The sashes had already been removed from the
big windows, and white curtains waved in the Gulf breeze that streamed
through the wide jalousies. The bare floor was amply strewn with cool
rugs; the chairs were inviting, deep, dreamy willows; the walls were
papered with a light, cheerful olive. One whole side of her sitting
room was covered with books on smooth, unpainted pine shelves. She
flew to these at once. Before her was a well-selected library. She
caught glimpses of titles of volumes of fiction and travel not yet
seasoned from the dampness of the press.
Presently, recollecting that she was now in a wilderness given over to
mutton, centipedes and privations, the incongruity of these luxuries
struck her, and, with intuitive feminine suspicion, she began turning
to the fly-leaves of volume after volume. Upon each one was inscribed
in fluent characters the name of Theodore Westlake, Jr.
Octavia, fatigued by her long journey, retired early that night. Lying
upon her white, cool bed, she rested deliciously, but sleep coquetted
long with her. She listened to faint noises whose strangeness kept her
faculties on the alert--the fractious yelping of the coyotes, the
ceaseless, low symphony of the wind, the distant booming of the frogs
about the lake, the lamentation of a concertina in the Mexicans'
quarters.
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