While waiting to be served she removed her gloves very leisurely and
laid them beside her. Then she picked up a magazine and glanced through
it, cutting the pages with a blunt edge of her knife. It was all very
agreeable. The damask was even more spotless than it had seemed through
the window, and the crystal more sparkling. There were quiet ladies and
gentlemen, who did not notice her, lunching at the small tables like
her own. A soft, pleasing strain of music could be heard, and a gentle
breeze, was blowing through the window. She tasted a bite, and she read
a word or two, and she sipped the amber wine and wiggled her toes in
the silk stockings. The price of it made no difference. She counted the
money out to the waiter and left an extra coin on his tray, whereupon he
bowed before her as before a princess of royal blood.
There was still money in her purse, and her next temptation presented
itself in the shape of a matinee poster.
It was a little later when she entered the theatre, the play had begun
and the house seemed to her to be packed. But there were vacant
seats here and there, and into one of them she was ushered, between
brilliantly dressed women who had gone there to kill time and eat candy
and display their gaudy attire. There were many others who were there
solely for the play and acting. It is safe to say there was no one
present who bore quite the attitude which Mrs. Sommers did to her
surroundings. She gathered in the whole--stage and players and people in
one wide impression, and absorbed it and enjoyed it. She laughed at
the comedy and wept--she and the gaudy woman next to her wept over the
tragedy. And they talked a little together over it. And the gaudy woman
wiped her eyes and sniffled on a tiny square of filmy, perfumed lace and
passed little Mrs. Sommers her box of candy.
The play was over, the music ceased, the crowd filed out. It was like
a dream ended. People scattered in all directions. Mrs. Sommers went to
the corner and waited for the cable car.
A man with keen eyes, who sat opposite to her, seemed to like the study
of her small, pale face. It puzzled him to decipher what he saw there.
In truth, he saw nothing-unless he were wizard enough to detect a
poignant wish, a powerful longing that the cable car would never stop
anywhere, but go on and on with her forever.