SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY[14]
By FANNIE HURST
(From _The Cosmopolitan_)
By that same mausolean instinct that was Artimesia's when she mourned
her dear departed in marble and hieroglyphics; by that same
architectural gesture of grief which caused Jehan at Agra to erect the
Taj Mahal in memory of a dead wife and a cold hearthstone, so the Bon
Ton Hotel, even to the pillars with red-freckled monoliths and
peacock-backed lobby chairs, making the analogy rather absurdly
complete, reared its fourteen stories of "Elegantly furnished suites,
all the comforts and none of the discomforts of home."
A mausoleum to the hearth. And as true to form as any that ever mourned
the dynastic bones of an Augustus or a Hadrian.
It is doubtful if in all its hothouse garden of women the Hotel Bon Ton
boasted a broken finger-nail or that little brash place along the
forefinger that tattles so of potato peeling or asparagus scraping.
The fourteenth story, Manicure, Steam-bath, and Beauty Parlors, saw to
all that. In spite of long bridge-table, lobby-divan and _table d'hote_
seances, "tea" where the coffee was served with whipped cream and the
tarts built in four tiers and mortared in mocha filling, the Bon Ton
Hotel was scarcely more than an average of fourteen pounds over-weight.
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