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:
Ask thy soul if we should part!
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
