Portrait of Nancy Trevors

THEY sat in her drawing-room amid easeful silence in tolerant enmity.

The men were three, and her husband was the third.

This in its way amplified his urbanity.

His suavities were of ivory.

He was more irreproachable than her virginal teacups.

She gave her lips to the moment, and her fingers nestled in a bowl of apricots.

The tea was amber, and the pungent lemon and the blanched sugar

Seized and caressed the eyes as each man took a proffered cup.

It loosed the tongues, and the four were free.

As four portraits on a wall come to life they stirred the silence with a babbling that gleamed.

The drawing-room was draped in a wistaria mist,

And the flutter of the phrases patted the cheek with an alien charm.

In but a short while she had become dominant,

And then she wrapped herself in the soothing nerves of excitement.

The three were lost in the pursuit of fragrance.

Their chairs were their kingdoms, and there were no other empires.

Archly then her voice dared:

“Will you have another cup, my beloved?”

It was three cups that rang to her, and her husband’s, it chanced, was the third.

She smiled over her adroit and ample confession, and it was enough.

She had done with the hour,

And she let the uneasy hush turn to a hodden-grey.