Morris lift it, bow to the girl in white, and drink its contents.

I lived a long, long time during the next minute. I cannot describe my emotions. I only knew that in that instant life seemed unbearable and New York became a city I could not remain in any longer. Surely nothing could be right in a place where even G.o.dfrey Morris came to resorts like this, not as a knight to the rescue of helplessness, but as a familiar patron, who was there because he enjoyed it and found congenial friends.

It was impossible to take my eyes from the horrible group at that table. I kept on staring, and, as if he felt my gaze, Mr. Morris turned around and saw me. The next instant he was on his feet, and a second after that he was shaking hands with Mrs. Hoppen and Mollie Merk and me. Evidently, he was neither surprised to find us there nor ashamed to be found there himself. When he was presented to Kittie and Maudie his manner was exactly as it might have been if he were meeting them at an afternoon tea, and he settled down comfortably into the sixth place at our table, which Mrs. Morgan had been invited to fill, and chatted as if he had known the girls all his life.

I have no idea what he said. It did not matter. After the first few moments Maudie and Kittie were able to talk to him. I heard their voices, but not their words. I sat with my eyes on the table-cloth and my cheeks burning. I wanted to get away that minute. I wanted to go to my home, out West. Most of all, I wanted to return to the convent and never, never leave it.

The gipsy was playing among the tables again, and now he was quite near us. But I had reached the point where I was not even interested when he turned, caught sight of our new companion, and crossed quickly to our table, his hand outstretched to Mr. Morris, his face shining like an electric globe when the light has been turned on inside of it.

Mr. Morris greeted him like a long-lost brother. "h.e.l.lo, Fritz!" he exclaimed, taking his hand in a most friendly grasp. "Business good?

How are the kids?"

The gipsy revealed the widest smile of the evening as he answered.

"_Ach_, Herr Morris," he cried, in a guttural German voice that simply dripped affection, "you remember dose kids? T'ree we had--_aber_ now, _now_ we got anoder one--since Tuesday!"

"Good!" cried Mr. Morris, looking around as if he expected us all to share his joy over the glad tidings. "Girl or boy?"

"Girl," the gipsy player told him. "T'ree boys we had. Now we haf girl for change. We t'ink, my wife and I, we make her noospaper woman.

Goot idea, _nicht wahr_?"

He laughed, and Mr. Morris laughed with him. "Fine," he declared.

"Send her down to the _Searchlight_ office in a week or two. We'll give her Miss Merk's job."

Everybody laughed again, Mollie Merk, of course, loudest of all. The musician bade us good night, beginning to play again at the tables. I had forgotten about Kittie and Maudie, but now I knew they had been listening, too, for I heard Kittie speak.

"Why, that gipsy isn't a gipsy at all, is he?" she gasped.

"No more than I am," Mollie Merk told her. "Wears the rig because it pays--pleases romantic girls." She grinned at us, while Mrs. Hoppen leaned forward.

"I'm afraid you hurt his feelings," she told Maudie and me, "by refusing his invitation to dance a little while ago. That was the greatest compliment he could pay you, you know."

Mr. Morris looked amused. "Did he invite them to dance?" he inquired, with interest. "Good old Fritz. He doesn't often do that, this season."

Maudie and I exchanged a long glance. "I thought--" Maudie began, and then stopped. I was glad she said no more. I looked again at the gipsy, and, as if something had been stripped from my eyes, I saw him as he was--no reckless and desperate adventurer, but a matter-of-fact German, his silk shirt rather grimy, his black hair oily, his absurd red sash and shabby velvet coat rebukes to the imagination that had pictured a wild gipsy heart beating under them.

Mr. Morris was smiling at the girl in white. Now he turned to me and nodded toward her. "That's Miss Hastings and George Brook," he said.

"Have you met them yet?" I was able to shake my head. "Well, it's high time you did," were his next words. "I'll bring them over."

He rose, but I caught his arm and gasped out something that stopped him. I don't remember what I said, but I succeeded in making him understand that I did not want that particular man to meet my friends.

Mr. Morris stared at me hard for a moment. Then he sat down again and looked me straight in the eyes.

"Miss Iverson," he said, quietly, "what have you against Brook? He's the foreign editor of the _Searchlight_, and one of the best fellows alive."

I could not speak. I was too much surprised.

"The girl he's with," Morris went on, "is Marion Hastings--Mrs.

Cartwell's social secretary. She and Brook are going to be married next week."

He waited for me to reply. I muttered something about not wanting my friends to meet any one in this place. That was all I said. My self-control, my poise, had deserted me, but perhaps my burning face was more eloquent than my tongue. Mr. Morris looked from me to Maudie, and then at Kittie, and finally back at me.

"I see," he said at last, very slowly. "You three actually think you are in a den of iniquity!"

He turned to Mollie Merk and addressed her as crisply and with as much authority as if they were in the _Searchlight_ office.

"How did you come to give Miss Iverson that impression?" he demanded.

Mollie Merk looked guilty. "Didn't realize she had it till within the last half-hour," she muttered.

"I see," said Morris again, in the same tone. "And then it was such fun for you that you let it go on!"

For a moment Miss Merk seemed inclined to sulk. Then she threw herself back in her chair and laughed. "Oh, well," she admitted, "'twas fun.

Know what started her. Said something about showing her Life--making her eyes stick out. Adding her friends to the party changed the program. Brought 'em here instead. Seeing us drink c.o.c.ktails started her panic. Harlem tango did the rest. Her imagination got busy."

I listened to her as one listens to a strange tongue in which one hears an occasional familiar word. She turned to me. "What that dance represents," she said, "is a suburbanite catching a cook. Least, that's what the inventor says."

"It's very graceful. My nieces dance it charmingly," Mrs. Hoppen added, mildly.

Mr. Morris smiled, but not as if he really wanted to. Then he turned to me. There was a beautiful, understanding look in his gray eyes.

"Do you realize what has happened, Miss Iverson?" he asked. "You've been having a bad dream. You expected something lurid, so you have seen something lurid in everything you have looked at to-night. In reality you are in one of the most eminently correct restaurants in New York. Of course it has its _cabaret_--most of them have, this season--but it's an extremely well-conducted and conservative one, with no objectionable features whatever. Now look around you and try to see things as they are."

He made a gesture with his hand, and I followed it slowly around the room. At most of the tables ordinary-looking couples sat contentedly munching food. A German woman near us was telling a friend how she cooked _Wiener Schnitzel_. A tired-looking girl was doing an acrobatic dance in the ring, but it was not vulgar. It was merely foolish and dull. Three men on our left were arguing over some business question and adding up penciled columns on the table-cloth. Our wild-hearted gipsy, Fritz, was having a gla.s.s of beer with some friends off in a corner. The musicians were playing "The Rosary," and several fat women were lost in mournful memories. Not far away a waiter dropped a tray and broke some gla.s.ses, and the head waiter hastened to him and swore under his breath. That was the only lurid thing in the room, and it was mild indeed to ears familiar with the daily conversation of Mr.

Hurd and Colonel Cartwell. Everything else suddenly, unmistakably, was simple, cheerful, entirely proper, and rather commonplace.

"So much for the restaurant," remarked Mr. Morris, smiling as if he had observed my change of expression. "Now for the people. That's the editor of the _Argus_ over there"--he pointed to a thin, blond man--"with his daughters. At the table next to them is Miss Blinn, the artist. The stout old lady who is eating too much is her mother. The chap with the white hair is the leading editorial-writer of the _Modern Review_, and the lady opposite is his sister. Almost every one prominent in New York drops into this place at one time or another.

Many worthy citizens come regularly. It's quite the thing, though dull!"

"I know," I stammered. "I know." I did know, but I was humiliated to the soul. "Please don't say any more."

It is true that I form impressions quickly. It is also true that I can change them just as quickly when I am shown that I am wrong. Mr.

Morris looked at my face, from which the blood now seemed to be bursting, and took pity on me.

"All I want," he ended, "is to make you realize that you're visiting a legitimate place of amus.e.m.e.nt and that the performers are honest, hard-working people, though I think myself they're going a bit stale."

"Been doing the same thing too long," corroborated Mollie Merk.

"Garroti ought to change his program. Just the same," she added, cheerfully, as she called the waiter and paid the bill, "they give you the best _table d'hote_ dinner in town. If you hadn't been too scared to eat, Iverson, you'd have realized that much, anyway!"

At this, Kittie James broke into the conversation. Here was something Kittie understood, though, like myself, she had been somewhat mixed as to the place and the performers. Kittie told Mollie Merk with impa.s.sioned earnestness that the dinner was one of the best she had ever eaten, and that she would never forget the flavor of the artichoke hearts with the mushrooms on them. Mollie Merk seemed pleased and patted Kittie's hand.

"You see," she went on, addressing the others as if I were not there, "Iverson's had a pretty hard time since she struck this town. It's jolted her sense of values. Thought everything was white. Had some unpleasant experiences. Decided everything was black. Been seeing black to-night. Take another month or two," she added, kindly, turning to me, "to discover most things are merely gray."

Those were her words. It was a moment of agony for me. I had now gone down into the abyss of humiliation and struck the bottom hard. Mr.

Morris spoke to me, though at first I did not hear him.

"Don't forget one thing, Miss Iverson," he said, gently. "An imagination like yours is the greatest a.s.set a writer can have.

You'll appreciate it when you begin work on your novels and plays in a year or two."

I felt a little better. I could see that Maudie and Kittie were impressed.