<p>Look at the bold portion in the passage:</p>
<p>In this excerpt from a British novel published in 1938, a woman describes staying with her employer at a fashionable hotel in the resort city of Monte Carlo.
I wonder what my life would be to-
day, if Mrs. Van Hopper had not been a
snob.
Line Funny to think that the course of
5 my existence hung like a thread upon that
quality of hers. Her curiosity was a
disease, almost a mania. At first I had
been shocked, wretchedly embarrassed
when I watched people laugh behind her
10 back, leave a room hurriedly upon her
entrance, or even vanish behind a Service
door on the corridor upstairs. For many
years now she had come to the hotel Cote
d’Azur, and, apart from bridge, her one
15 pastime, which was notorious by now in
Monte Carlo, was to claim visitors of
distinction as her friends had she but seen
them once at the other end of the post-
office. Somehow she would manage to
20 introduce herself, and before her victim
had scented danger she had proffered an
invitation to her suite. Her method of
attack was so downright and sudden that
there was seldom opportunity to escape.
25 At the Cote d’Azur she staked a claim
upon a certain sofa in the lounge, midway
between the reception hall and the
passage to the restaurant, and she would
have her coffee there after luncheon and
30 dinner, and all who came and went must
pass her by. Sometimes she would
employ me as a bait to draw her prey,
and, hating my errand, I would be sent
across the lounge with a verbal message,
35 the loan of a book or paper, the address
of some shop or other, the sudden
discovery of a mutual friend. It seemed
as though notables must be fed to her,
and though titles 1 were preferred by her,
40 any face once seen in a social paper
served as well. Names scattered in a
gossip column, authors, artists, actors and
their kind, even the mediocre ones, as
long as she had learnt of them in print.
45 I can see her as though it were but
yesterday, on that unforgettable
afternoon—never mind how many years
ago—when she sat on her favourite sofa in
the lounge, debating her method of
50 attack. I could tell by her abrupt manner,
and the way she tapped her lorgnette 2
against her teeth, that she was questing
possibilities. I knew, too, when she had
missed the sweet and rushed through
55 dessert, and she had wished to finish
luncheon before the new arrival and so
install herself where he must pass.
Suddenly she turned to me, her small
eyes alight.
60 “Go upstairs quickly and find that
letter from my nephew. You remember,
the one written on his honeymoon, with
the snapshot. Bring it down right away.”
I saw then that her plans were
65 formed, and the nephew was to be the
means of introduction. Not for the first
time I resented the part that I must play
in her schemes. **Like a juggler’s assistant
I produced the props, then silent and
70 attentive I waited on my cue. **This new-
comer would not welcome intrusion, I felt
certain of that. In the little I had learnt of
him at luncheon, a smattering of hearsay
garnered by her ten months ago from the
75 daily papers and stored in her memory for
future use, I could imagine, in spite of my
youth and inexperience of the world, that
he would resent this sudden bursting in
upon his solitude. Why he should have
80 chosen to come to the Cote d’Azur at
Monte Carlo was not our concern, his
problems were his own, and anyone but
Mrs. Van Hopper would have understood.
Tact was a quality unknown to her,
85 discretion too, and because gossip was
the breath of life to her this stranger must
be served for her dissection.</p>
<p>1 “Titles” here refers to members of the European nobility.</p>
<p>2 Eyeglasses on the end of a short handle.</p>
<p>Like a juggler’s assistant I produced the props, then silent and attentive I waited on my cue. </p>
<p>"silent and attentive" should be "silently and attentively", right ? I just want to make sure.
CB test everyone grammar in Writing, but MANY times I encounter errors in CR Passage, many of which are punctuation ????</p>