Paris! She was in Paris!
There was a carriage awaiting them from The Ritz with uniformed attendants and a top-hatted coachman and everyone who greeted them seemed to be smiling and offering them, it appeared to Cornelia, a spontaneous and heartfelt welcome that was missing from the more controlled and phlegmatic English.
The Ritz, the most talked-of hotel in Paris, had been opened seven years earlier by that genius hotelier, Caesar Ritz. And Cornelia found herself exclaiming with delight when she entered their large private sitting room overlooking the gardens and saw the elegance of the furniture both there and in the bedrooms that opened out of it.
The bathrooms at The Ritz had astounded the fashionable world. Never had there been so many or such luxurious ones in any previous hotel.
