Hy let him go. A dreamy expression came into his eyes. As he threw off coat and waistcoat and started unbuttoning his collar, he hummed softly:
“I want si-imp-athee,
Si-imp-athee, just symp-ah-thee.”
He embraced an imaginary young woman—a blonde who was slow of speech and luxurious in movements—and danced slowly, rather gracefully across the room.
All was right with the world!
CHAPTER XXVI—ENTER MARIA TONIFETTI
THOUGH there is no known specific for heartache, there are palliatives. One such Peter Ericson Mann found in the head barber's chair at the strictly sanitary shop of Manus. The necessity, during all the spring months, of avoiding this shop had irked Peter; for he was given to worry in the matter of bacteria. And he could not himself shave his thin and tender skin without irritating it to the point of eruption.
The shop of Marius was in the basement of that most interesting of New York restaurants, the Parisian. The place is wholly French, from the large trees out front and in their shade the sleepy victorias always waiting at the curb to the Looeys and Sharlses and Gastongs that serve you within. It is there a distinction to be known of the maître d'hôtel, an achievement to nod to the proprietor.