He saw her several times before her departure, and came no nearer to
understanding her. The night before they sailed, he gave a dinner in
his apartment, an old aunt of his, more enchanting at sixty than at
sixteen, being the only other guest. That apartment with its
brocaded walls and its marvelous furniture was a revelation to
Nancy. It was like an opened door to her.
She looked at her host with a new interest. He appeared to greater
advantage seen, as it were, against his proper and natural
background. And that background had the glamour of things strange,
exciting, and alluring, smacking somewhat of, say, an Arabian
Night's entertainment. Over the dining-room mantel hung a curious
and colorful landscape, in which two brown girls, naked to the waist
and from thence to the knees wrapped in straight, bright-colored
stuff, raised their angular arms to pluck queer fruit from exotic
trees.
He knew all that, she thought; he had seen that strange landscape
and those brown women, and tasted the fruit they reached to pluck.
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