“Your sister is a brave woman.”
“It was really quite epigrammatic. Blanche declared that a spoiled child was like a spinster’s poodle—an animal that always had the best chair, clawed the visitor’s clothes, and yelped eternally for cake.”
“Excellent! excellent!”
“Mrs. Marjoy glared.”
“Heaven be thanked! I am not the doctor.”
They wandered out into the conservatory together, where tulips, red, purple, and gold, blazoned the benches. Azaleas stood starred with color amid the ascetic snow of lilies. Bowls of mignonette and violet dowered the air with odors. Many rich plants were brilliant with bloom.
The girl drew her bare arm gently from Gabriel’s. Her movements were sinuous and graceful, mesmeric as a Circe’s. He marked the rare curves of her neck and shoulders, her delicate coloring, the golden profusion of her luxurious hair. The vision of the girl bathing in the pool still burned and glimmered in his brain. He was susceptible to sensations for the moment, too prone to pander to the sensuous in art.
“Mrs. Marjoy is a great gardener,” he said, reverting to mundane malice to restrain his thoughts.
“If I were Hamlet’s Ophelia,” she answered him, “I should give her a posy of nettles.”
The man laughed and touched her hand.