Usually they were going with a restrained sharp eagerness toward the
dining-room or leaving it in a more languid flushed repletion. There
were, among them, men; but somehow the men never seemed to be of the
least account. It was a women's paradise. The glow from above always
emphasized the gowns, the gowns like orchids and tea-roses and the
leaves of magnolias. It sparkled in the red and green and crystal
jewels like exotic dew scattered over the exotic human flowers. Very
occasionally there was a complacent or irritable masculine utterance,
and then it was immediately lost in the dominant feminine sibilance.

Other children than Linda sped in the manner of brilliant fretful
tops literally on the elaborate outskirts of the throng; but they
were as different from her as she was from the elders. Indeed Linda
resembled the latter, rather than her proper age, remarkably. She
had an air of responsibility, sometimes expressed in a troubled
frown, and again by the way she hurried sedately through drifting
figures toward a definite purpose and end.

Usually it was in the service of one of her mother's small
innumerable requests or necessities; if the latter were sitting with
a gentleman on the open hotel promenade that overlooked the sea and
needed a heavier wrap, Linda returned immediately with a furred
cloak on her arm; if the elder, going out after dinner, had brought
down the wrong gloves, Linda knew the exact wanted pair in the long
perfumed box; while countless trifles were needed from the
convenient drug-store.

The latter was a place of white mosaic floor and glittering glass,
with a marble counter heaped with vivid fruit and silver-covered
bowls of sirups and creams with chopped nuts. Linda often found time