Then she made
her afternoon toilet, and walked, slowly and pensively, to the Kursaal.
Nothing there was new to her, except to be going to the table without the
man on whom it was her misfortune to have wasted her heart of gold.
I think, therefore, it would be better for me to enter the place in
company with our novices; and, indeed, we must, or we shall derange the
true order of time and sequence of incidents; for, please observe, all
the English ladies of our story met at the Kursaal while Ina was reposing
on her sofa.
The first-comers were Zoe and Harrington. They entered the noble hall,
inscribed their names, and, by that simple ceremony, were members of a
club, compared with which the greatest clubs in London are petty things:
a club with spacious dining-rooms, ball-rooms, concert-rooms,
gambling-rooms, theater, and delicious gardens. The building, that
combined so many rich treats, was colossal in size, and glorious with
rich colors and gold laid on with Oriental profusion, and sometimes with
Oriental taste.
Harrington took his sister through the drawing-rooms first; and she
admired the unusual loftiness of the rooms, the blaze of white and gold,
and of _ce'ladon_ and gold, and the great Russian lusters, and the mighty
mirrors.
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