Page:Bad Girl (1929).pdf/35

 Such a blind one was Eddie Collins. He had come to the Lotus Garden solely to eat chow mein, and he went about his business with a steady, systematic motion. Frequently he raised his tea-cup and when he did his eyes dwelt for one disinterested moment on the surroundings. His gaze would lower again with the cup, and Eddie Collins would once more apply himself vigorously to the bowl before him.

His companion was different. Her eyes sparkled as she watched other couples swing by in the rhythm of the dance. There was an anxious vividness about her. She wanted to be part of the swaying, squirming mass. Herbert Yet Sim Nom could see that the atmosphere had claimed her. Great splashes of color glowed on her cheeks, and she smoked her cigarette in a manner that marked her as a girl who only smoked on special occasions.

Yet Sim Nom strolled past them. They had been served by a new waiter, and the practiced eye of the owner quickly took in the table. The only impression that he carried away with him was that the stupid, sandy-haired youth had scorned the ash tray and was arranging a wet gray semicircle of cigarette stubs on his saucer.

The music stopped, and the dancers hurried back to the chow mein, growing cold and pasty in the course of many encores. A girl with lazy eyelids and dewy vermilion lips floated past the table where Dot Haley sat with Eddie. A vagrant cloud of perfume surrounded her. It seemed to spiral from her fluffy black bob to the heels of her slippers. They were red slippers.

"I know her," said Dot. "Her name is Maude McLaughlin. She went to school with me, and we used to go out together after we started to go to work, but she got going with a fellow steady, and she didn't have no more time for girl friends."

"Is that the fellow?" Eddie asked, looking curiously at