"Why don't you
pad?"
The orchestra played a wailing waltz that Medora had learned from
the hand-organs. She followed the air with nodding head in a sweet
soprano hum. Madder looked across the table at her, and wondered in
what strange waters Binkley had caught her in his seine. She smiled
at him, and they raised glasses and drank of the wine that boiled
when it was cold. Binkley had abandoned art and was prating
of the unusual spring catch of shad. Miss Elise arranged the
palette-and-maul-stick tie pin of Mr. Vandyke. A Philistine at some
distant table was maundering volubly either about Jerome or Gerome.
A famous actress was discoursing excitably about monogrammed hosiery.
A hose clerk from a department store was loudly proclaiming his
opinions of the drama. A writer was abusing Dickens. A magazine
editor and a photographer were drinking a dry brand at a reserved
table. A 36-25-42 young lady was saying to an eminent sculptor:
"Fudge for your Prax Italys! Bring one of your Venus Anno Dominis
down to Cohen's and see how quick she'd be turned down for a cloak
model. Back to the quarries with your Greeks and Dagos!"
Thus went Bohemia.
At eleven Mr. Binkley took Medora to the boarding-house and left her,
with a society bow, at the foot of the hall stairs. She went up to
her room and lit the gas.
And then, as suddenly as the dreadful genie arose in vapor from the
copper vase of the fisherman, arose in that room the formidable shape
of the New England Conscience.
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