Kittie seen to it that they let me out over at the Bijou.  Say, I know where I get off in this town, Lew.  If there’s one thing I know, it’s where I get off.  I ain’t a squab with a pair of high-priced ankles.  I’m down on the agencies’ books as a chaser-act, and I’m down with myself for that.  If there’s one thing I ain’t got left, it’s illusions.  Get me?  Illusions.”

She hitched sidewise in her chair, dipped her forefinger into her fresh glass, snapped it at him so that he blinked under the tiny spray.

“That for you!” she said, giggling.  She was now repeatedly catching herself up from a too constant impulse to repeat that giggle.

“You little devil!” he said, reaching back for his handkerchief.

She dipped again, this time deeper, and aimed straighter.

“Quit!” he said, catching her wrist and bending over it.  “Quit it, or I’ll bite!”

“Ow!  Ouch!”

Her mouth still resolute not to loosen, she jerked back from him.  There was only the high flush which she could not control, and the gaze, heavy lidded, was not so sure as it might have been.  She was quietly, rather pleasantly, dizzy.

“I wish—­” she said.  “I—­wi-ish—­”

“What do you wi-ish?”

“Oh, I—­I dunno what I wish!”

“If you ain’t a card!”

He had lighted a cigar, and, leaning toward her, blew out a fragrant puff to her.