She had dined upon several occasions at the Planters'
Hotel in St. Louis, and had once spent a night at the Briggs House,
Chicago, and the Hotel Imperial at Niagara Palls, and had objected when
her father signed, "B. T. Becker, Wife and Daughter," taking the pen to
write out her own name boldly under his, and upon all summer excursions
had taken upon herself the ordering of the family meals.
But the Hudson awed her, the very Carrara magnitude of the walls, the
remote gold-leaf ceilings, light-studded, the talcy odor _de luxe_. She
wanted to back out of that lobby of groups of well-dressed loungers; to
turn; to run. Instead, she wrote her name on the register, marveling at
her steady chirography:
Luella Parlow, Dallas
A narrow clerk scanned the bulk of her baggage, unhooked some keys, and
called, "Front." She was mildly taken for granted and her assurance
stiffened.
"Bath?"
"What are your rates?"
"Three-fifty and up."
"Yes--bath."
He shifted among his keys and she noticed that when she returned the pen
to him his hand lingered just too long. She had a way of lifting her
eyebrows to express her archest scorn.
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