behind, her bare shoulders were like powdered rosy marble and the
floating skirts gathered in a hand showed marvelously small satin-tied
carriage boots. Indeed Linda's exclamation of delight was entirely
frank. She had never seen her mother more radiant. The cunningly
applied rouge, the enhanced brilliancy of her long-lashed eyes, had
perfectly the illusion of unspent beauty.

"Do stay down-stairs after dinner and play," the elder begged. "And
if you want to go to the theatre, ask Mr. Bendix, at the desk, to
send you with that chauffeur we have had so much. I positively
forbid your leaving the hotel else. It's a comfort after all, that
you are serious. Kiss mama--"

However, she descended with her mother in the elevator; there was a
more public caress; and the captain in the Chinese dining-room placed
Linda at a small table against the wall. There she had clams--she
adored iced clams--creamed shrimps and oysters with potatoes
_bordure_, alligator-pear salad and a beautiful charlotte cream
with black walnuts. After this she sedately instructed the captain
what to sign on the back of the dinner check--Linda Condon, room
five hundred and seven--placed thirty-five cents beside the finger-bowl
for the waiter, and made her way out to the news stand and the
talkative girl who had it in charge. Exhausting the possibilities of
gossip, and deciding not to go out to the theatre--in spite of the
news girl's exciting description of a play called "The New Sin"--she
was walking irresolutely through the high gilded and marble
assemblage space when, unfortunately, she was captured by Mr. Moses
Feldt.