Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/231

Rh She applied herself to her lemonade, sucking it up through a straw, ignoring him.

"Keep it up," he said. "You 're as pretty as a baby with a bottle."

She tried to keep her mouth set, but with indifferent success.

"You 're an ad fer a soft drink, all right, all right. Look out!"

She had choked on a laugh. She coughed into her handkerchief, falling back in her chair, but she still made no rejoinder.

He rescued the glass from her, and waited, grinning. "Gee, you 're a hard drinker! Did you swally a straw?"

It was then that he caught the change of her expression and looked back to see Tim standing behind him.

Tim said to her, roughly: "Come on, Fan. They 're startin' to dance."

As soon as she could catch her breath, she replied, in a false voice: "I don't want to dance."

"Say," he said, with narrowed eyes, "you can't make a monkey o' me. It 's take it er leave it, see? It 's up to you."

"I don't know what you mean." She straightened her hat.

"Yes, you do. You come with me now, er you don't come at all."

"Oh? Is that so?"

"That 's what I said."