“I wonder,” said Sara.
“Remember Casa di Corleone and the golden oranges.”
Sara smiled.
“I thought,” she said, “that one day I was to forget them.”
CHAPTER XI
A MEETING
THERE comes a day in the lives of some of us when everything appears as if it were pursuing its ordinary and normal course. We get up in the morning and go through the usual routine—bath, dressing, breakfast, all the little accustomed trivialities which have happened thousands of times in our lives already, and which will doubtless happen thousands of times again. We feel gay or dull as we have felt thousands of times before, and we think, or we don’t think, of the various occupations that will go to make up our day, and we never guess that before sunset we shall have our hand on a door—a door that when opened is to lead the way into clouds of sorrow, or gild our life suddenly with the radiant light of joy. So silently do the fates work, so secret do they keep their intentions from us.
Paul got up that morning as usual at seven o’clock. He had his usual cold bath, which most people would have found uncomfortably chilly on a November morning, but in which Paul found merely a refreshing sting. He rubbed himself dry while humming an air from “The Arcadians,” and then put on his clothes. He went into his studio and found his usual breakfast of coffee and rolls ready for him. While he ate it he looked into a neat brown pocket-book to refresh his memory as to his engagements for the day.
A small girl was coming to sit for him at ten o’clock. Her name was Marjorie Arnold. She was possessed of personality and a fascinating dimple. He had caught the personality, but the dimple had hitherto eluded him. It was extremely fleeting in its appearance. He hoped to catch it and place it on canvas that morning.
There was only one other entry for the day—“4.15. C.C.” It meant that Christopher Charlton was coming for him that afternoon, and would take him to call on the Duchessa di Corleone, who desired to have her portrait painted.