"'Be it ever so humble,'" quoted the Skeptic under his breath to me, "'there's no place like——'"
Hepatica turned and gave him a smiling look which nevertheless conveyed warning. He needed it. The Skeptic was in a mad and merry mood to-night, and no glance shot at him which, being interpreted, meant that we were under our hosts' roof, had thus far been of avail. "We are not under their roof," he argued defiantly, in reply to one of these silent remonstrances. "This isn't their roof. This is the roof of the Hotel Amazon. That's a very different thing. So different that if I lived under it I'd——"
But the Promoter was approaching us again, with the news that dinner had just been announced as served. He immediately led the way with me, Hepatica followed with the Philosopher, and Althea and the Skeptic brought up the rear. It was on the great staircase that the Skeptic, pausing to gaze upward, at a command from the Promoter, who had just bid him observe certain mural decorations done by the distinguished hand of some man of whom I fear none of us had ever heard, murmured the well-known words concerning the humble home.
"I always like to walk down this staircase when I'm not in a hurry," I had heard Althea saying to the Skeptic behind us, "to get the effect from the landing. Isn't it wonderful?"
We all paused upon the landing, which was about thirty feet square. The Skeptic, leaning against the marble balustrade, gazed out over the scene with an air of prostrating himself before a shrine. Awe and wonder dominated his aspect. Only we who were familiar with a certain curving line over his left eyebrow knew that he was longing to break into an apostrophe on the magnificence before him which would have alienated Althea and her husband forevermore.
"These columns are of the purest (something) marble," declared the Promoter, laying his hand upon one of them. He rather mumbled the name, and I think none of us were able to recognize it.
"Indeed!" said the Skeptic, and laid his hand upon the column. "It seems stout."
"It's the same that is used in the Royal Palace at Athens," added the Promoter.
"That must be why it feels so Greece-y to the touch," murmured the Skeptic; but, luckily, nobody heard him but myself.
In due course of time, proceeding across a gorgeous lobby and traversing an impressive corridor, passing lackeys in livery and guests in evening finery, we arrived at the doorway of the most elaborately ornate dining hall I had ever seen. The Promoter paused in the doorway to let the first impression sink in.