im. He made a quick, strange gesture, said
nothing and shook my hand.

"I rang. A maid appeared. I asked:

"'Monsieur Patience, if you please?'

"She answered:

"'Right here, sir. Is it to monsieur that you wish to speak?'

"'Yes.'

"The hall was decorated with paintings from the brush of some local
artist. Pauls and Virginias were kissing each other under palm trees
bathed in a pink light. A hideous Oriental lantern was ranging from the
ceiling. Several doors were concealed by bright hangings.

"But what struck me especially was the odor. It was a sickening and
perfumed odor, reminding one of rice powder and the mouldy smell of a
cellar. An indefinable odor in a heavy atmosphere as oppressive as that
of public baths. I followed the maid up a marble stairway, covered with
a green, Oriental carpet, and was ushered into a sumptuous parlor.

"Left alone, I looked about me.

"The room was richly furnished, but in the pretentious taste of a
parvenu. Rather fine engravings of the last century represented women
with powdered hair dressed high surprised by gentlemen in interesting
positions. Another lady, lying in a large bed, was teasing with her foot
a little dog, lost in the sheets. One drawing showed four feet, bodies
concealed behind a curtain. The large room, surrounded by soft couches,
was entirely impregnated with that enervating and insipid odor which I
had already noticed. There seemed to be something suspicious about the
walls, the hangings, the exaggerated luxury, everything.

"I approached the window to look into the garden. It was very big,
shady, beautiful. A wide path wound round a grass plot in the midst of
which was a fountain, entered a shrubbery and came out farther away.
And, suddenly, yonder, in the distance, between two clumps of bushes,
three women appeared. They were walking slowly, arm in arm, clad in
long, white tea-gowns covered with lace. Two were blondes and the other
was dark-haired. Almost immediately they disappeared again behind the
trees. I stood there entranced, delighted with this short and charming
apparition, which brought to my mind a whole world of poetry. They had
scarcely allowed themselves to be seen, in just the proper light, in
that frame of foliage, in the midst of that mysterious, delightful park.
It seemed to me that I had suddenly seen before me the great ladies of
the last century, who were depicted in the engravings on the wall. And
I began to think of the happy, j