"We shall never understand!" she sighed.
They had walked some way and it was now night, but they could see a
large iron gate a little way farther down the road on their left.
"Do you mean to go right up to the hotel?" Helen asked.
Rachel gave the gate a push; it swung open, and, seeing no one about and
judging that nothing was private in this country, they walked straight
on. An avenue of trees ran along the road, which was completely
straight. The trees suddenly came to an end; the road turned a corner,
and they found themselves confronted by a large square building. They
had come out upon the broad terrace which ran round the hotel and were
only a few feet distant from the windows. A row of long windows opened
almost to the ground. They were all of them uncurtained, and all
brilliantly lighted, so that they could see everything inside. Each
window revealed a different section of the life of the hotel. They drew
into one of the broad columns of shadow which separated the windows and
gazed in. They found themselves just outside the dining-room. It was
being swept; a waiter was eating a bunch of grapes with his leg across
the corner of a table. Next door was the kitchen, where they were
washing up; white cooks were dipping their arms into cauldrons, while
the waiters made their meal voraciously off broken meats, sopping up the
gravy with bits of crumb.
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