"Women’s parts all taken by men, of course," explained her husband, "and they jabber in a high monotonous falsetto without any change of countenance except an occasional attack of pathetic strabismus. Two lovers meet after a separation of ten years. They start, then with two simultaneous squeaks fall backward in a swoon, feet to feet, and lie there with their elaborately dressed heads sticking up in the air, while a supe runs in with wooden supports which he tucks under their necks. The interpreter explained: ’Of course they cannot spoil their hair!’ Ha! ha! It was great; and as for the costumes and hangings, they would stand alone for the gold and silver embroidery in them. Confess, Hilda, they were consoling."
"Yes, they were; and so was the baby we saw upstairs in the Joss-house. He was ten months old, with a black tuft of hair on top of his head exactly like the Chinese dolls, and was dressed in green silk trousers and a red silk shirt."
"You must have wanted to steal him," said Mildred.
"That is what his mother thought, I am sure. He lay asleep in a little wagon, and when she heard me exclaim, she flew out from behind a curtain with a very suspicious expression on her pretty face. Yes, she was really pretty, and dimpled, and young; and her hands were loaded with rings. Robert, just look here one minute. Don’t you think the filigree handle is the prettier?"
"My dear, I ate too many bananas once, and have never since been able to endure the sight of them. If you knew the sentiments with which a souvenir spoon inspires me, you would tremble."
"I will take the filigree one," said Mrs. Page, with a sigh of relief.
The six ate supper together at a table pleasantly distant from the fine German orchestra. Feathery bits of white cloud scudded over the blue above them. Picturesque gables and weather-beaten façades illuminated with the decorations of a bygone time closed them in from the outside world with such an atmosphere of antiquity, that even the dignified beauty of Handel’s Largo, as its stately measures pealed forth on the evening air, seemed an anachronism.
"What shall I put down for you?" he asked, looking up from the order he was writing. "I found nothing on the card injurious enough to be appropriate."