Resignedly the priest sat down in a retired corner of the hall, where he
could watch those who came in by the revolving door. That he should be
sitting in this home of gayety and fashion at Monte Carlo appealed to
his sense of humour. "A bull in a china shop," he thought, "is in his
element compared to poor Father Pietro Coromaldi in the hall of the
Hotel de Paris."
At first he was half shyly diverted by the gay pageant around him, the
coming and going of perfectly dressed men and women of many nations, who
drank tea and ate little cakes, while the band played the sort of music
which can have no mission save as an incentive to conversation.
But time went on, and Vanno did not come. The cure tired of the people,
most of whom he felt inclined to pity, as no real joy shone out of their
eyes, even when they laughed. He thought the pretty, smiling young women
were like attractive advertisements for tooth-pastes, and face-powders,
and furs, and hats. They did not look to him like real people, living
real, everyday lives; and Miss Grant, though perhaps she led just such
an existence, seemed to belong to a different order of being.
At last Lady Dauntrey, in her smart purple dress, came in with a tall,
haggard man who had the eyes of a chained and starving dog. They joined
a conspicuous party whose principal members were a fat woman massaged to
the teeth, a dark girl who had evidently a sharp eye to the main chance
as well as to the picturesque, and a hook-nosed, appallingly pompous man
who would strut on the edge of the grave.
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