chair was filled, while the popping
of corks and the clinking of glasses even so early in the evening
testified to the popularity of Dawley's.

"They seem to prefer this sort of thing to theaters," thought Bobbie.
"Anyway, this crowd is funnier than most comedies I've seen."

He looked around him, after being led to a corner seat by the
obsequious head waiter. There was a preponderance of fat old men and
vacuous looking young girls of the type designated on Broadway as
"chickens." Here and there a slumming party was to be seen--elderly
women and ill-at-ease men, staring curiously at the diners and dancers;
young married couples who seemed to be enjoying their self-thrilled
deviltry and new-found freedom. An orchestra of negro musicians were
rattling away on banjos, mandolins, and singing obligatos in
deep-voiced improvisations. The drummer and the cymbalist were the
busiest of all; their rattling, clanging, banging addition to the music
gave it an irresistible rhythmic cadence. Even Burke felt the call of
the dance, until he studied the evolutions of the merrymakers. Oddly
assorted couples, some in elaborate evening dress, women in
shoulderless, sleeveless, backless gowns, men in dinner-coats, girls in
street clothes with yard-long feathers, youths in check suits, old men
in staid business frock coats--what a motley throng! All were busily
engaged in the orgy of a bacchanalian dance in which couples reeled and
writhed, cheek to cheek, feet intertwining, arms about shoulders.
Instead of enjoying themselves the men seemed largely engaged in
counting their steps, and watching their own feet whenever possible:
the girls kept their eyes, for the most part, upon the mirrors which
covered the walls, each watching her poises and swings, her hat, her
curls, her lips, with obvious complacency.

Burke was nauseated, for instead of the old-time fun of a jolly dance,
this seemed some weird, unnatural, bestial, ritualistic evolution.

"And they call this dancing?" he muttered. "But, I wonder where Miss
Lorna is?"

He finally espied her, dancing with Baxter. The latter was swinging
his arms and body in a snakey, serpentine one-step, as he glided down
the floor, pushing other couples out of the way. Lorna, like the other
girls, lost no opportunity to admire her own reflection in the mirrors.

Burke was tempted to rush forward and intercede, to pull her out of the
arms of the repulsive Baxter. But he knew how foolish h