onsequently was nearly always
full during the season.

If there was one thing more than another that annoyed the Grand
Babylon--put its back up, so to speak--it was to be compared with, or
to be mistaken for, an American hotel. The Grand Babylon was resolutely
opposed to American methods of eating, drinking, and lodging--but
especially American methods of drinking. The resentment of Jules, on
being requested to supply Mr Theodore Racksole with an Angel Kiss, will
therefore be appreciated.

'Anybody with Mr Theodore Racksole?' asked Jules, continuing his
conversation with Miss Spencer. He put a scornful stress on every
syllable of the guest's name.

'Miss Racksole--she's in No. 111.'

Jules paused, and stroked his left whisker as it lay on his gleaming
white collar.

'She's where?' he queried, with a peculiar emphasis.

'No. 111. I couldn't help it. There was no other room with a bathroom
and dressing-room on that floor.' Miss Spencer's voice had an appealing
tone of excuse.

'Why didn't you tell Mr Theodore Racksole and Miss Racksole that we were
unable to accommodate them?'

'Because Babs was within hearing.'

Only three people in the wide world ever dreamt of applying to Mr Felix
Babylon the playful but mean abbreviation--Babs: those three were Jules,
Miss Spencer, and Rocco. Jules had invented it. No one but he would have
had either the wit or the audacity to do so.

'You'd better see that Miss Racksole changes her room to-night,' Jules
said after another pause. 'Leave it to me: I'll fix it. Au revoir! It's
three minutes to eight. I shall take charge of the dining-room myself
to-night.'

And Jules departed, rubbing his fine white hands slowly and
meditatively. It was a trick of his, to rub his hands with a strange,
roundabout motion, and the action denoted that some unusual excitement
was in the air.

At eight o'clock precisely dinner was served in the immense salle
manger, that chaste yet splendid apartment of white and gold. At a small
table near one of the windows a young lady sat alone. Her frocks said
Paris, but her face unmistakably said New York. It was a self-possessed
and bewitching face, the face of a woman thoroughly accustomed to doing
exactly what she liked, when she liked, how she liked: the face of
a woman who had taught hundreds of gilded young men the true art of
fetching and carrying, and who, by twenty years or so of parental
spoiling, had come to regard herself as the feminine equ