“Aw, I—­”

“Go as far as you like, Doll.  Here, gimme your hat!  Go to it, sister.  If you land in the fountain by mistake I’ll blow you to the swellest new duds on the Avenue.”

“I don’t know no dances no more, Jimmie.  I—­I can’t dance with this big old thing anyways.  Look, he’s almost as big as me!”

“Go it alone, then, Doll; but get up and show ’em.  Get up and show ’em that I don’t pick nothing but the livest!  Get up and show ’em, Doll; get up and show ’em!”

She set down her glass suddenly and pirouetted to her feet.  “Here—­I—­go—­Jimmie!”

“Go to it, Doll!”

She leaped forward in her narrow little skirt, laughing.  Chairs scraped back and a round of applause went with her.  Knives and forks beat tattoo on frail glasses; a tinsel ball flung from across the room fell at her feet.  She stooped to it, waved it, and pinned it to her bosom.  Her hair, rich as Australian gold, half escaped its chignon and lay across her shoulders.  She danced light as the breeze up the marble stairway, and at its climax the spotlight focused on her, covering her with the sheen of mica; then just as lightly down the steps again, so rapidly that her hair was tossed outward in a fairy-like effect of spun gold.

“Go to it, Doll.  I’m here to back you!”

“Dare me, Jimmie?”

“Dare what?”

“Dare me?”

“Yeh, I dare you to do anything your little heart desires.  Gad! you—­Gad! if she ’ain’t!”

Like a bird in flight she danced to the gold coping, paused like an audacious Undine in a moment of thrilled silence, and then into the purple and gold, violet and red rain of the electric fountain, her arms outstretched in a radiant tableau vivant, water crowding in about her knees, spray dancing on her upturned face.

“Gad! the little daredevil!  I didn’t think she had it in her.  Gad! the little devil!”

Clang!  Clang!  Tink!  Tink!  “Bravo, kiddo!  Who-o-o-p!”

Shaking the spray out of her eyes, her hair, she emerged to a grand orchestral flare.  The same obsequious hands that applauded her helped her from the gold coping.  Waiters dared to smile behind their trays.  Up to her knees her dark-cloth skirt clung dankly.  Water glistened on her shoulders, spotted her blouse.  Mr. Jimmie Fitzgibbons lay back in his chair, weak from merriment.

“Gad!  I didn’t think she had it in her!  Gad!  I didn’t!”

“Bo-o-o-o!” She shook herself like a dainty spaniel, and he grasped the table to steady himself against his laughter.

“Gad!  I didn’t!”

“Fine weather for ducks!”

“Gad!”

“I’m a nice girl and they treat me like a sponge.”

“Gad!”

“April weather we’re havin’, ain’t it?”

“You ain’t much wet, are you, Doll?”

“Bo-o-o-o!”

“Here, waiter, get the lady a coat or something.  Gad! you’re the hit of the place, Doll!  Aw, you ain’t cold, hon?  Look, you ain’t even wet through—­what you shaking about?”