Odette had received him in a tea-gown of pink silk,
which left her neck and arms bare. She had made him sit down beside her in
one of the many mysterious little retreats which had been contrived in the
various recesses of the room, sheltered by enormous palmtrees growing out
of pots of Chinese porcelain, or by screens upon which were fastened
photographs and fans and bows of ribbon. She had said at once, "You're not
comfortable there; wait a minute, I'll arrange things for you," and with a
titter of laughter, the complacency of which implied that some little
invention of her own was being brought into play, she had installed behind
his head and beneath his feet great cushions of Japanese silk, which she
pummelled and buffeted as though determined to lavish on him all her
riches, and regardless of their value. But when her footman began to come
into the room, bringing, one after another, the innumerable lamps which
(contained, mostly, in porcelain vases) burned singly or in pairs upon the
different pieces of furniture as upon so many altars, rekindling in the
twilight, already almost nocturnal, of this winter afternoon, the glow of
a sunset more lasting, more roseate, more human--filling, perhaps, with
romantic wonder the thoughts of some solitary lover, wandering in the
street below and brought to a standstill before the mystery of the human
presence which those lighted windows at once revealed and screened from
sight--she had kept an eye sharply fixed on the servant, to see whether he
set each of the lamps down in the place appointed it.
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