The sweetness of the dying spring day flooded the city, and its very
essence pierced Julia's heart with a vague pain that was a pleasure,
too. Presently she and Connie walked to California Street, and climbed a
steep block or two to the Maison Montiverte.
Julia and her mother, and a large proportion of their acquaintances,
dined chez Montiverte perhaps a hundred times a year. There was a
regular twenty-five-cent dinner that was extremely good, there was a
fifty-cent dinner fit for a king, and there were specialties de la
maison, as, for example, a combination salad at twenty cents that was a
meal in itself. Irrespective of the other order, the guest of the Maison
Montiverte was regaled with boiled shrimps or crabs' legs while he
waited for his dinner, was eagerly served with all the delicious French
bread and butter that he could eat, and had a little cup of superb black
coffee without charge to finish his meal. Brilliant piano music swept
the rooms whenever any guest cared to send the waiter with a five-cent
piece to the old mechanical piano, and sprightly conversation, carried
on from table to table, gave the place that tone that Monsieur
Montiverte considered to be its most valuable asset.
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