There is a hotel on Broadway that has escaped
discovery by the summer-resort promoters. It is
deep and wide and cool. Its rooms are finished in
dark oak of a low temperature. Home-made breezes
and deep-green shrubbery give it the delights without
the inconveniences of the Adirondacks. One can
mount its broad staircases or glide dreamily upward
in its aerial elevators, attended by guides in brass but-
tons, with a serene joy that Alpine climbers have
never attained. There is a chef in its kitchen who
will prepare for you brook trout better than the White
Mountains ever served, sea food that would turn Old
Point Comfort -- "by Gad, sah!" -- green with
envy, and Maine venison that would melt the official
heart of a game warden.

A few have found out this oasis in the July desert
of Manhattan. During that month you will see the
hotel's reduced array of guests scattered luxuriously
about in the cool twilight of -- its lofty dining-room,
gazing at one another across the snowy waste of un-
occupied tables, silently congratulatory.

Superfluous, watchful, pneumatically moving wait-
ers hover near, supplying every want before it is ex-
pressed. The temperature is perpetual April. The
ceiling is painted in water colors to counterfeit a sum-
mer sky across which delicate clouds drift and do not
vanish as those of nature do to our regret.

The pleasing, distant roar of Broadway is trans-
formed in the imagination of the happy guests to the
noise of a waterfall filling the woods with its restful
sound. At every strange footstep the guests turn an
anxious ear, fearful lest their retreat be discovered
and invaded by the restless pleasure-seekers who are
forever hounding nature to her deepest lairs.

Thus in the depopulated caravansary the little
band of connoisseurs jealously bide themselves during
the heated season, enjoying to the uttermost the de-
lights of mountain and seashore that art and skill
have gathered and served to them.

In this July came to the hotel one whose card that
she sent to the clerk for her name to be registered
read "Mme. He1oise D'Arcy Beaumont."

Madame Beaumont was a guest such as the Hotel
Lotus loved. She possessed the fine air of the e1ite,
tempered and sweetened by a cordial graciousness
that made the hotel employees her slaves. Bell-boys
fought for the honor of answering her ring; the
clerks, but for the question of ownership, would have
deeded to her the hotel and its contents; the other
guests regarded her as the final touch of feminine
exclusiveness and beauty that rendered the entourage
perfect.

This super-excellent guest rarely left the hotel.
Her habits were consonant with the customs of the dis-
criminating patrons of the Hotel Lotus. To enjoy
that delectable hostelry one must forego the city as
though it were leagues away. By night a brief ex-
cursion to the nearby roofs is in order; but during
the torrid day one remains in the umbrageous fast-
nesses of the Lotus as a trout hangs poised in the pel-
lucid sanctuaries of his favorite pool.,

Though alone in the Hotel Lotus, Madame Beau-
mont preserved the state of a queen whose loneliness
was of position only. She breakfasted at ten, a cool,
sweet, leisurely, delicate being who glowed softly in
the dimness like a jasmine flower in the dusk.

But at dinner was Madame's glory at its height.
She wore a gown as beautiful and immaterial as the
mist from an unseen cataract in a mountain gorge.
The nomenclature of this gown is beyond the guess
of the scribe. Always pale-red roses reposed against
its lace-garnished front. It was a gown that the
bead-waiter viewed with respect and met at the door.
You thought of Paris when you saw it, and maybe of
mysterious countesses, and certainly of Versailles and
rapiers and Mrs. Fiske and rouge-et-noir. There was
an untraceable rumor in the Hotel Lotus that
Madame was a cosmopolite, and that she was pulling
with her slender white bands certain strings between
the nations in the favor of Russia. Being a citi-
zeness of the world's smoothest roads it was small
wonder that she was quick to recognize in the refined
purlieus of the Hotel Lotus the most desirable spot in
America for a restful sojourn during the heat of mid-
summer.

On the third day of Madame Beaumont's residence
in the hotel a young man entered and registered him-
self as a guest. His clothing -- to speak of his
points in approved order -- was quietly in the mode;
his features good and regular; his expression that of
a poised and sophisticated man of the world. He in-
formed the clerk that he would remain three or four
days, inquired concerning the sailing of European
steamships, and sank into the blissful inanition of the
nonpareil hotel with the contented air of a traveller in
his favorite inn.

The young man -- not to question the veracity of
the register -- was Harold Farrington. He drifted
into the exclusive and calm current of life in the Lotus
so tactfully and silently that not a ripple alarmed his
fellow-seekers after rest. He ate in the Lotus and
of its patronym, and was lulled into blissful peace
with the other fortunate mariners. In one day he
acquired his table and his waiter and the fear lest the
panting chasers after repose that kept Broadway
warm should pounce upon and destroy this contiguous
but covert haven.

After dinner on the next day after the arrival of
Harold Farrington Madame Beaumont dropped her
handkerchief in passing out. Mr. Farrington recov-
ered and returned it without the effusiveness of a
seeker after acquaintance.

Perhaps there was a mystic freemasonry between
the discriminating guests of the Lotus. Perhaps
they were drawn one to another by the fact of their
common good fortune in discovering the acme of sum-
mer resorts in a Broadway hotel. Words delicate in
courtesy and tentative in departure from formality
passed between the two. And, as if in the expedient
atmosphere of a real summer resort, an acquaintance
grew, flowered and fructified on the spot as does the
mystic plant of the conjuror. For a few moments
they stood on a balcony upon which the corridor
ended, and tossed the feathery ball of conversation.

"One tires of the old resorts," said Madame Beau-
mont, with a faint but sweet smile. "What is the use
to fly to the mountains or the seashore to escape noise
and dust when the very people that make both follow
us there?"

"Even on the ocean," remarked Farrington, sadly,
"the Philistines be upon you. The most exclusive
steamers are getting to be scarcely more than ferry
boats. Heaven help us when the summer resorter dis-
covers that the Lotus is further away from Broadway
than Thousand Islands or Mackinac."

"I hope our secret will be safe for a week, any-
how," said Madame, with a sigh and a smile. "I do
not know where I would go if they should descend
upon the dear Lotus. I know of but one place so de-
lightful in summer, and that is the castle of Count
Polinski, in the Ural Mountains."

"I hear that Baden-Baden and Cannes are almost
deserted this season," said Farrington. "Year by
year the old resorts fall in disrepute. Perhaps many
others, like ourselves, are seeking out the quiet nooks
that are overlooked by the majority."

"I promise myself three days more of this delicious
rest," said Madame Beaumont. "On Monday the
Cedric sails."

Harold Farrington's eyes proclaimed his regret.
"I too must leave on Monday," he said, "but I do
not go abroad."

Madame Beaumont shrugged one round shoulder in
a foreign gesture.

"One cannot bide here forever, charming though it
may be. The chateau has been in preparation for me
longer than a month. Those house parties that one
must give -- what a nuisance! But I shall never for-
get my week in the Hotel Lotus."

"Nor shall I," said Farrington in a low voice,
and I shall never forgive the Cedric."

On Sunday evening, three days afterward, the two
sat at a little table on the same balcony. A discreet
waiter brought ices and small glasses of claret cup.

Madame Beaumont wore the same beautiful even-
ing gown that she had worn each day at dinner. She
seemed thoughtful. Near her hand on the table lay a
small chatelaine purse. After she had eaten her ice
she opened the purse and took out a one-dollar bill.

"Mr. Farrington," she said, with the smile that
had won the Hotel Lotus, "I want to tell you some-
thing. I'm going to leave before breakfast in the
morning, because I've got to go back to my work.
I'm behind the hosiery counter at Casey's Mammoth
Store, and my vacation's up at eight o'clock to-
morrow. That paper-dollar is the last cent I'll see
till I draw my eight dollars salary next Saturday
night. You're a real gentleman, and you've been
good to me, and I wanted to tell you before I went.
I've been saving up out of my wages for a year
just for this vacation. I wanted to spend one week
like a lady if I never do another one. I wanted to
get up when I please instead of having to crawl out
at seven every morning; and I wanted to live on the
best and be waited on and ring bells for things just
like rich folks do. Now I've done it, and I've had the
happiest time I ever expect to have in my life. I'm
going back to my work and my little hall bedroom
satisfied for another year. I wanted to tell you
about it, Mr. Farrington, because I -- I thought you
kind of liked me, and I -- I liked you. But, oh, I
couldn't help deceiving you up till now, for it was all
just like a fairy tale to me. So I talked about Eu-
rope and the things I've read about in other countries,
and made you think I was a great lady.

"This dress I've got on -- it's the only one I have
that's fit to wear -- I bought from O'Dowd & Levin-
sky on the instalment plan."

"Seventy-five dollars is the price, and it was made
to measure. I paid $10 down, and they're to collect
$1 a week till it's paid for. That'll be about all I
have to say, Mr. Farrington, except that my name is
Mamie Siviter instead of Madame Beaumont, and I
thank you for your attentions. This dollar will pay
the instalment due on the dress to-morrow. I guess
I'll go up to my room now."

Harold Farrington listened to the recital of the
Lotus's loveliest guest with an impassive countenance.
When she had concluded he drew a small book like a
checkbook from his coat pocket. He wrote upon a
blank form in this with a stub of pencil, tore out the
leaf, tossed it over to his companion and took up the
paper dollar.

"I've got to go to work, too, in the morning," he
said, "and I might as well begin now. There's a
receipt for the dollar instalment. I've been a col-
lector for O'Dowd & Levinsky for three years.
Funny, ain't it, that you and me both had the same
idea about spending our vacation? I've always
wanted to put up at a swell hotel, and I saved up out
of my twenty per, and did it. Say, Mame, how about
a trip to Coney Saturday night on the boat
what?"

The face of the pseudo Madame Heloise D'Arcy
Beaumont beamed.

"Oh, you bet I'll go, Mr. Farrington. The store
closes at twelve on Saturdays. I guess Coney'll be
all right even if we did spend a week with the swells."

Below the balcony the sweltering city growled and
buzzed in the July night. Inside the Hotel Lotus
the tempered, cool shadows reigned, and the solicitous
waiter single-footed near the low windows, ready at
a nod to serve Madame and her escort.

At the door of the elevator Farrington took his
leave, and Madame Beaumont made her last ascent.
But before they reached the noiseless cage be said:
"Just forget that 'Harold Farrington,' will you?
McManus is the name -- James McManus. Some
call me Jimmy."

"Good-night, Jimmy," said Madame.