§ 37
Yes, this was Mount Olympus, and here were the gods: the female ones
in a state of divine semi-nudity, the male ones mostly clad in black
coats with pleated shirt-fronts puffing out. Every time one of them
moved up to the desk Peter would watch and wonder, was this Mr.
Lackman? He might have been able to pick out a millionaire from an
ordinary crowd; but here every male god was got up for the precise
purpose of looking like a millionaire, so Peter's job was an impossible
one.
In front of him across the lobby floor there arose a ten-foot
pillar to a far-distant roof. This pillar was of pale, green-streaked
marble, and Peter's eyes followed it to the top, where it exploded in a
snow-white cloud-burst, full of fascination. There were four
cornucopias, one at each corner, and out of each cornucopia came tangled
ropes of roses, and out of these roses came other ropes, with what
appeared to be apples and leaves, and still more roses, and still more
emerging ropes, spreading in a tangle over the ceiling. Here and there,
in the midst of all this splendor, was the large, placidly smiling face
of a boy angel; four of these placidly smiling boy angels gazed from the
four sides of the snow-white cloud-burst, and Peter's eye roamed from
one to another, fascinated by the mathematics of this architectural
marvel. There were fourteen columns in a row, and four such rows in the
lobby. That made fifty-six columns in all, or two hundred and
twenty-four boy angels' heads. How many cornucopias and how many roses
and how many apples it meant, defied all calculation. The boy
angels' heads were exactly alike, every head with the same size and
quality of smile; and Peter marvelled — how many days would it take a
sculptor to carve the details of two hundred and twenty-four boy angel
smiles?
All over the Hotel de Soto was this same kind of sumptuous
magnificence; and Peter experienced the mental effect which it was
contrived to produce upon him — a sense of bedazzlement and awe, a
realization that those who dwelt in the midst of this splendor were
people to whom money was nothing, who could pour out treasures in a
never-ceasing flood. And everything else about the place was of the same
character, contrived for the same effect — even the gods and the
goddesses! One would sweep by with a tiara of jewels in her hair; you
might amuse yourself by figuring out the number of the jewels, as you
had figured out the number of the boy angels' heads. Or you might take
her gown of black lace, embroidered with golden butterflies, every one
patiently done by hand; you might figure — so many yards of material, and
so many golden butterflies to the yard! You might count the number of
sparkling points upon her jet slippers, or trace the intricate designs
upon her almost transparent stockings — only there was an inch or two of
the stockings which you could not see.
Peter watched these gorgeous divinities emerge from the
elevators, and sweep their way into the dining-room beyond.
Some people might have been shocked by their costumes;
but to Peter, who had the picture of Mount Olympus
in mind, they seemed most proper. It all depended on the
point of view: whether you thought of a goddess as fully
clothed from chin to toes, and proceeded with a pair of
shears to cut away so much of her costume, or whether you
imagined the goddess in a state of nature, and proceeded
to put veils of gauze about her, and a ribbon over each
shoulder to hold the veils in place.
Twice Peter went to the desk, to inquire if Mr. Lackman had come
in yet; but still he had not come; and Peter — growing bolder, like the
fox who spoke to the lion — strolled about the lobby, gazing at the
groups of gods at ease. He had noticed a great balcony around all four
sides of this lobby, the "mezzanine floor," as it was called; he decided
he would see what was up there, and climbed the white marble stairs, and
beheld more rows of chairs and couches, done in dark grey velvet. Here,
evidently, was where the female gods came to linger, and Peter seated
himself as unobtrusively as possible, and watched.
Directly in front of him sat a divinity, lolling on a
velvet couch with one bare white arm stretched out. It
was a large stout arm, and the possessor was large and
stout, with pale golden hair and many sparkling jewels.
Her glance roamed lazily from place to place. It rested
for an instant on Peter, and then moved on, and Peter
felt the comment upon his own insignificance.
Nevertheless, he continued to steal glances now and then, and
presently saw an interesting sight. In her lap this Juno had a
gold-embroidered bag, and she opened it, disclosing a collection of
mysterious apparatus of which she proceeded to make use: first a little
gold hand-mirror, in which she studied her charms; then a little white
powder-puff with which she deftly tapped her nose and cheeks; then some
kind of red pencil with which she proceeded to rub her lips; then a
golden pencil with which she lightly touched her eyebrows. Then it
seemed as if she must have discovered
a little hair which had grown since she left her dressing-room. Peter
couldn't be sure, but she had a little pair of tweezers, and seemed to
pull something out of her chin. She went on with quite an elaborate and
complicated toilet, paying meantime not the slightest attention to the
people passing by.
Peter looked farther, and saw that just as when one person
sneezes or yawns everybody else in the room is irresistibly impelled to
sneeze or yawn, so all these Dianas and Junos and Hebes on the
"mezzanine floor" had suddenly remembered their little gold or silver
hand-mirrors, their powder-puff s and red or golden or black pencils.
One after another, the little vanity-bags came forth, and Peter, gazing
in wonder, thought that Mount Olympus had turned into a beauty parlor.
Peter rose again and strolled and watched the goddesses, big and
little, old and young, fat and thin, pretty and ugly — and it seemed to
him the fatter and older and uglier they were, the more intently they
gazed into the little hand-mirrors. He watched them with hungry eyes,
for he knew that here he was in the midst of high life, the real thing,
the utmost glory to which man could ever hope to attain, and he wanted
to know all there was to know about it. He strolled on, innocent and
unsuspecting, and the two hundred and twenty-four white boy angels in
the ceiling smiled their bland and placid smiles at him, and Peter knew
no more than they what complications fate had prepared for him on that
mezzanine floor!
On one of the big lounges there sat a girl, a radiant
creature from the Emerald Isles, with hair like sunrise and
cheeks like apples. Peter took one glance at her, and his
heart missed three successive beats, and then, to make up
for lost time, began leaping like a runaway race-horse. He
could hardly believe what his eyes told him; but his eyes
insisted, his eyes knew; yes, his eyes had gazed for hours
and hours on end upon that hair like sunrise and those
cheeks like apples. The girl was Nell, the chambermaid of
the Temple of Jimjambo!
She had not looked Peter's way, so there was time for him to
start back and hide himself behind a pillar; there he stood, peering out
and watching her profile, still arguing with his eyes. It couldn't be
Nell; and yet it was! Nell transfigured, Nell translated to Olympus,
turned into a goddess with a pale grey band about her middle, and a pale
grey ribbon over each shoulder to hold it in place! Nell reclining at
ease and chatting vivaciously to a young man with the face of a bulldog
and the dinner-jacket of a magazine advertisement!
Peter gazed and waited, while his heart went on misbehaving.
Peter learned in those few fearful minutes what real love is, a most
devastating force. Little Jennie was forgotten, Mrs. James, the grass
widow was forgotten, and Peter knew that he had never really admired but
one woman in the world, and that was Nell, the Irish chambermaid of the
Temple of Jimjambo. The poets have seen fit to represent young love as a
mischievous little archer with a sharp and penetrating arrow, and now
Peter understood what they had meant; that arrow had pierced him thru,
and he had to hold on to the column to keep himself from falling.
