He raised his hat politely. "By no means, Mesdemoiselles."

One of them with a quick gesture took up from the table a forgotten
newspaper and began to fan herself and her companion, to the accompaniment
of giggling and chatter about the heat. They were very young. They ordered
grenadine syrup and eau-de-seltz. Andrew Lackaday stared dismally beyond
them, at the dancers. In the happy, perspiring girls in front of him he
took no interest, for all their youth and comeliness and obviously frank
approachability. He saw nothing but the fury-enflamed face of Coincon and
heard nothing but the rasping voice telling him that it was cheaper to pay
him his week's salary than to allow him to appear again. And "_f---- moi
le camp!_" Why hadn't he taken Coincon by the neck then and there with
his long strong fingers and strangled him? Coincon would have had the
chance of a rabbit. He had the strength of a dozen Coincons--he, trained to
perfection, with muscle like dried bull's sinews. He could split an apple
between arm and forearm, in the hollow of his elbow. Why shouldn't he go
back and break Coincon's neck? No man alive had the right to tell him to
_f---- le camp!_

"You don't seem very gay," said a laughing voice.

With a start he recovered consciousness of immediate surroundings. Instead
of two girls opposite, there was only one. Vaguely he remembered that a man
had come up.

"_Un tour de valse, Mademoiselle?_"

"_Je vieux bien_."