Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/70

 warm summer breeze that had been dallying among the geraniums suddenly bore up to her the tones of a street organ. The music, softened by distance, came faintly to her ears, and her lips twitched rather sardonically as she recognized the familiar strains of the "Miserere." It seemed a fitting touch of irony that the old air should be dinned into her ears at the moment of her own surrender to despair. She recalled the last time she had heard it. One of Herforth's political victims had sent him a box for the opera, and that hospitable youth had invited rather more of his friends than the box would hold to enjoy the music with him. They had had a jolly time. Miss Imboden's dark eyes twinkled as she recalled it. After the opera they had indulged in a little supper—a very good supper, she remembered. She mentally and lingeringly called up the various items of the bill of fare. They had begun with steamed oysters, followed by mallard duck with jelly, celery, and champagne, and ending with the reckless conbination [sic] of lobster salad and ices. How good it had all tasted! Miss Imboden looked around the clean, bare little room with