'Leave it to me: I'll fix it. Au revoir!
It's three minutes to eight. I shall take charge of the dining-room
myself to-night.'
And Jules departed, rubbing his fine white hands slowly and
meditatively. It was a trick of his, to rub his hands with a strange,
roundabout motion, and the action denoted that some unusual
excitement was in the air.
At eight o'clock precisely dinner was served in the immense salle
manger, that chaste yet splendid apartment of white and gold. At a
small table near one of the windows a young lady sat alone. Her
frocks said Paris, but her face unmistakably said New York. It was
a self-possessed and bewitching face, the face of a woman
thoroughly accustomed to doing exactly what she liked, when she
liked, how she liked: the face of a woman who had taught
hundreds of gilded young men the true art of fetching and carrying,
and who, by twenty years or so of parental spoiling, had come to
regard herself as the feminine equivalent of the Tsar of All the
Russias. Such women are only made in America, and they only
come to their full bloom in Europe, which they imagine to be a
continent created by Providence for their diversion.
The young lady by the window glanced disapprovingly at the menu
card. Then she looked round the dining-room, and, while admiring
the diners, decided that the room itself was rather small and plain.
Then she gazed through the open window, and told herself that
though the Thames by twilight was passable enough, it was by no
means level with the Hudson, on whose shores her father had a
hundred thousand dollar country cottage.
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