sociable to sit down there away from her and pretend we were Strangers
Yet. Actually, it rattled me so I had to take the full count. If I
hadn't been wedged in between a couple of people that filled all the
space, and then some, it isn't any twenty to one that I wouldn't have
gone right up to her and asked her what she meant by cutting me. I was
udgy enough for it. But I kept looking and after awhile I was able to
sit up and ask what hit me.

She was dressed in something black and kind of shiny and wore a big
black hat fussed up with little red roses, and her face did more things
to me in a minute than all the rest I've ever seen. It was _full_ of
little kissy places. Her lips were very red and her teeth were very
white, and I couldn't tell about her eyes. But she was bred up to the
last notch, I could see that.

Well, I watched her through the tobacco smoke until the last curtain
fell. They were putting on wraps for a minute or so, and I noticed that
the young fellow in the party, who'd been drinking all through the
show, wasn't a bit too steady to do an act on the high-wire. They left
the box and came down the stairs and I bunched into the crowd and let
myself ooze out with them, wondering if I'd ever see her again.

I fetched up at an exit on the side street, and there they were
directly in front of me. I just naturally drifted to one side and
continued my little private corner in crude rubber. It was drizzling in
a beastly way, the street was full of carriages, numbers were being
called, cab-drivers were insulting each other hoarsely, people dashing
out to see if their carriages weren't coming--everything in a whirl of
drizzle and dark and yells, with the horses' hoofs on the pavement
sounding like castanets. The two older people got into a carriage and