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 novel. She had, she was convinced, never before seen so much onyx all at once, such highly polished onyx, too. The electroliers of burnished gold, the tall gothic seats, with their rich, red velvet cushions, the purple uniforms and brass buttons of the black attendants, all played their parts in creating an effect in which she could perceive no single flaw. She recalled a happy Spanish proverb, If you want to go to the devil, at least go in a carriage!

Once she had been admitted to Zimbule's apartment, she resumed her inquisitive appraisement, with some stupefaction at first, until she remembered that there was a trade called interior decorating. The room was Viennese (or Minchen) in style—an amazingly acute originality for New York in 1922, Campaspe thought. The walls were brown, the furniture heavy but extremely picturesque, in the fascinatingly tortured shapes affected by modern Austrian or Bavarian cabinet-makers. Campaspe cried out with delight when she descried a porcelain stove in one corner. Over a particularly ornately constructed sofa hung a horizontal row of framed samplers, all the Scandinavian goddesses, Freya, Iduna, and the rest, done in red yarn. There were other pictures, bright amazing dancers by Schnackenberg, portraits of Maria Hagen, Peter Pathé, Anne Ehmans, and Lo Hesse, more remote conceits in black and white by Alastair, a poster for a baroque ballet by Mela Koehler, and nude, graceful pretties with cats by Raphael Kirch-