“You do care for me, don’t you?” the Bearcat asked Babe.

“Oh, I’m crazy about you. You ought to know that by now.” Babe clung to him. “I wouldn’t let you kiss me like that if I didn’t care a lot.”

“Do you like the way I kiss you?” The Bearcat’s breath came quickly.

“I’m mad about it,” Babe whispered. “Just don’t stop, that’s all.”

There was something sweet in woman’s flesh that made a man’s flesh thirsty and hungry and feverish and drunk all at the same time. The Bearcat had believed the supreme thrill to be the fierce joy of man’s flesh grinding against man’s flesh in ring combat. But he felt something different and new in that cab.

“I never did much of this,” he said. “Kind of takes my breath away. I didn’t know I could do it like this until tonight.”

Babe pressed her lips to his ear.

“You’ve kissed other girls before.”

“Never like this—and very few of them too.”

His hand passed over Babe’s thighs. “Jeeziz, what would Charlie say to all this?” The cab was passing the Nelson Hotel, right where Charlie was proudly waiting for his mighty warrior. The Bearcat went sick at heart passing the hotel. He sought to resist, hoped for the bell to save him, but the cab rolled on street after street with the Bearcat lost in sensuous bliss.

The Bearcat said good-night to Babe at the elevator in her hotel. Then with his thoughts in a jumble he walked toward the corner. His hand happened into his pocket, and he pulled out an unfamiliar bulk. It was Babe’s gloves—three-quarter length white kid.

“Well, what do you know about that?” he asked himself.

He looked around, undecided what to do. There was a drug store on the corner which remained open all night. He went there, and into a telephone booth.

He called Babe’s hotel and got her on the wire.

“I found your gloves in my pocket, dear,” he said.

“Where are you now, honey?” Babe asked.

“Right down at the corner at a drug store.”

“Oh,” said Babe. “Then you better bring them to me. I might want to wear them tomorrow.”

He walked rapidly back to the hotel and entered the elevator. He was a bit nervous going up to her room. He felt that he was being watched. The Bearcat noticed that the colored elevator boy had some morning newspapers. A tabloid bore a huge picture of himself.

“Gimme that paper,” he told the boy. He dug out a dollar bill and gave it for the paper. “Keep the change.”

The boy’s face lit up with a friendly grin as he pocketed the money. Tips had been few that night.

“Yo’ is Misto Delaney, ain’t yo’?” he said. “I done been readin’ ’bout yo’ in duh papers.”