The beat of his heels and toes pleased
you like a snare-drum obligato. The performance ended with an amazing
clatter of leather against wood that culminated in a sudden flat-footed
stamp, leaving the dancer erect and as motionless as a pillar of the
colonial portico of a mansion in a Kentucky prohibition town. Mac felt
that he had done his best and that Del Delano would turn his back upon
him in derisive scorn.
An approximate silence followed, broken only by the mewing of a cafe cat
and the hubbub and uproar of a few million citizens and transportation
facilities outside.
Mac turned a hopeless but nervy eye upon Del Delano's face. In it he
read disgust, admiration, envy, indifference, approval, disappointment,
praise, and contempt.
Thus, in the countenances of those we hate or love we find what we most
desire or fear to see. Which is an assertion equalling in its wisdom and
chiaroscuro the most famous sayings of the most foolish philosophers
that the world has ever known.
Del Delano retired within his overcoat and hat.
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