Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/332

320 He growled something about "nothing fit to eat," and took up the menu again.

We were so put out to find the 'Fifth Avenue' torn down," she explained to the lieutenant; and he reflected her amusement in a frank expression of his pleasure in being there even to be lectured by her father. He had a fine air of spirited independence, which came of a military carriage of the head and an unwavering directness in the eye. She approved of it. She had seen a great many men cringe before her father, and many others adoringly make themselves ridiculous before her.

The lieutenant asked: "You were accustomed to going there—to the 'Fifth Avenue'?"

"Only hotel in the town," her father muttered. "A man might 's well have dinner in a church—this place."

There were stone pillars rising from beds of palms, stone balconies overhung with creepers, a fountain splashing in a stone basin, stone walls niched and garlanded, and a high vaulted roof of skylights from which hung baskets of ferns and ropes of wistaria vines that blossomed in electric lamps. The air was artificially heated and moistened to the temperature and freshness of the spring, and the music of an orchestra softly covered the sound of the sleet on the outer glass of the skylights.

It was all absurdly artificial, appallingly expensive and yet marvelous to see, with its acres of lamp-lit tables and its quiet multitude of guests. "I wish