II

The court was roofed with glass; the April air was mild; the cry of
women selling violets came in from the street and, mingling with the
rich hum of Paris, seemed to bring with it faintly the odour of the
flowers. There were other odours in the place, warm succulent and
Parisian, which ranged from fried fish to burnt sugar; and there were
many things besides: little tables for the post-prandial coffee; piles
of luggage inscribed (after the initials or frequently the name) R. P.
Scudamore or D. Jackson Hodge, Philadelphia Pa., or St. Louis Mo.;
rattles of unregarded bells, flittings of tray-bearing waiters,
conversations with the second-floor windows of admonitory landladies,
arrivals of young women with coffinlike bandboxes covered with black
oil-cloth and depending from a strap, sallyings-forth of persons staying
and arrivals just afterwards of other persons to see them; together with
vague prostrations on benches of tired heads of American families. It
was to this last element that Mr. Dosson himself in some degree
contributed, but it must be added that he had not the extremely bereft
and exhausted appearance of certain of his fellows. There was an air of
ruminant resignation, of habitual accommodation in him; but you would
have guessed that he was enjoying a holiday rather than aching for a
truce, and he was not so enfeebled but that he was able to get up from
time to time and stroll through the porte cochere to have a look at the
street.

He gazed up and down for five minutes with his hands in his pockets, and
then came back; that appeared to content him; he asked for little and