She came back while I was brushing my hair. She offered to do it for me. I was so glad to be able to do it myself. I would not have liked her to touch me.
I hurried with my dressing so that I could go to Bettina.
The woman tried to prevent me. But I was firm. "Show me the way, will you? Or shall I ask someone else?"
She hesitated, and then seemed to think she had best do as she was told.
Half-way down a long, soft-carpeted passage she asked me to wait an instant.
She knocked at one of the many doors.
I heard my aunt's voice inside. And whispering. Only one of the electric lights was turned on here, in the corridor. The air was heavy. The "Aunt Josephine" scent, foreign, dizzily sweet, was everywhere. A light-headed feeling came over me. I longed for an open window. They must all be shut as well as curtained. Between the many doors, paintings were hung. I had been vaguely conscious of these as we came up. I saw now they were pictures of women. Most of them seemed to be in different stages of the bath. One was asleep in a strange position, with nothing on. I was going past that one when I noticed the opposite door ajar. I stopped and listened.
"Bettina," I said softly.
A voice very different from Bettina's answered in some language I did not know. I started back and, as I was going on, the door was opened wide. A lady stood on the threshold in a flood of light. A lady with a dazzling complexion. Her lips were so brightly red, they looked bloody. She had diamonds in her ears, and a diamond necklace on a neck as white and smooth as china. Her yellow hair was disarranged as though she had been asleep. She was wearing a kimono of scarlet silk embroidered in silver.
She asked me something, not in French, not German, and not, I think, Italian. I said I was afraid I did not understand.