The truth was that because of some rounds he had made elsewhere he was verging toward too much liquor.

His eye was alight, his color coppery, his air swagger, devil-may-care, bacchanal.

This made her a little cautious; but she rather liked his brown, hard face, handsome mouth, and crisp Jovian curls.

His compliment was not utterly improper; but she nevertheless attempted coyly to avoid him.
"Come, Polk, here's an old friend of yours over here--Sadie Boutwell--she wants to meet you again," some one observed, catching him by the arm.
"No, you don't," he exclaimed, genially, and yet at the same time a little resentfully--the kind of disjointed resentment a man who has had the least bit too much is apt to feel on being interrupted.

"I'm not going to walk all over Chicago thinking of a woman I've seen somewhere only to be carried away the first time I do meet her.