We all arrived about the same time, and Anne and I went upstairs
together to take off our wraps in what had been Bella's dressing room.
It was Anne who noticed the violets.
"Look at that!" she nudged me, when the maid was examining her wrap
before she laid it down. "What did I tell you, Kit? He's still quite mad
about her."
Jim had painted Bella's portrait while they were going up the Nile on
their wedding trip. It looked quite like her, if you stood well off in
the middle of the room and if the light came from the right. And just
beneath it, in a silver vase, was a bunch of violets. It was really
touching, and violets were fabulous. It made me want to cry, and
to shake Bella soundly, and to go down and pat Jim on his generous
shoulder, and tell him what a good fellow I thought him, and that
Bella wasn't worth the dust under his feet. I don't know much about
psychology, but it would be interesting to know just what effect those
violets and my sympathy for Jim had in influencing my decision a half
hour later. It is not surprising, under the circumstances, that for some
time after the odor of violets made me ill.
We all met downstairs in the living room, quite informally, and Dallas
was banging away at the pianola, tramping the pedals with the delicacy
and feeling of a football center rush kicking a goal. Mr. Harbison was
standing near the fire, a little away from the others, and he was all
that Anne had said and more in appearance. He was tall--not too tall,
and very straight. And after one got past the oddity of his face being
bronze-colored above his white collar, and of his brown hair being
sun-bleached on top until it was almost yellow, one realized that he was
very handsome. He had what one might call a resolute nose and chin, and
a pleasant, rather humorous, mouth. And he had blue eyes that were,
at that moment, wandering with interest over the lot of us. Somebody
shouted his name to me above the Tristan and Isolde music, and I held
out my hand.
Instantly I had the feeling one sometimes has, of having done just that
same thing, with the same surroundings, in the same place, years before,
I was looking up at him, and he was staring down at me and holding my
hand. And then the music stopped and he was saying: "Where was it?"
"Where was what?" I asked. The feeling was stronger than ever with his
voice.
"I beg your pardon," he said, and let my hand drop. "Just for a second
I had an idea that we had met before somewhere, a long time ago. I
suppose--no, it couldn't have happened, or I should remember." He was
smiling, half at himself.