But the next day, as Jimmy was heading for the La Salle restaurant to
get his luncheon, who should call to him airily from a passing taxi
but Zoie. It was apparent that she wished him to wait until she could
alight; and in spite of his disinclination to do so, he not only waited
but followed the taxi to its stopping place and helped the young woman
to the pavement.
"Oh, you darling!" exclaimed Zoie, all of a flutter, and looking exactly
like an animated doll. "You've just saved my life." She called to the
taxi driver to "wait."
"Are you in trouble?" asked the guileless Jimmy.
"Yes, dreadful," answered Zoie, and she thrust a half-dozen small
parcels into Jimmy's arms. "I have to be at my dressmaker's in half an
hour; and I haven't had a bite of lunch. I'm miles and miles from home;
and I can't go into a restaurant and eat just by myself without being
stared at. Wasn't it lucky that I saw you when I did?"
There was really very little left for Jimmy to say, so he said it; and a
few minutes later they were seated tete-a-tete in one of Chicago's most
fashionable restaurants, and Zoie the unconscious flirt was looking up
at Jimmy with apparently adoring eyes, and suggesting all the eatables
which he particularly abominated.
No sooner had the unfortunate man acquiesced in one thing and
communicated Zoie's wish to the waiter, than the flighty young person
found something else on the menu that she considered more tempting to
her palate. Time and again the waiter had to be recalled and the order
had to be given over until Jimmy felt himself laying up a store of
nervous indigestion that would doubtless last him for days.
When the coveted food at last arrived, Zoie had become completely
engrossed in the headgear of one of her neighbours, and it was only
after Jimmy had been induced to make himself ridiculous by craning his
neck to see things of no possible interest to him that Zoie at last gave
her attention to her plate.
In obeyance of Jimmy's order the waiter managed to rush the lunch
through within three-quarters of an hour; but when Jimmy and Zoie at
length rose to go he was so insanely irritated, that he declared they
had been in the place for hours; demanded that the waiter hurry his
bill; and then finally departed in high dudgeon without leaving the
customary "tip" behind him.
But all this was without its effect upon Zoie, who, a few moments
later rode away in her taxi, waving gaily to Jimmy who was now late for
business and thoroughly at odds with himself and the world.