The Abbaye Thélème on this occasion presented a brilliant scene. Outside a small railing near the door several negro singers, a mandolin-and a guitar-player, and several stage dancers were congregated. A throng of people was pouring through the doors, all with their tables previously arranged for. Outside, where a January wind was blowing, you could hear a perfect uproar of slamming taxi doors, and the calls of doormen and chauffeurs getting their vehicles in and out of the way. The company generally, as on all such occasions, was alert to see who was present and what the general spirit of the occasion was to be. Instantly I detected a number of Americans; three amazingly beautiful Englishwomen, such as I had not seen in England, and their escorts; a few Spaniards or South Americans; and, after that, a variety of persons whom I took to be largely French, although it was impossible to tell. The Englishwomen interested me because in all my stay in Europe I never saw three other women quite so beautiful, and because in all my stay in England I scarcely saw a good-looking Englishwoman. X. suggested that they were of that high realm of fashion which rarely remains in London during the winter, when I was there; that if I came again in May or June, and went to the races, I would see plenty of them. Their lovely hair was straw-colored, and their cheeks and foreheads were a faint pink and cream. Their arms and shoulders were delightfully bare, and they carried themselves with amazing hauteur. By one o’clock, when the majority of the guests had arrived, this room fairly shimmered with white silks and satins, white arms and shoulders, roses in black hair, and blue and lavender ribbons fastened about hair of a lighter color. There were jewels in plenty,--opals and amethysts, turquoises and rubies,--and there was a perfect artillery of champagne corks. Every table was attended by its silver bucket of ice, and the mandolins and guitars in their crowded angle were strumming mightily.