There is something about having money enough to stay at the St. Francis,
and to dine there and to wear smart clothes there that makes people
step out and act sure of themselves. Even when they can’t afford it, and
their stay there is a splurge or an outing, they act just as sure
and stepping. And as for the people to whom the St. Francis is but an
incident they act sure because they were born that way.
Never in my life have I seen such sure, well-dressed women as in the
lobby of the St. Francis. And I am no greenhorn at lobbies. I have
reviewed in my day some of the best peacock alleys in the country. There
is the New Willard. Now when I think of the New Willard, I see frumpily
dressed dowagers talking through their lorgnettes to moth-eaten
senators. The Selbach in Louisville, the St. Charles in New Orleans are
famed for their handsome women, but none are so free and proudly sure of
themselves on peacock alley as California women. No women dress as they
do either. They are not so chic as they are smart; their tailor
mades, their furs, their hats with a preponderance of orange, their
well-dressed legs and feet and a reserved brilliance that makes them the
finest-looking women in the United States.
It is a fine pastime to step out from the surge of Life for a minute and
let it ebb and flow around one in the lobby of the St. Francis. Such a
pageant of individual stories. An exquisitely dressed young girl meets
another there, and soon two young chaps appear and they all begin
talking silly nothings, and laughing at each other’s silly jokes, and
looking into each other’s foolish young eyes much as lovers have always
done. A harassed business man rushes frantically to the telegraph desk
and wires his firm at Pittsburgh. Some staid, comfortably-fixed tourists
from Newton Center, Massachusetts, come in from sight-seeing and go up
to their rooms and quickly get their shoes off. A group of Elks come
in, arm-linked, and start one wondering about the enforcement of the dry
law. In and out among all these moving comedies and tragedies flits like
an orange-colored butterfly a little Oriental boy, an angel-faced page
goes calling “Mister Smith,” and sober looking bell-hops stand alert to
the sound of “Front.”
A beautiful woman steps forward and meets a handsome man and they go to
dinner together, and somehow I don’t think he is her husband and wonder
if she is a widow and decide that it is none of my business. If she
has a husband he is probably an “ornery” fellow who never takes her
anywhere.
Everyone who passes by me looks alert, and sure, and happy and
prosperous, but I comfort myself that probably each one of them has as
much to worry about as I myself do.