“Don’t worry. I won’t.”

“Good-by,” said Babe again.

“Good-by,” said the Bearcat.

He turned away from the phone to find Charlie standing only a foot or two away from him, his hands on his hips.

“Well,” said Charlie, his jaw setting hard, “who ’n hell was that? A woman, I know. I could hear her squawkin’ from over here.”

The Bearcat looked at Charlie uncertainly for an instant. Then he decided he might as well tell him the truth.

“It was Babe,” the Bearcat confided.

“Come over here,” said Charlie; he walked over to where two chairs were close together. “Sit down.”

The Bearcat lowered himself into a chair and threw a leg over one of its arms.

Charlie sat down and bit into a fresh cigar. Then he slid forward on the end of his chair and leaned his face close to the Bearcat. His voice was low but firm.

“What do you think you’re doin’?” he inquired, coldly.

“I ain’t doin’ nothin’,” said the Bearcat. “There ain’t no harm in takin’ a girl to dinner, is there?”

“Takin’ what girl to dinner? Babe?”

“Sure.”

Charlie’s lip curled.

“You might as well be takin’ a load of dynamite to dinner and start kickin’ it around.”

“Don’t talk foolish, Charlie. I’m tellin’ you, Babe’s all right. She’s different.”

“You’re goddam right she’s different!”

“Why, only just now,” the Bearcat went on, “she told me she came from church.”

“What?” Charlie shouted. He lost his balance on the edge of the chair and hit the tiled floor with a bump. The shock had been too much for him.

The Bearcat sprang up with a look of concern.

“What’s the matter!” he cried, as he lifted Charlie to his feet. “Are you hurt?”

Charlie was shaking with laughter. “Church!” he yelled, going off into another gale of laughter. Bearcat had never seen him laugh like that before.

The manager sank weakly into his chair.

“I ain’t had a belly-laugh like that in a year,” he said. Then he looked sad, as he discovered that in falling he had ruined a perfectly good cigar.

His head went up and his eyes flashed angrily.

“Don’t be a sap! Babe Gordon go to church! Why the place’d cave in on her. If you said she went to hell, I’d believe you.”

The Bearcat’s face was a dangerous red.

“Well, whether you believe it or not, I’m leavin’ nowto have dinner with her. If you want to go ridin’ I’ll be back here at two o’clock. If you don’t, say so now.”

Then they stared at one another in silence for what seemed a long while.

Charlie broke the stillness.

“I can see where life is gonna be hell from now on.” He rose and walked straight to the elevator which took him aloft.