In silence he went back to Sue.
The door stood invitingly ajar in the brown dimness of the upper hall. Oliver’s steps slowed as he drew near it, and his heart began to quicken correspondingly. It was the red-haired woman’s room, and he thought the door was not open by accident. Her name, he knew now, was Kleph.
The door creaked a little on its hinges and from within a very sweet voice said lazily, “Won’t you come in?”
The room looked very different indeed. The big bed had been pushed back against the wall and a cover thrown over it that brushed the floor all around looked like soft-haired fur except that it was a pale blue-green and sparkled as if every hair were tipped with far visible crystals. Three books lay open on the fur, and a very curious-looking magazine with faintly luminous printing and a page of pictures that at first glance appeared three-dimensional. Also a tiny porcelain pipe encrusted with porcelain flowers, and a thin wisp of smoke floating from the bowl.
Above the bed a broad picture hung, framing a square of blue water so real Oliver had to look twice to be sure it was not rippling gently from left to right. From the ceiling swung a crystal globe on a glass cord. It turned gently, the light from the windows making curved rectangles in its sides.
Under the center window a sort of chaise longue stood which Oliver had not seen before. He could only assume it was at least partly pneumatic and had been brought in the luggage. There was a very rich-looking quilted cloth covering and hiding it, embossed all over in shining metallic patterns.
Kleph moved slowly from the door and sank upon the chaise longue with a little sigh of content. The couch accommodated itself to her body with what looked iike delightful comfort. Kleph wriggled a little and then smiled up at Oliver.
“Do come on in. Sit over there, where you can see out the window. I love your beautiful spring weather. You know, there never was a May like it in civilized times.” She said that quite seriously, her blue eyes on Oliver’s, and there was a hint of patronage in her voice, as if the weather had been arranged especially for her.
Oliver started across the room and then paused and looked down in amazement at the floor, which felt unstable. He had not noticed before that the carpet was pure white, unspotted, and sank about an inch under the pressure of the feet. He saw then that Kleph’s feet were bare, or almost bare. She wore something like gossamer buskins of filmy net fitting her feet exactly. The bare soles were pink as if they had been rouged, and the nails had a liquid gleam like tiny mirrors. He moved closer, and was not as surprised as he should have been to see that they really were tiny mirrors, painted with some lacquer that gave them reflecting surfaces.
“Do sit down,” Kleph said again, waving a white-sleeved arm toward a chair by the window. She wore a garment that looked like short soft down, loosely cut but following perfectly every motion she made. And there was something curiously different about her very shape today. When Oliver saw her in street clothes, she had the square-shouldered, slim-flanked figure that all women strove for, but here in her lounging robe she looked—well, different. There was an almost swanlike slope to her shoulders today, a roundness and softness to her body that looked unfamiliar and very appealing.
“Will you have some tea?” Kleph asked, and smiled charmingly.
A low table beside her held a tray and several small covered cups, lovely things with an inner glow like rose quartz, the color shining deeply as if from within layer upon layer of translucence. She took up one of the cups—there were no saucers—and offered it to Oliver.
It felt fragile and thin as paper in his hand. He could not see the contents because of the cup’s cover, which seemed to be one with the cup itself and left only a thin open crescent at the rim. Steam rose from the opening.
Kleph took up a cup of her own and tilted it to her lips, smiling at Oliver over the rim. She was very beautiful. The pale red hair lay in shining loops against her head and the corona of curls like a halo above her forehead might have been pressed down like a wreath. Every hair kept order as perfectly as if it had been painted on, though the breeze from the window stirred now and then among the softly shining strands.
Oliver tried the tea. Its flavor was exquisite, very hot, and the taste that lingered upon his tongue was like the scent of flowers. It was an extremely feminine drink. He sipped again, surprised to find how much he liked it.
The scent of flowers seemed to increase as he drank, swirling through his head like smoke. After the third sip there was a faint buzzing in his ears. The bees among the flowers, perhaps, he thought incoherently—and sipped again.
Kleph watched him, smiling.
“The others will be out all afternoon,” she told Oliver comfortably. “I thought it would give us a pleasant time to be acquainted.”
Oliver was rather horrified to hear himself saying, “What makes you talk like that?” He had had no idea of asking the question; something seemed to have loosened his control over his own tongue.
Kleph’s smile deepened. She tipped the cup to her lips and there was indulgence in her voice when she said, “What do you mean ‘like that?’ ”
He waved his hand vaguely, noting with some surprise that at a glance it seemed to have six or seven fingers as it moved past his face.
“I don’t know—precision, I guess. Why don’t you say ‘don’t,’ for instance?”
“In our country we are trained to speak with precision,” Kleph explained. “Just as we are trained to move and dress and think with precision. Any slovenliness is trained out of us in childhood. With you, of course—” She was polite. “With you, this does not happen to be a national fetish. With us, we have time for the amenities. We like them.”
Her voice had grown sweeter and sweeter as she spoke, until by now it was almost indistinguishable from the sweetness of the flower-scent in Oliver’s head, and the delicate flavor of the tea.
“What country do you come from?” he asked, and tilted the cup again to drink, mildly surprised to notice that it seemed inexhaustible.
Kleph’s smile was definitely patronizing this time. It didn’t irritate him. Nothing could irritate him just now. The whole room swam in a beautiful rosy glow as fragrant as the flowers.
“We must not speak of that, Mr. Wilson.”
“But—” Oliver paused. After all, it was, of course, none of his business. “This is a vacation?” he asked vaguely.
“Call it a pilgrimage, perhaps.”
“Pilgrimage?” Oliver was so interested that for an instant his mind came back into sharp focus. “To—what?”
“I should not have said that, Mr. Wilson. Please forget it. Do you like the tea?”
“Very much.”
“You will have guessed by now that it is not only tea, but an euphoriac.”
Oliver stared. “Euphoriac?”
Kleph made a descriptive circle in the air with one graceful hand, and laughed. “You do not feel the effects yet? Surely you do?”
“I fed,” Oliver said, “the way I’d feel after four whiskeys.”
Kleph shuddered delicately. “We get our euphoria less painfully. And without the aftereffects your barbarous alcohols used to have.” She bit her lip. “Sorry. I must be euphoric myself to speak so freely. Please forgive me. Shall we have some music?”
Kleph leaned backward on the chaise longue and reached toward the wall beside her. The sleeve, falling away from her round tanned arm, left bare the inside of the wrist, and Oliver was startled to see there a long, rosy streak of fading scar. His inhibitions had dissolved in the fumes of the fragrant tea; he caught his breath and leaned forward to stare.
Kleph shook the sleeve back over the scar with a quick gesture. Color came into her face beneath the softly tinted tan and she would not meet Oliver’s eyes. A queer shame seemed to have fallen upon her.
Oliver said tactlessly, “What is it? What’s the matter?”
