Mrs. De Peyster's bills, when she had a servant with her, were always paid by the attendant. Matilda did so, out of a square black leather bag that was never out of Matilda's fingers when Matilda was out of the house; it seemed almost a flattened extension of Matilda's hand. They entered the Dauphin, passing other white-gloved lackeys, each a separate perfection of punctiliousness; and passed through a marble hallway, muted with rugs of the Orient, and came into a vast high chamber, large as a theater--marble walls and ceiling, tapestries, moulded plaster and gilt in moderation, silken ropes instead of handrails on the stairways, electric lights so shaded that each looked a huge but softly unobtrusive pearl. The chamber was pervaded by, was dedicated to, splendid repose. Mrs. De Peyster, Matilda trailing, headed for a booth of marble and railing of dull gold--the latter, possibly, only bronze, or gilded iron--within which stood a gentleman in evening dress, with the bearing of one no lower than the first secretary of an embassy. "A suite," Mrs. De Peyster remarked briefly across the counter, "with sitting-room, two bed-rooms and bath." "Certainly," said the distinguished gentleman. "I have a most desirable suite on the fifteenth floor, with a splendid outlook over the park." "That will do." "The name, please?" queried the gentleman, reaching for a pen. "Mrs. David Harrison," invented Mrs. De Peyster. "When do your employers wish to occupy the suite?" pursued the courtly voice of the secretary of the embassy. "Our employers!" repeated Mrs. De Peyster. And then with wrathful hauteur: "The apartment is for ourselves. We desire to occupy it at once." The gentleman glanced her up and down; then up and down his eyes went over Matilda, just behind her. There was no doubting what Matilda was; and since the two were patently the same, there could be no doubt as to what Mrs. De Peyster was. "I'm sorry--but, after all, the suite is not available," he said courteously. "Not available?" cried Mrs. De Peyster. "Why not?" "I prefer to say no more." "But I insist!" "Since you insist--the Dauphin does not receive servants, even of the higher order, as regular guests." The hotel clerk's voice was silken with courtesy; there was no telling with what important families these two were connected; and it would not do to give offense. "We receive servants only when they accompany their employers, and then assign them to the servants' quarters. You yourself must perceive the necessity of this," he added hastily, seeing that Mrs. De Peyster was shaking, "to preserve the Dauphin's social tone--" "The servants' quarters!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster. "You mean--" "You'll excuse me, please," interrupted the clerk, and with a bow ended the scene and moved to the rear of the office where he plainly busied himself over nothing at all.