Three Weeks | Page 4

mountains, I suppose, but I can't see them. There is hardly any one in
the hotel, because the Easter visitors have all gone back and the
summer ones haven't come, so I doubt even if I can have a game of
billiards. I am sick of guide-books, and I should like to take the next
train home again. I must dress for dinner now, and I'll finish this
to-night."
Paul dressed for dinner; his temper was vile, and his valet trembled.
Then he went down into the restaurant scowling, and was ungracious to
the polite and conciliating waiters, ordering his food and a bottle of
claret as if they had done him an injury. "Anglais," they said to one
another behind the serving-screen, pointing their thumbs at him--"he
pay but he damn."
Then Paul sent for the New York Herald and propped it up in front of
him, prodding at some olives with his fork, one occasionally reaching
his mouth, while he read, and awaited his soup.
The table next to him in this quiet corner was laid for one, and had a
bunch of roses in the centre, just two or three exquisite blooms that he
was familiar with the appearance of in the Paris shops. Nearly all the
other tables were empty or emptying; he had dined very late. Who
could want roses eating alone? The menu, too, was written out and
ready, and an expression of expectancy lightened the face of the head
waiter--who himself brought a bottle of most carefully decanted red
wine, feeling the temperature through the fine glass with the air of a
great connoisseur.
"One of those over-fed foreign brutes of no sex, I suppose," Paul said to
himself, and turned to the sporting notes in front of him.
He did not look up again until he heard the rustle of a dress.
The woman had to pass him--even so close that the heavy silk touched
his foot. He fancied he smelt tuberoses, but it was not until she sat
down, and he again looked at her, that he perceived a knot of them
tucked into the front of her bodice.

A woman to order dinner for herself beforehand, and have special wine
and special roses--special attention, too! It was simply disgusting!
Paul frowned. He brought his brown eyebrows close together, and
glared at the creature with his blue young eyes.
An elderly, dignified servant in black livery stood behind her chair. She
herself was all in black, and her hat--an expensive,
distinguished-looking hat--cast a shadow over her eyes. He could just
see they were cast down on her plate. Her face was white, he saw that
plainly enough, startlingly white, like a magnolia bloom, and contained
no marked features. No features at all! he said to himself. Yes--he was
wrong, she had certainly a mouth worth looking at again. It was so red.
Not large and pink and laughingly open like Isabella's, but straight and
chiselled, and red, red, red.
Paul was young, but he knew paint when he saw it, and this red was
real, and vivid, and disconcerted him.
He began his soup--hers came at the same time; she had only toyed
with some caviare by way of hors d'oeuvre, and it angered him to
notice the obsequiousness of the waiters, who passed each thing to the
dignified servant to be placed before the lady by his hand. Who was she
to be served with this respect and rapidity?
Only her red wine the maître d'hôtel poured into her glass himself. She
lifted it up to the light to see the clear ruby, then she sipped it and
scented its bouquet, the maître d'hôtel anxiously awaiting her verdict
the while. "Bon," was all she said, and the weight of the world seemed
to fall from the man's sloping shoulders as he bowed and moved aside.
Paul's irritation grew. "She's well over thirty," he said to himself. "I
suppose she has nothing else to live for! I wonder what the devil she'll
eat next!"
She ate a delicate truite bleu, but she did not touch her wine again the
while. She had almost finished the fish before Paul's sole au vin blanc
arrived upon the scene, and this angered him the more. Why should he

wait for his dinner while this woman feasted? Why, indeed. What
would her next course be? He found himself unpleasantly interested to
know. The tenderest _selle d'agneau au lait_ and the youngest green
peas made their appearance, and again the maître d'hôtel returned,
having mixed the salad.
Paul noticed with all these things the lady ate but a small portion of
each. And it was not until a fat quail arrived later, while he himself was
trying to get through two mutton chops à l'anglaise, that she again