He alone has seen the pressure of the jewelled hands as
they lay on the cloth or under it, the lawful partner opposite. He alone
has caught the last whispered word as the opera-cloak fell about her
shoulders, and knows just where they dined the next day, and who paid
for it and why. Being looked upon as part of the appointments of the
place, like the chandeliers or the mirrors or the electric bell that
answers when spoken to but never talks back, he has, unconsciously to
those he serves, become the custodian of their closest secrets. These he
keeps to himself. Were he to open his mouth he could not only break up a
score or more of highly respectable families, but might possibly upset
a ministry.
My waiter belonged to this last group.
I saw it in every deferential gesture of his body, and every modulated
tone of his voice. Whether his moral nature had become warped and
cracked and twisted out of all shape by constant daily and nightly
contact--especially the last--with the sort of life he had led, or
whether some of the old-time refinement of his better days still clung
to him, was a question I could not decide from the exhibits before
me--certainly not from the calm eyes which never wavered, nor the set
mouth which never for a moment relaxed, the only important features in
the face so far as character-reading is concerned.
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