up appearances before oneself; but the restaurant was large and terribly
magnificent, with a violent rose-coloured carpet, and curtains which
made me, in my frightened pallor, with my pale yellow hair and my gray
travelling dress, feel like a poor little underground celery-stalk flung
into a sunlit strawberry-bed, amid a great humming of bees.

The vast rosy sea was thickly dotted with many small table-islands that
glittered appetizingly with silver and glass; but I could not have
afforded to acknowledge an appetite even if I'd had one.

My conversation with the Russian woman had made me rather late. Most of
the islands were inhabited, and as I was piloted past them by a haughty
head waiter I heard people talking about golf, tennis, croquet, bridge,
reminding me that I was in a place devoted to the pursuit of pleasure.

The most desirable islands were next the windows, therefore the one at
which I dropped anchor (for I'd changed from a celery-stalk into a
little boat now) was exactly in the middle of the room, with no view
save of faces and backs of heads.

One of the faces was that of the lady who had gone up with me in the
lift; and now and then, from across the distance that separated us, I
saw her glance at me. She sat alone at a table that had beautiful roses
on it, and she read a book as she ate.

One ordered here _à la carte_: there was no _déjeuner à prix fixe_; and
it took courage to tell a waiter who looked like a weary young duke that
I would have _consommé_ and bread, with nothing, no, _nothing_ to
follow.