U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [520]
It must have been about twelve o'clock when she found him standing beside the table where the scotch was. "Hel o, Sam," said Rodney Cathcart. "How's every little thing?"
"We must go now, the poor child is tired in al this noise. . . . Rodney, you must let Miss Dowling go now."
"O.K., pal," said Rodney Cathcart and turned his back to pour himself another glass of scotch.
When Margo came back from getting her wraps she
found Mr. Hardbein waiting for her in the vestibule. He bowed as he squeezed her hand.
"Wel , I don't mind tel -ing you, Miss Dowling, that you made a sensation. The girls are al asking what you use to dye your hair with." A laugh rumbled down into his broad vest.
"Would you come by my office? We might have a bite of lunch and talk things over a bit." Margo gave a little shudder. "It's sweet of you, Mr. Hardbein, but I never go to offices . . . I don't understand business. . . . You cal us up, won't you?"
-409-When she got out to the colonial porch there was Rod-ney Cathcart sitting beside Margolies in the long white car. Margo grinned and got in between them as cool as if she'd expected to find Rodney Cathcart there al the while. The car drove off. Nobody said anything. She couldn't tel where they were going, the avenues of palms and the strings of streetlamps al looked alike. They stopped at a big restaurant. "I thought we'd better have a little snack. . . . You didn't eat anything al evening," Mar-golies said, giving her hand a squeeze as he helped her out of the car. "That's the berries," said Rodney Cathcart who'd hopped out first. "This dawncing makes a guy beastly 'ungry." The headwaiter bowed almost to the ground and led
them through the restaurant ful of eyes to a table that had been reserved for them on the edge of the dancefloor. Margolies ate shreddedwheat biscuits and milk, Rodney Cathcart ate a steak and Margo took on the end of her fork a few pieces of a lobsterpatty. "A blighter needs a drink after that," grumbled Rodney Cathcart, pushing back his plate after polishing off the last fried potato. Margolies raised two fingers. "Here it is forbidden. . . . How sil y we are in this country. . . . How sil y they are." He rol ed his eyes towards Margo. She caught a wink in time to make it just a twitch of the eyelid and gave him that slow stopped smile he'd made such a fuss over at Palm Springs. Margolies got to his feet. "Come, Margo darling I have something to show you." As she and Rodney Cathcart fol owed him out across the red carpet she could feel ripples of excitement go through the people in the restaurant the way she'd felt it when she went places in Miami after Charley Anderson had been kil ed.
Margolies drove them to a big creamcolored apartment-house. They went up in an elevator. He opened a door with a latchkey and ushered them in. "This," he said, "in my little bachelor flat."
-410-It was a big dark room with a balcony at the end hung with embroideries. The wal s were covered with al kinds of oilpaintings each lit by a little overhead light of its own. There were oriental rugs piled one on the other on the floor and couches round the wal s covered with zebra and lion skins. "Oh, what a wonderful place," said Margo. Margolies turned to her, smiling. "A bit baronial, eh? The sort of thing you're accustomed to see in the castle of a Castilian grandee.""Absolutely," said Margo. Rodney Cathcart lay down ful length on one of the couches. "Say, Sam old top," he said, "have you got any of that good Canadian ale? 'Ow about a little Guinness in it?" Margolies went out into a pantry and the swinging door closed behind him. Margo roamed around looking at