May' in my house."
When Angela had read the letter twice she let it fall, and again took up
the bottle of perfume. Untying the bow of pink ribbon, she pulled out the
heart-shaped glass stopper, and breathed the fragrance of "Parfait
d'Amour, made from California flowers."
The name might be laughable, but the fragrance was exquisite as the sweet
air among the orange groves.
Angela sighed, without knowing that she sighed, as she put the bottle down
and pushed it away.
She did not even look at it again until she was ready to switch off the
electric light, and try to sleep, after Kate had finished her
ministrations. Then, once more, Mrs. May sniffed daintily at the "Parfait
d'Amour," as a bird hovers near a tempting crumb thrown by a hand it
fears. She wondered what flowers made up this sweetness, so different from
any perfume she had known.
"It's California," she said to herself. "Essence of California."
Long after she had gone to bed, Angela lay awake, not restless, but
vaguely excited, as she listened to a mouse in the hinterland of the wall,
and thought her own thoughts, that floated from subject to subject. But
always she could smell the perfume which--or she imagined it--filled the
room with its sweetness.
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