hout. He
could scarcely believe he was in Knightsbridge. Not even a clock was
ticking on the mantelpiece above the fire, in which ship logs were
burning. The flames which came from them were of various shades of blue,
like magical flames conjured up by a magician. He looked round. He had
never seen a room like this before. It was a room to live in, to
hear strange music in; it was not a reception-room. Not crowded with
furniture it was not at all bare. Its "note" was not austere but quite
the contrary. It was a room which quietly enticed. Dion was not one of
those men who know all about women's dresses, and combinations of color,
and china, and furniture, but he was observant; as a rule he noticed
what he saw. Fresh from South Africa, from a very hard life out of
doors, he looked at this room and was almost startled by it. The
refinement of it was excessive in his eyes and reminded him of something
overbred, of certain Italian greyhounds, for instance. Strange blues and
greens were dexterously combined through the room, in the carpet,
the curtains, the blinds, the stuffs which covered the chairs, sofas,
divans, cushions--blues and greens innumerable. He had never before seen
so many differing shades of the two colors; he had not known that so
many shades existed. In the china these colors were repeated. The door
by which he had come in was of thick glass in a frame of deep blue wood
and, by means of a mysterious light in the hall, was made mistily blue.
All along the windows, lilies were growing, or seemed to be growing,
in earth closely covered with green moss. There were dwarf trees, like
minute yew trees, in green and blue china pots.

And always the ship logs in the fire gave out the magical blue flames.

Certainly the general effect of the room was not only luxuriously
comfortable, but also strangely beautiful, though there was nothing in
it which a lover of antiques would have given his eyes for. To
Dion, fresh from South Africa, the room looked too comfortable, too
ingeniously beautiful. It struck him as ultra modern, ahead of anything
he had ever yet seen, and almost as evil. But certainly it enticed.

He heard the distant sound of a woman's dress and saw Mrs. Clarke coming
slowly in from the room beyond (another blue and green room perhaps),
and he thought of Brayfield dying. He thrust a hand into the
breast-pocket of his coat and brought out the dead man's letter.

Mrs. Clarke came up to the fire and greete