There was no one so
effective as the Austrian officers, who put themselves a good deal on
show, bowing from their hips to favored groups; with the sun glinting
from their eyeglasses, and their hands pressing their sword-hilts, they
moved between the tables with the gait of tight-laced women.
"They all wear corsets," Burnamy explained.
"How much you know already!" said Mrs. March. "I can see that Europe
won't be lost on you in anything. Oh, who's that?" A lady whose costume
expressed saris at every point glided up the middle aisle of the grove
with a graceful tilt. Burnamy was silent. "She must be an American. Do
you know who she is?"
"Yes." He hesitated, a little to name a woman whose tragedy had once
filled the newspapers.
Mrs. March gazed after her with the fascination which such tragedies
inspire. "What grace! Is she beautiful?"
"Very." Burnamy had not obtruded his knowledge, but somehow Mrs. March
did not like his knowing who she was, and how beautiful. She asked March
to look, but he refused.
"Those things are too squalid," he said, and she liked him for saying it;
she hoped it would not be lost upon Burnamy.
One of the waitresses tripped on the steps near them and flung the burden
off her tray on the stone floor before her; some of the dishes broke, and
the breakfast was lost.
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