and I knew that my wait was ended.

She looked resplendent in evening dress, and swept toward me with the
grace, the charm, the ease of a woman of many seasons instead of one
hardly half finished.

"Here are your gloves," I said. She quickly drew them on and made them
fast with almost a single movement.

"And your Russian violets," I added. She looked at them hesitatingly, but
slightly shrugged her shoulders, that were bare and gleamed in the half
glow of lamp and fire like moonlight on silvered meadow, and, turning,
looked up at me and said:

"I am ready at last; pray pardon my long delay."

While we were driving to the ball I asked her about the perfumed gloves
with an odor like sandal-wood or like ottar of roses. She said they had
been sent her from Paris, but they were in all the shops, were pleasant,
but not rare. She said nothing about the violets, nor did I mention them
again. Yielding to an impulse, I had before we left the house thrust them
into my waistcoat pocket when she had turned to take up the flowing silk
of her train.

All the evening I could catch the odor of those Russian violets that had
been lightly worn, indifferently cast aside, and smothered by those
artificial creatures, the perfumed gloves, for they were jealous of the
natural fragrance and would have killed it if they could.

All the evening I found myself nervously looking about for Russian