My friend Wyman Holt is a professor of English Literature in one of the smaller universities of the Middle West, and hearing that I was speaking in a near-by city-near-by as distances go in the vastness of America-he wrote to ask me if I would come and give a talk to his class.
He suggested that I should stay with him for a few days so that he could show me something of the surrounding country.
I accepted the invitation, but told him that my engagements would prevent me from spending more than a couple of nights with him.
He met me at the station, drove me to his house, and after we had had a drink we walked over to the campus.
I was somewhat taken aback to find so many people in the hall in which I was to speak, for I had not expected more than twenty at the outside and I was not prepared to give a solemn lecture, but only an informal chat.
I was more than a little intimidated to see a number of middle-aged and elderly persons, some of whom I suspected were members of the faculty, and I was afraid they would find what I had to say very superficial.
However, there was nothing to do but to start and, after Wyman had introduced me to the audience in a manner that I very well knew I couldn't live up to, that is what I did.
I said my say, I answered as best I could a number of questions, and then I retired with Wyman into a little room at the back of the stage from which I had spoken.
Several people came in. They said the usual kindly things to me that are said on these occasions, and I made the usual polite replies.
I was thirsting for a drink. Then a woman came in and held out her hand to me.
'How very nice it is to see you again,' she said.
'It's years since we last met.'
To the best of my belief I'd never set eyes on her before.
I forced a cordial smile to my tired, stiff lips, shook her proffered hand effusively and wondered who the devil she was.
My professor must have seen from my face that I was trying to place her, for he said:
'Mrs Greene is married to a member of our faculty and she gives a course on the Renaissance and Italian literature.'
'Really,' I said.
'Interesting.'
I was no wiser than before.
'Has Wyman told you that you're dining with us tomorrow night?'
'I'm very glad,' I said.
'It's not a party. Only my husband, his brother, and my sister-in-law.
I suppose Florence has changed a lot since then.'
'Florence?' I said to myself.
'Florence?'
That was evidently where I'd known her.
She was a woman of about fifty with grey hair simply done and marcelled without exaggeration.
She was a trifle too stout and she was dressed neatly enough, but without distinction, in a dress that I guessed had been bought ready-made at the local branch of a big store.
She had rather large eyes of a pale blue and a poor complexion; she wore no rouge and had used a lipstick but sparingly.
She seemed a nice creature.
There was something maternal in her demeanour, something placid and fulfilled, which I found appealing.
I supposed that I had run across her on one of my frequent visits to Florence and because it was perhaps the only time she had been there our meeting made more of an impression on her than on me.
I must confess that my acquaintance with the wives of members of a faculty is very limited, but she was just the sort of person I should have expected the wife of a professor to be, and picturing her life, useful but uneventful, on scanty means, with its little social gatherings, its bickerings, its gossip, its busy dullness, I could easily imagine that her trip to Florence must linger with her as a thrilling and unforgettable experience.
On the way back to his house Wyman said to me:
'You'll like Jasper Greene.
He's clever.'
'What's he a professor of?'
'He's not a professor; he's an instructor.
A fine scholar.
He's her second husband. She was married to an Italian before.'
'Oh?'
That didn't chime in with my ideas at all.
'What was her name?'
'I haven't a notion.
I don't believe it was a great success.' Wyman chuckled.
'That's only a deduction I draw from the fact that she hasn't a single thing in the house to suggest that she ever spent any time in Italy.
I should have expected her to have at least a refectory table, an old chest or two, and an embroidered cope hanging on the wall.'
I laughed.
I knew those rather dreary pieces that people buy when they're in Italy, the gilt wooden candlesticks, the Venetian glass mirrors, and the high-backed, comfortless chairs.
They look well enough when you see them in the crowded shops of the dealers in antiques, but when you bring them to another country they're too often a sad disappointment.