The Golden Peaks Read Online Free PDF

time that Celia was in it.
    Later in the evening, Johanna came to her as she was talking to Gustave and Hans. Their work was done, and they were all resting, talking idly, weary, and glad that they had finished for the day. Gustave particularly seemed to have a fondness for Celia; he saved little delicacies for her in the kitchen, told the staff she was going to be his girl, taught her ribald songs in foreign languages, but was, with it all, scrupulously polite and never really intruded. He and everybody else, knew that he was joking.
    Johanna said:
    “Mr. St. Pierre wishes to see you in the office, Celia.”
    “Mr. St. Pierre? I did not know he was back.”
    “Only this afternoon,” said Johanna.
    “Why does he want to see me? What have I done?”
    “I expect he wishes to make your acquaintance. I have not known him before to allow Anneliese to engage a waitress.”
    “I hope he’ll approve,” said Celia, smoothing down her apron, and looking anxiously in the small mirror to see if she were tidy.
    “I shall tell him you are a very good worker,” said Johanna, “for, indeed, you have done very well. I have been pleased with you.”
    Celia went to the office and knocked on the door, but when she went inside and saw him sitting at the desk, she still did not for a few seconds realize that this was Mr. St. Pierre. For this was the man she had encountered on the mountain. He glanced briefly at her, finished signing the letters before him, put them in a pile on one side, and then looked up at her.
    “So you are Celia?” he said.
    “Yes, sir."
    “The waitress whom Miss Sommer engaged for me?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “And Miss Sommer tells me that when she engaged you, she gave you clearly to understand the kind of behavior that would be required from you.”
    Celia waited.
    “That is so?” he asked, his dark eyes on her face.
    “Well—yes,” she replied, thinking that Anneliese had said very little about behavior, probably thinking it superfluous.
    “Then there is no excuse for the sort of thing I saw in the dining room this evening.”
    Celia was perplexed for a moment .
    “You mean,” she asked hesitantly, that I should not talk to guests?”
    “ Talk to them? Talk to them? Of course you will talk to them—when they talk to you. You will smile, and be cheerful, and always, unfailingly, polite. But you will not lean over the back of their chairs, you will not laugh aloud so that everybody in the dining room can hear you, you will certainly not leave other guests waiting for service while you finish a conversation—that is unpardonable. You are expected to have enough discretion to say just enough and no more.”
    Celia resented his accusation that the whole dining room could hear her, but she answer ed another point. “The visitors at the other table had only that moment arrived.”
    “I saw them waiting,” he said, “and that is enough. If you are out of the room, that is different . But you were acting as if you, too, were a guest. And that will not do. ”
    “I am sorry,” said Celia stiffly.
    “What will do in England,” he said, “ will not necessarily do here. I insist on good, unobtrusive, good-tempered service, and not even one person is allowed to spoil the whole.”
    Celia stood before him, her head high, silent . “As there have been no complaints about you, ” h e went on, “I am prepared to overlook it this time. But please remember what I have said, for the future .”
    “Johanna said this evening that she is very pleased with me,” said Celia. “If my manner has been too familiar, I will try to change it.”
    “Do. We cannot do with irresponsibility.” He looked keenly at her, and Celia thought he was remembering her fall down the mountain, her collision with him in the hotel, her gaffe of this evening. She flushed a little. He said:
    “Very well, then, that will do.”
    She turned to go. As she reached the door, he said: “Have they made you comfortable here?”
    “Yes,