t real
grass, but only that sparse, bunchy, sun-crisped substitute from
Bermuda; here and there wind-battered palmetto fronds hung burnt and
bronzed; and the vast hotel, which through the darkness he had seen
piled up above the trees in cliff-like beauty against the stars, was
actually remarkable only for its size and lack of architectural
interest.

He began to wonder whether the inhabitants of its thousand rooms, aware
of the pitiless clarity of this semi-tropical morning sunlight, shunned
it lest it reveal unsuspected defects in those pretty lantern-lit faces
of which he had had glimpses in the gardens' enchanted dusk the night
before. However, the sunshine seemed to render the little children only
the lovelier, and he sat on the railing, his back against a pillar,
watching them racing about with their nurses, until the breakfast hour
at last came around and found him at table, no longer hungry.

A stream of old ladies and gentlemen continued toddling into the
breakfast rooms where an acre or two of tables, like a profuse crop of
mushrooms, disturbed the monotony of the hotel interior with a monotony
still more pronounced. However, there was hazy sunshine in the place and
a glimpse of blessed green outside, and the leisurely negroes brought
him fruit which was almost as good as the New York winter markets
afforded, and his breakfast amused him mildly.

The people, too, amused him--so many dozens of old ladies and gentlemen,
all so remarkably alike in a common absence of distinguishing traits--a
sort of homogeneous, expressionless similarity which was rather amazing
as they doubtless had gathered there from all sections of the Republic.

But the children were delightful, and all over the vast room he could
distinguish their fresh little faces like tufts of flowers set in a
waste of dusty stubble, and amid the culinary clatter their clear, gay
little voices broke through cheerfully at moments, grateful as the
morning chatter of sparrows in early spring.

When Hamil left his table he halted to ask an imposing head-waiter
whether Miss Palliser might be expected to breakfast, and was informed
that she breakfasted and lunched in her rooms and dined always in the
cafe.

So he stopped at the desk and sent up his card.

A number of young people evidently equipped for the golf links now
pervaded hall and corridor; others, elaborately veiled for motoring,
stopped at the desk for letters on their way into the outer sunsh