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Around 1911 one of the earliest tenants, the Paris perfumer François Coty, had René Lalique, the jeweler-turned-glass-master, install a great swath of figured glass up the front.

Figured glass folding-doors cut it into three compartments; the ladies’ cabin aft, the dining saloon amidships, with a third division forward, containing clerk’s office and “bar,” the last devoted to male passengers for smoking, drinking, and, too often, gambling.

Almost the whole frontage was of gilt plaster and figured glass, and between that grey seascape and the grey, witch-like trees, its gimcrack quality had something spectral in its melancholy.

This window, like all the rest along the frontage of the hotel, was of frosted and figured glass; but in the middle of it was a big, black smash, like a star in the ice.