he slot, and its tables for four are perpetually set each with a
dish of sliced radishes, a bouquet of celery, and a mound of bread, half
the stack rye. Its menus are well thumbed and badly mimeographed. Who
enters Ceiner's is prepared to dine from barley soup to apple strudel. At
something after six begins the rising sound of cutlery, and already the
new-comer fears to find no table.

Off at the side, Mr. Jimmie Batch had already disposed of his hat and gray
overcoat, and tilting the chair opposite him to indicate its reservation,
shook open his evening paper, the waiter withholding the menu at this sign
of rendezvous.

Straight toward that table Miss Slayback worked quick, swift way, through
this and that aisle, jerking back and seating herself on the chair opposite
almost before Mr. Batch could raise his eyes from off the sporting page.

There was an instant of silence between them--the kind of silence that
can shape itself into a commentary upon the inefficacy of mere speech--a
widening silence which, as they sat there facing, deepened until, when she
finally spoke, it was as if her words were pebbles dropping down into a
well.

"Don't look so surprised, Jimmie," she said, propping her face calmly, even
boldly, into the white-kid palms. "You might fall off the Christmas tree."

Above the snug, four-inch collar and bow tie Mr. Batch's face was taking on
a dull ox-blood tinge that spread back, even reddening his ears. Mr. Batch
had the frontal bone of a clerk, the horn-rimmed glasses of the literarily
astigmatic, and the sartorial perfection that only the rich can afford not
to attain.

He was staring now quite frankly, and his mouth had fallen open. "Gert!" he
said.

"Yes," said Miss Slayback, her insouciance gaining with his discomposure,
her eyes widening and then a dolly kind of glassiness seeming to set in.
"You wasn't expecting me, Jimmie?"

He jerked up his head, not meeting her glance. "What's the idea of the
comedy?"

"You don't look glad to see me, Jimmie."

"If you--think you're funny."

She was working out of and then back into the freshly white gloves in a
betraying kind of nervousness that belied the toss of her voice. "Well, of
all things! Mad-cat! Mad, just because you didn't seem to be expecting me."

"I--There's some things that are just the limit, that's what they are.
Some things that are just the limit, that no fellow would stand from any
girl, and this--this is one of them."

Her