My
thoughts were a chaos of red roses, and anemic little
maids with glowing eyes, and thoughtful young doctors
with a marvelous understanding of feminine moods. So I
turned out all the lights, undressed by moonlight, and,
throwing a kimono about me, carried my jar of roses to
the window and sat down beside them so that their
exquisite scent caressed me.
The moonlight had put a spell of white magic upon the
lake. It was a light-flooded world that lay below my
window. Summer, finger on lip, had stolen in upon the
heels of spring. Dim, shadowy figures dotted the benches
of the park across the way. Just beyond lay the silver
lake, a dazzling bar of moonlight on its breast. Motors
rushed along the roadway with a roar and a whir and were
gone, leaving a trail of laughter behind them. From the
open window of the room below came the slip-slap of cards
on the polished table surface, and the low buzz of
occasional conversation as the players held postmortems.
Under the street light the popcorn vender's cart made a
blot on the mystic beauty of the scene below. But the
perfume of my red roses came to me, and their velvet
caressed my check, and beyond the noise and lights of the
street lay that glorious lake with the bar of moonlight
on its soft breast.
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