"Well, you'll have to decide which you prefer—ice cream, or seeing The Starlings."
"Don't listen to Semy—he's a Machiavelli." Clem laughed.
"One of these days I'm going to cut off your beard," Lucy said, ignoring Machiavelli and Semanter Klug.
Machiavelli—how is it I've neglected to read him? ruminated Semy.
"Harya, Klug," young Lauter said, clapping him on the shoulder.
Semy sprang up obsequiously. "Oh hello, I'm just fine, thanks. How are you?"
"Fine. Home for the week end. Thought I'd say hello to you and your friends." He eyed Lucy with unmistakable interest.
"Oh, excuse me," Semy said, flustered, introducing everyone.
"Very pleased to meet you," beamed Herold at an unsmiling Lucy. "My friends and I wondered if you wouldn't join us. We've a flask."
"We're just leaving," Clem said with finality, standing up, his hand on Lucy's chair.
Herold ignored him. "Haven't I seen you in Lincoln or Omaha?" he persisted to Lucy.
"No." The idea of trying that on her, he must think her a child. She turned to Clem and winked.
"We'll have to hurry or we'll be late," Clem cooperated.
"Well, nice to have met you," Herold said to her, ignoring the others, returning discomfited to his table.
"Nice of you to have stopped by," Semy called as they started to leave. "What do you want to do, lose me my job, that's my boss's son," he said irritably to Lucy.
"I don't like him, and you said yourself he's a dope."
"He could be very useful. His father owns the paper. He might even get you a job on the stage here."
"Ha!—ha!—ha!—" she jeered.
At that moment Semanter Klug never had hated anyone as much as Lucy Claudel, whose ridicule forced him to see the picture of his obsequiousness to Lauter, and son.
The opening acrobatic act was on when they arrived.
"Oh dear, they make you wait so long for the star act," Lucy sighed during the forced encores.
Then a man in a straw hat and brown striped suit told jokes,
