same modiste an identical gown, chapeau and furs, and was driven, identically lounging, in a replica of the society girl's Rolls-Royce.
Now the subscript trailed into Mr. Meteen's eyes:
"whose runaway marriage to Justin A. ("Jay") Rountree of Chicago, yesterday was announced by her mother, Mrs. Imbrie Lytle. The young couple are honeymooning at Tryston, N. C."
Mr. Phil Metten stared and straightened, with a flush of pleased importance; he wiped his moustache and preened it with his fingers as he gazed across the little round breakfast table at his wife, Emma, and to his right and left where sat his daughters; Ruby, twenty, and Rosita, nineteen.
Before each member of the family, a fine, yellow half grapefruit, embellished by a rich, round cherry neatly set in the center, nested extravagantly in cracked ice; delicious coffee, in a silver pot with a long, narrow neck, steamed with aromatic aristocraticalness above a spirit flame; red carnations and little sprigs of holly (Christmas compliments of the hotel) bestrewed the white damask. Mr. Metten reviewed all this with appreciation which was increased by his consciousness that he had deliberately special-ordered eggs Mornay and also buckwheat cakes, spurning the set combinations of "club breakfasts" with their various choices for one dollar.
This breakfast would come, with tip, to eight dollars, although it was served in his own suite on which his room-rates really took care of overhead, independently. Sixteen dollars and sixty-six cents daily, he paid for this
