we'd better let it all go till after supper; perhaps I shall see Stoller
myself by that time."

She had been deeply stirred by her encounter with Stoller, but she
entered with impartial intensity into the fact that the elevator at
Pupp's had the characteristic of always coming up and never going down
with passengers. It was locked into its closet with a solid door, and
there was no bell to summon it, or any place to take it except on the
ground-floor; but the stairs by which she could descend were abundant and
stately; and on one landing there was the lithograph of one of the
largest and ugliest hotels in New York; how ugly it was, she said she
should never have known if she had not seen it there.

The dining-room was divided into the grand saloon, where they supped amid
rococo sculptures and frescoes, and the glazed veranda opening by vast
windows on a spread of tables without, which were already filling up for
the evening concert. Around them at the different tables there were
groups of faces and figures fascinating in their strangeness, with that
distinction which abashes our American level in the presence of European
inequality.

"How simple and unimpressive we are, Basil," she said, "beside all these
people! I used to feel it in Europe when I was young, and now I'm certain
that we must seem like two faded-in old village photographs. We don't
even look intellectual! I hope we look good."

"I know I do," said March. The waiter went for their supper, and they
joined in guessing the different nationalities in the room. A French
party was easy enough; a Spanish mother and daughter were not difficult,
though whether they were not South-American remained uncertain; two