I know a spot where the sun is like gold
And the cherry blooms burst with snow.
Nan threw open the window and looked out into the empty street. Two cats, arched scuttling shadows, were circling about the lampost. The night was suddenly ripped with their caterwauling. Shivering with cold and disgust, Nan sat a long time in the chair by the window, her palms pressed against her hot tearless eyes. Down the street she heard from time to time the lovewail of a cat.
* * * *
A bellboy's brown back shiny with buttons preceded them down the dark red-carpeted hall. In spite of Nan's casual stroll beside Fitzie who walked with her face pushed forward eagerly and a smile ready on her lips, she felt strangely uneasy. I merely want to see what she's like, she said to herself, constricting her flutter of excitement as she constricted her wrists buttoning her tight kid gloves. Merely to observe. The boy knocked on a brown door at the end of the hall. Nan could feel her heart pumping.
"Come!" The voice was deep, throaty under velvet. The room was bright, wide, looped salmon colored curtains, brisk air with a smell of flowers, freesias. The woman walked towards them, holding out a hand.
"Hello, Fitzie. Why, how splendid... I always wanted to meet you, Miss Taylor.... You see, I admired you from afar up at Jordan." Her hand was firm and cool. She had brown eyes, a skin flushed with olive, hair like ebony, and at the waist of a simply cut tuniclike black dress two small red chrysanthemums. "Do sit down. O it is good of you to have come."
As she sat down she spread out one arm along the top of the brocaded sofa. Above a long brown neck, Preraphaelite neck, poised a little pointed chin. Nan felt herself sitting stiffly with pursed lips. She let herself sink back in her chair.
"O Fitzie, I've heard about the tour. Isn't it great? I almost wish I were going along. Think of the squalling and squabbling there'll be; won't it be grand? It was funny enough going out to Worcester that time, but the grand continental tour of the embattled Fadettes'll be an unholy shriek."
There was a knock at the door. A waiter came in half hidden under a teatray balanced over one shoulder.
"Would either of you prefer a cocktail or a glass of port or something?"