The footman had set out the card table, and Mrs. Prather, Mrs. Thorne, Cyril Wolfe, and Count Santarelli settled themselves around it, while Ralph Levinson and Evelyn sank into a deep sofa before a small fire in a carved stone fireplace at the other end of the room. The curtains of faded crimson brocade were looped back from the long windows. They could see the lights on the Grand Canal, the quivering reflections, and a grand-opera moon in the sky. Dinner had been delicious. Ralph was at his best as a host, paying the women subtle yet definite compliments; talking horses with Santarelli, who was a star in the Italian cavalry; explaining to Cyril Wolfe why he preferred the paintings of Toulouse-Lautrec to those of Renoir; discussing foreign finance with that hard-headed woman, Mrs. Prather; giving a servant an order in fluent Italian. How different he and Joe are, Evelyn had thought, lifting a spoonful of beaten cream and wine, putting it down because it was so fattening, and then thinking, oh, well! and eating it.
A letter had come from Joe that morning. "I was out in the wind all afternoon," he wrote. "I thought of you and I ran and jumped over fences. The wind was stripping the maples; sometimes the road was a running river of scarlet and pale pink leaves."
The wind blew through the room as she thought of him, but it did not bend the candle flames or stir the mimosa.
