Across the room under a tall silver vase that might
have been the one proposed by Achilles at the funeral games for
Patroclus ("that was the work of the 'skilful Sidonians'" St. George
recalled with a thrill), Mrs. Hastings and Mr. Frothingham were
conscientiously finishing their chess, since the lawyer believed in
completing whatever he undertook, if for nothing more than a warning
never to undertake it again. Manifestly the little ivory kings and
queens and castles were in league with all the other magic of the
night, for the game prolonged itself unconscionably, and the supper
party found it far from difficult to do the same. St. George looked
at Olivia in her gown of roses, and his eyes swept the high white
walls of the room with its frescoes and inscriptions, its broken
statues and defaced chests of stone and ancient armour, and so back
to Olivia in her gown of roses, with her little ringless hands
touching and lifting among the alien dishes as she ministered to
him. What a dear little gown of roses and what beautiful hands, St.
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