Here are other women with sweet, artless faces who do not seem to be
strenuous or spoiled (as yet) by the world they move in, and these are
the most beautiful women in all the world; some in broughams (as one
popular story-writer invariably puts his heroines), or else walking
independently with an interesting gait.
[Illustration: ... close-ranked boarding-school squads.]
Here, in that landau, comes the latest foreign-titled visitor, urbane
and thoughtfully attentive to all that his friends are saying and
pointing out to him. And here is a bit of color, some world-examining,
tired-eyed Maharajah, with silk clothes--or was it only one of the
foreign consuls who drive along here every day.
There goes a fashionable city doctor, who has a high gig, and
correspondingly high prices, hurrying home for his office hours. Surely,
it would be more comfortable to get in and out of a low phaëton; this
vehicle is as high as that loud, conspicuous, advertising florist's
wagon--can it be for the same reason?
Here in that grinding automobile come a man and two women on their way
to an East Side _table d'hôte_, to see Bohemia, as they think; see how
reckless and devilish they look by anticipation! Up there on that 'bus
are some people from the country, real people from the real country,
and their mouths are open and they don't care. They are having much
more pleasure out of their trip than the self-conscious family group
entering that big gilded hotel, whose windows are constructed for seeing
in as well as out (and that is another way of advertising).
[Illustration: ... the coachmen and footmen flock there.]
Here comes a prominent citizen outlining his speech on his way home
to dress for the great banquet to-night, for he is a well-known
after-dinner orator, and during certain months of the year never has a
chance to dine at home with his family. Suppose, after all, he fails of
being nominated!
Here come a man and his wife walking down to a well-known
restaurant--early, so that he will have plenty of time to smoke at
the table and she to get comfortably settled at the theatre with the
programme folded before the curtain rises; such a sensible way. He is
not prominent at all, but they have a great deal of quiet happiness out
of living, these two.
And there goes the very English comedian these two are to see in
Pinero's new piece after dinner, though they did not observe him, to his
disappointment. It is rather late for an actor to be walking down to
his club to dine, but he is the star and doesn't come on until the end
of the first act, and his costume is merely that same broad-shouldered
English-cut frock coat he now has on. We, however, must hurry on.
[Illustration: The Church of the Heavenly Rest.]
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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