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-puffs 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.