Page:The Tattooed Countess (1924).pdf/215

 The flowers in the garden seemed to be expelling their odours like incense-burners in Chinese pagodas. The Countess could not separate these odours or identify them; she merely enjoyed the impression of a pleasant and sensual aroma. The porch was attractive. Woodbine and Virginia creeper clambered over a wire trellis, concealing a nook of the porch from the view of the street. Baskets bound in moss, in which ferns were growing, hung from chains attached to the ceiling. There were wicker-chairs and tables, cushions and rugs. On one of the tables lay a pile of magazines: Harper's. The Critic, Scribner's, and a novel that Lou had been reading that afternoon, Margaret Deland's The Wisdom of Fools. The Countess lifted a palm-leaf fan and languidly waved it back and forth.

Clatter, clatter, clatter, rumble, rumble, rumble: hoofs and wheels on the pavement. . . . Tinkle, tinkle, from the mandolins. . . . You're out! . . . Shinny on your own side! . . . On the porch opposite the young people were singing:

As she recognized this tune which she had not heard for so many years, the Countess smiled and began to hum it to herself. The chirping of a cricket caught her fleeting attention: good luck, she assured herself. The cicade were scraping their anatomical violas in the trees. The Countess sank