Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/128

 "Can I ride? Well, say, that's what I don't do anything else but."

His drawl and good looks fascinated them. They drew him out; when they wanted to know how he had come East, and he told them in the caboose of a cattle train, they would have been less thrilled if he had said he had made a pair of wings and flown. But all the time Kay felt that they were somehow cheapening him, taking advantage of him for a half hour's amusement. And later on they would talk and take him off. She knew them. "As Kay's cowboy would say"

She did not know how little he had eaten that day, but she did know they were giving him too much to drink. And to add to her confusion and growing distress was the certainty that the episode could not be kept from her people. It was madness; they were all mad, and she was the maddest of the lot.

They were certainly drinking too much. One youth was raising a highball glass to Tom.

"Are we all friends?" he inquired solemnly.

"We are all friends," said Tom with equal solemnity, and emptied his glass. The crowd had grown in—size and noise. Her head ached and her heart was heavy. When at six o'clock the man who had precipitated the situation at the start appeared with a necktie tied around his head and a feather stuck in it, wearing a striped blanket around his shoulders and solemnly beating a tomtom consisting of a wooden chopping bowl from the club kitchen, she had reached the limit of her endurance.

She worked her way through the crowd.

"I'm sorry, Tom," she said, "but I must be getting home. When are you going back?"

He was exhilarated, but more with excitement than with liquor. He had been sitting negligently on a table, and now he got up.

"Going home? But I haven't talked to you yet."

"You've been too popular. I'll have to see you another time."