In the confusion of rescuing the fluffery, the owner of the suitcase
had to sacrifice her hauteur and help her husband and son block up the
aisle, while the other matron had the ineffable satisfaction of being
_kept waiting_, at last being enabled to say, sweetly and with the
most polite consideration:
"Will you kindly allow me to pass?"
The blonde matron raised up and swept her skirts back perfectly flat.
She was pale but collected. Her husband was pink but collected. Her
son was crimson and uncollected. The brunette daughter could not have
found an eye anywhere in his countenance as she rustled out after her
mother.
"I do hope that Belmont has been able to secure choice quarters," the
triumphing matron remarked as her daughter joined her on the ground.
"This place looked so very small that there can scarcely be more than
one comfortable suite in it."
It was a vital thrust. Only a splendidly cultivated self-control
prevented the blonde matron from retaliating upon the unfortunate who
had muddled things. Even so, her eyes spoke whole shelves of volumes.
The man who first reached the register wrote, in a straight black
scrawl, "J.
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