Wonderful bare
white shoulders, and bosoms clasped with gems or flowers and lace,
defied him to recall any treasures of Broadway to compare with them.
Elderly dames, garbed in stiff splendour, held stiff, unsympathetic
inquiry in their eyes, as they looked back upon him. What exactly was a
thirty shilling bicycle suit doing there? In the Delkoff, plainly none
were interested. A pretty, masquerading shepherdess, with a lamb and a
crook, seemed to laugh at him from under her broad beribboned straw
hat. After looking at her for a minute or so, he gave a half laugh
himself--but it was an awkward one.
"She's a looker," he remarked. "They're a lot of them lookers--not
all--but a fair show----"
"A looker," translated Mount Dunstan in a low voice to Penzance, "means,
I believe, a young women with good looks--a beauty."
"Yes, she IS a looker, by gee," said G. Selden, "but--but--" the awkward
half laugh, taking on a depressed touch of sheepishness, "she makes me
feel 'way off--they all do."
That was it. Surrounded by them, he was fascinated but not cheered. They
were all so smilingly, or disdainfully, or indifferently unconscious of
the existence of the human thing of his class. His aspect, his life, and
his desires were as remote as those of prehistoric man.
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