Page:Nigger Heaven (1926).pdf/91

 Indeed, she derived as much pleasure from the appraisal and admiration of beautiful objects in an art gallery as she would have, had they belonged to her.

Most of the furniture in the room was representative of the Louis XVI epoch, Mary, who had passed Jong hours studying period-rooms in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, recognized at once, and it pleased her to be aware that she could distinguish the chairs which had recently been upholstered from those which still preserved their original brocades. The walls were hung in a pale-lavender satin, and adorned, here and there, with pictures, Fragonard or Boucher sketches, or something very like them. On the tea-table a Sèvres service, in turquoise and amethyst paste, was laid out. The carpet was Aubusson. On the mantelpiece, between a clock and two candlesticks, also Sèvres, stood a few photographs framed in silver. One of these in particular caught and held Mary's attention.

This was a photograph of a lady in evening-dress, seated beside two Pekinese spaniels on a Victorian couch. Across the knees of the unknown, trailing carelessly over the arm of the couch, the long fringe sweeping the floor, was spread a Spanish shawl, embroidered in fantastic flowers. The lady was of a surpassing loveliness. Apparently light brown—very like my own colour, Mary decided—certainly much darker than yellow or tan, the features were not Negroid. Rather they suggested a Spanish or a Portuguese origin. The nose was delicate, the