The rich man demands something almost as
good as he has left at home, the man of moderate means something much
better. Certain persons given to regarding public wants and desires as
foundations for the fortune of business schemes having discovered
this, the enormous and sumptuous hotel evolved itself from their astute
knowledge of common facts. At the entrances of these hotels,
omnibuses and cabs, laden with trunks and packages frequently
bearing labels marked with red letters "S. S. So-and-So,
Stateroom--Hold--Baggage-room," drew up and deposited their contents
and burdens at regular intervals. Then men with keen, and often humorous
faces or almost painfully anxious ones, their exceedingly well-dressed
wives, and more or less attractive and vivacious-looking daughters,
their eager little girls, and un-English-looking little boys, passed
through the corridors in flocks and took possession of suites of rooms,
sometimes for twenty-four hours, sometimes for six weeks.
The Worthingtons took possession of such a suite in such a hotel.
Bettina Vanderpoel's apartments faced the Embankment. From her windows
she could look out at the broad splendid, muddy Thames, slowly rolling
in its grave, stately way beneath its bridges, bearing with it heavy
lumbering barges, excited tooting little penny steamers and craft
of various shapes and sizes, the errand or burden of each meaning a
different story.
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