However, this condition, he knew, must soon come to an end;
Mariana was instinct with sex; and a short while before he had sent his
acknowledgment of her twenty-sixth birthday.
She sat occupied with salad against the cavernous depths of a fireplace
that, between the kitchen door and a built-in cupboard, filled the side
of the dining room. The long mantel above her head was ladened with the
grey sheen of pewter, and two uncommonly large, fluted bowls of blue
Stiegel glass. In the centre of the table linen, the Sheffield and
crystal and pictorial Staffordshire, was a vivid expanse of rose
geraniums. She broke off a flower and pinned it with the diamond bar on
her breast. "Howat," she said, "to-morrow's Saturday, and I've asked two
people out until Sunday night. Eliza Provost and a young man. Do you
mind?"
"Tell Rudolph," he replied. It was not until after dinner, when they
were playing sniff, that he realized that she omitted the young man's
name. He intended to ask it, but, his mind and hand hovering over an
ivory domino, he forgot. "Twenty," he announced, reaching for the
scoring pad. "Oh, hell, Howat!" she protested. "That's the game,
almost." She emptied her coffee cup, and speculatively fingered one of
the thin cigars in the box at his hand.
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