Twilight Sleep
as previously supposed, effected their first landing at Vineyard Haven, but at a spot not far from the site of her dwelling. Cement, at an early stage, is malleable, and the Alhambra motifs had hastily given way to others from the prows of Nordic ships, from silver torques and Runic inscriptions, the latter easily contrived out of Arabic sourats from the Koran. Before these new ornaments were dry, Mrs. Landish and her friends were camping on the historic spot; and after four years of occupancy they were camping still, in Mrs. Manford's sense of the word.
A hurried telephone call had assured Pauline that she could see Mrs. Landish directly after lunch; and at two o'clock her motor drove up to Viking Court, which opened on a dilapidated river-front and was cynically overlooked by tall tenement houses with an underpinning of delicatessen stores.
Mrs. Landish was nowhere to be found. She had had to go out to lunch, a melancholy maid-servant said, because the cook had just given notice; but she would doubtless soon be back. With gingerly steps Pauline entered the "living-room," so called (as visitors were unfailingly reminded) because Mrs. Landish ate, painted, modelled in clay, sculptured in wood, and received her friends there. The Vikings, she added, had lived in that way. But today all traces of these varied activities had disappeared, and the room was austerely empty. Mrs. Landish's last hobby was for what she called "purism," and
