He never forgot that tea rose!
Confound him--probably another benefit for one of his indigent song
birds. As Howat was about to speak the Colonel disappeared. It was
Scalchi, in street dress, a yellow fur about her throat, warm,
seductive. He had sent the divine Page the bouquet in paper lace. But
she too vanished. He heard the strains of an orchestra; lingering he had
missed the overture, and it might be the first duet--with Geister in
superb voice. He was waiting for Mariana, that was it ... always late.
Then her hand was under his arm. But it was the doctor from Jaffa.
Rudolph was at the foot of the bed, and the two men moved aside,
conversed impolitely in hushed tones. I'm sick, he thought lucidly. One
word reached him--oxygen. It all melted away again, into a black lake
with ghostly swans, a painted mouth and showering confetti; one of the
supreme waltzes that Johann Strauss alone could compose. Later a woman
in a folded linen cap was seated beside him, a chimera. But she laid
cool fingers on his Wrist, held a brownish, distasteful mixture to his
lips. A draught of egg nog was better, although it wasn't as persuasive
as some he had had: Bundy Provost's, for example.
Bundy was a galliard youth, but he was clear as ice underneath.
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