However loud the protest against this latest fad, it is doubtful if its effect is wholly harmful, for it at least introduced vigorous exercise and rhythmic movement into the midnight life of the city.  Women went home in the gray dawn with faces flushed from natural causes; exquisite youths of nocturnal habits learned to perspire and to know the feeling of a wilted collar.

Bob Wharton had drunk heavily, but up to this time he had shown little effect from his potations beyond a growing exhilaration; now, however, the wine was taking toll, and Lorelei felt a certain pity for him.  Waste is shocking; it grieved her to see a man so blessed with opportunity flinging himself away so fatuously.  The hilarity which greeted him on every hand spoke of misspent nights and a reckless prodigality that betokened long habitude.  Only his splendid constitution—­that abounding vitality which he had inherited from sturdy, temperate forebears—­enabled him to keep up the pace; but Lorelei saw that he was already beginning to show its effect.  Judging from to-night’s experience, he was still, in his sober moments, a normal person; but once he had imbibed beyond a certain point his past excesses uncovered themselves like grinning faces.  Alcohol is a capricious master, seldom setting the same task twice, nor directing his slaves into similar pathways.  He delights, moreover, in reversing the edge of a person’s disposition, making good-natured people pettish or morose, while he sometimes improves those of naturally evil temper.  Often under his sway the somber and the stoical become gay and impulsive, while the joyful sink into despondency.  But with Robert Wharton, liquor intensified a natural agreeableness until it cloyed.  His amenities were monstrously magnified; he became convivial to the point of offensiveness.  In the course of this metamorphosis he was many things, and through such a cycle he worked to-night while the girl looked on.

Overcoming his niggardly instincts, Jimmy Knight, as the evening progressed, assumed the burden of entertainment.  He, too, adopted a spendthrift gaiety and encouraged Wharton’s libations, although he drank little himself.

There came a time when Bob could no longer dance—­when, in fact, he could barely walk—­and then it was that Jim proposed leaving.  Bob readily agreed—­having reached a condition of mellowness where he agreed enthusiastically to anything—­and Lorelei was only too glad to depart.  She had witnessed the pitiful breaking-down of Bob’s faculties with a curious blending of concern and dismay, but her protests had gone unheeded.  Having had a glimpse of his real self earlier in the evening, and being wise in the ways of intemperance, she felt only pity for him now as the three made their way down-stairs.

While Jim went in search of their belongings Bob propped himself against the wall and regarded her admiringly through eyes that were filmed and unfocusable.

“Fairy Princess, you are more adorable every minute,” he said, thickly.  “Yes!  A thousand yesses.  And I’m your little friend, eh?  No more slaps, no more mysterious exits, what?”