The message arrived in the morning, and after luncheon she amused herself by taking out and rearranging the contents of some of the little drawers in her bureau. She grew slower and more dreamy as the tidying process continued, because the sight and touch of these small treasured odds and ends carried her further and further backward into the past. Here, for instance, in a drawer by themselves, lay some pressed flowers. They had been picked in that courtyard garden behind the hotel at Buenos Ayres. Here was a photograph of the Mendoza valley. Here were a long white glove that she had worn at Mrs. Clutton’s party on the night of their first meeting, the Hurlingham polo programme, one of her tiny lace handkerchiefs—things that Dyke had stolen from her, kissed a thousand times, and then after many years given back to her for safe keeping. She was lost in a gentle meditation when Louisa opened the door and announced an expected visitor.
“It’s so kind of you to let me come,” said Mildred Parker.
“I won’t be a minute,” said Miss Verinder putting the things away.
“I am not in the least hurry,” said Mildred, with a nervous gasp.
Mildred was that pretty child to whom Miss Verinder had spoken kindly years ago, when the little thing was sitting on a pony outside her father’s front door in Ennismore Gardens. Now she had become a glowing young woman. Daintily dressed in the prevailing gossamer style, with mauve-coloured stockings and grey suède shoes, with bare neck and looping curls, she had such brightness of attire and such a youthful bloom of complexion that, as she settled herself on Miss Verinder’s sofa, she made the whole room and everything in it seem dull and faded.
“A place for everything and everything in its place,” murmured Miss Verinder, flicking some dust from the treasures that had set her dreaming. “These are souvenirs—with only a sentimental value.”
Then, after some conversation about the flat, she shut the last drawer and brought a chair to the sofa near Mildred.
“Now,” she said, “I am all attention.”