CHAPTER VII
Stacey and Mrs. Latimer were having tea together. But, since Stacey had ceased to visit the Latimer home, they were having it at the “Sign of the Purple Parrot.”
This was a small but expensive tea-room recently opened on the fifth floor of a building close to the river front, and Stacey, as he entered it (for the first time), glanced swiftly about at its white walls, low white ceiling, small-paned windows with hangings of purple-figured cretonne, and at the purple wooden parrot on a tall standard in the centre of the room. A silver vase containing a single yellow rose decorated each of the ten or twelve little tables. Finally Stacey turned in mute amazement to his companion, since it was she who had suggested the place.
“They have very good tea,” she said, with an amused smile.
However, Miss Wilcox, proprietor of the tea-room, advanced toward them. “I’m so glad you’ve come early, before any one else, Mrs. Latimer,” she said, “because you can have one of the two tables out on the balcony. I’m sure you’d like that. They’re always the first to go.”
And accordingly they went outside and sat down in wicker chairs beneath a purple and white awning.
“Don’t you think it’s a nice idea,” asked Miss Wilcox, standing near them, “to try and use our river esthetically, Captain Carroll? It is Captain Carroll, isn’t it? I recognized you from your photograph. We’re honored to have you come. It seems such a shame to have this magnificent river and then use it solely for ugly business purposes. But that’s so often true in America, I think. Saint Louis is the same way. I should so like to have my modest little effort followed by others.”
Stacey said politely that he hoped it would be, and Miss Wilcox presently moved away.
“You mustn’t mind her, poor thing!” Mrs. Latimer observed kindly. “She’s devoted to her institution. It’s her child.”
“Preposterous virgin birth!” murmured Stacey, gazing down at the river.