lickering light
of a street lamp it looked a little as though it had gone down in the
world. The greater then was my surprise to enter a hall paved in black
and white marble and in its dimness appearing of palatial proportions.
Mr. Blunt did not turn up the small solitary gas-jet, but led the way
across the black and white pavement past the end of the staircase, past a
door of gleaming dark wood with a heavy bronze handle. It gave access to
his rooms he said; but he took us straight on to the studio at the end of
the passage.

It was rather a small place tacked on in the manner of a lean-to to the
garden side of the house. A large lamp was burning brightly there. The
floor was of mere flag-stones but the few rugs scattered about though
extremely worn were very costly. There was also there a beautiful sofa
upholstered in pink figured silk, an enormous divan with many cushions,
some splendid arm-chairs of various shapes (but all very shabby), a round
table, and in the midst of these fine things a small common iron stove.
Somebody must have been attending it lately, for the fire roared and the
warmth of the place was very grateful after the bone-searching cold
blasts of mistral outside.

Mills without a word flung himself on the divan and, propped on his arm,
gazed thoughtfully at a distant corner where in the shadow of a
monumental carved wardrobe an articulated dummy without head or hands but
with beautifully shaped limbs composed in a shrinking attitude, seemed to
be embarrassed by his stare.

As we sat enjoying the _bivouac_ hospitality (the dish was really
excellent and our host in a shabby grey jacket still looked the
accomplished man-about-town) my eyes kept on straying towards that
corner. Blunt noticed this and remarked that I seemed to be attracted by
the Empress.

"It's disagreeable," I said. "It seems to lurk there like a shy skeleton
at the feast. But why do you give the name of Empress to that dummy?"

"Because it sat for days and days in the robes of a Byzantine Empress to
a painter. . . I wonder where he discovered these priceless stuffs. . .
You knew him, I believe?"

Mills lowered his head slowly, then tossed down his throat some wine out
of a Venetian goblet.

"This house is full of costly objects. So are all his other houses, so
is his place in Paris--that mysterious Pavilion hidden away in Passy
somewhere."

Mills knew the Pavilion. The wine had, I suppose, loosened his tongue.
Blu