A friend comes up to me, one of the three hundred bosom friends with whom I am wont to swap shady stories. He is pallid with sleeplessness, deep horizontal lines furrow his forehead, his brows are convulsively drawn. So we all look….
"Look here," he says, "you weren't at the Meyers' yesterday."
"I was invited elsewhere."
"Where?"
I've got to think a minute before I can remember the name. We all suffer from weakness in the head.
"Aha," he cries. "I'm told it was swell. Magnificent women … and that fellow … er … thought reader and what's her name … yes … the Sembrich … swell … you must introduce me there some day…."
Stretching his legs he sinks down at my side on the sofa.
Silence. My bosom friend and I have exhausted the common stock of interests.
He has lit a cigarette and is busy catching the white clouds which he blows from his nose with his mouth. This employment seems to satisfy his intellect wholly.
I, for my part, stare at the ceiling. There the golden bodies of snakes wind themselves in mad arabesques through chains of roses. The pretentious luxury offends my eye. I look farther, past the candelabrum of crystal which reflects sharp rainbow tints over all, past the painted columns whose shafts end in lily leaves as some torturing spear does in flesh.