Page:Manhattan Transfer (John Dos Passos, 1925).djvu/151

 "Oh but I dont know anything about anything, that's tha trouble I think I'll take lemon please."

Glasses clinked about them; through blue cigarettesmoke faces hats beards wagged, repeated greenish in the mirrors,

"But my de-e-ar it's always the same old complex. It may be true of men but it says nothing in regard to women," droned a woman's voice from the next table "Your feminism rises into an insuperable barrier," trailed a man's husky meticulous tones. "What if I am an egoist? God knows I've suffered for it." "Fire that purifies, Charley" George was speaking, trying to catch her eye. "How's the famous Jojo?"

"Oh let's not talk about him."

"The less said about him the better eh?"

"Now George I wont have you sneer at Jojo, for better or worse he is my husband, till divorce do us part No I wont have you laugh. You're too crude and simple to understand him anyway. Jo jo's a very complicated rather tragic person."

"For God's sake don't let's talk about husbands and wives. The important thing, little Elaine, is that you and I are sitting here together without anyone to bother us Look when are we going to see each other again, really see each other, really"

"We're not going to be too real about this, are we George?"

She laughed softly into her cup.

"Oh but I have so many things to say to you. I want to ask you so many things."

She looked at him laughing, balancing a small cherry tartlet that had one bite out of it between a pink squaretipped finger and thumb. "Is that the way you act when you've got some miserable sinner on the witnessbox? I thought it was more like: Where were you on the night of February thirtyfirst?"

"But I'm dead serious, that's what you cant understand, or wont."

A young man stood at the table, swaying a little, looking down at them. "Hello Stan, where the dickens did you come