The persimmons glowed like lacquer. Sweet as honey, the Greek had said they were. Vermilion, the color, was more than red or orange. Was it Wenny or Fanshaw used to talk about how the three of them were like people out of another age lost in a grey swamp of dullness in their vermilion barge? Another age. If she'd lived in another age. The grandeur that was Rome. Decline and fall. What careers women had then. Dread career of adultery and crime. Messalina. Was it on the Pincian her gardens had been? Somewhere in Baedeker. Carried in a litter through howling streets, swinging above the torches and the black dripping backs of slaves with an arm about the neck of a young curlyhaired lover, long ringed fingers clasped about the hard muscle of his shoulder, into the walled gardens winy with the smell of overripe fruits sweet as honey. Great gates closing on streets full of crowds that shrieked challenging, mocking, Messalina. In the hush of the garden on the Pincian she and Wenny in each other's arms, with their lips touching, sweet as honey. Nan felt hot shudders go through her, her cheeks were fire. She pressed her dry eyes against the white cool linen of the pillow and lay on her face rocking to and fro. Then she jumped out of bed and began to walk about her narrow bedroom. She must go out. From the apartment below came the sound of a piano and a man's nasal voice singing: I know a spot where the sun is like gold And the cherry blooms burst with snow. Nan threw open the window and looked out into the empty street. Two cats, arched scuttling shadows, were circling about the lampost. The night was suddenly ripped with their caterwauling. Shivering with cold and disgust, Nan sat a long time in the chair by the window, her palms pressed against her hot tearless eyes. Down the street she heard from time to time the lovewail of a cat. * * * * A bellboy's brown back shiny with buttons preceded them down the dark red-carpeted hall. In spite of Nan's casual stroll beside Fitzie who walked with her face pushed forward eagerly and a smile ready on her lips, she felt strangely uneasy. I merely want to see what she's like, she said to herself, constricting her flutter of excitement as she constricted her wrists buttoning her tight kid gloves. Merely to observe. The boy knocked on a brown door at the end of the hall. Nan could feel her heart pumping. "Come!" The voice was deep, throaty under velvet. The room was bright, wide, looped salmon colored curtains, brisk air with a smell of flowers, freesias. The woman walked towards them, holding out a hand. "Hello, Fitzie. Why, how splendid... I always wanted to meet you, Miss Taylor.... You see, I admired you from afar up at Jordan." Her hand was firm and cool. She had brown eyes, a skin flushed with olive, hair like ebony, and at the waist of a simply cut tuniclike black dress two small red chrysanthemums. "Do sit down. O it is good of you to have come."