In a room, the walls of which were lined with pale-green taffeta, a man and a woman were sitting in the late June afternoon. It was a charming room with orange and gold lacquer screens, escritoires and tables of a severe Directoire pattern, needle-point chairs, and a chaste marble fireplace. Stalks of indigo larkspurs and salmon snapdragons emerged from tall crystal vases. A few books bound in gaily coloured boards lay on one of the tables, and the others were cluttered, hugger-mugger, with a variety of picturesque and valuable objects. A bright Manila shawl, embroidered in vermilion and lemon flowers, was thrown over the piano, and was held in place by a blue Canton china pitcher full of magenta roses. A copper bowl, heaped with ripe figs, stood on a console-table. Sanguines by Boucher and Fragonard, with indelicate subjects, hung on the walls. The broad windows looked down on Gramercy Park. This was the living-room of an apartment which included two small bedrooms, and an alcove, which served as a kitchen.
A young man in white flannels, a young man with
