t at
breakfast as usual."

She stepped in at the window, gathered up certain small properties--a
gold scent-bottle, one or two books, a blotting-case, as with a view to
final packing and departure. Just as she reached the door she heard
Richard say curtly:--

"Send the carriage round. I shall not want it to-night."

But even so Helen did not turn back. On the contrary, she ran, light of
foot as the little dancer, of long ago, with blush-roses in her hat,
through all the suite of rooms to her own sea-blue, sea-green
bedchamber, and there, sitting down before the toilet-table, greeted
her own radiant image in the glass. Her lips were very red. Her eyes
shone like pale stars on a windy night.

"Quick, quick, undress me, Zelie! Put me to bed. I am simply expiring
of fatigue," she said.

CHAPTER IX

CONCERNING THAT DAUGHTER OF CUPID AND PSYCHE WHOM MEN CALL VOLUPTAS

The furniture, though otherwise of the customary proportions, had all
been dwarfed. This had been achieved in some cases by ingenious design
in its construction, in others by the simple process of cutting down,
thus reducing table and chair, couch and bureau, in itself of whatever
grace of style, dignity of age, or fineness of workmanship, to an
equality of uncomely degradation in respect of height. The resultant
effect was of false perspective. Nor was this unpleasing effect
lessened by the proportions of the room itself. In common with all
those of the _entresol_, it was noticeably low in relation to its
length and width, while the stunted vaultings of its darkly-frescoed
ceiling produced an impression of heaviness rather than of space.
Bookcases, dwarfed as were all the other furnishings, lined the walls
to within about two feet of the spring of the said vaulting. Made of
red cedar and unpolished, the cornices and uprights of them were carved
with arabesques in high relief. An antique, Persian carpet, sombre in
colouring and of great value, covered the greater portion of the pale
pink and gray mosaic pavement of the floor. Thick, rusty-red,
Genoa-velvet curtains were drawn over each low, square window. A fire
of logs burned on the open hearth. And this notwithstanding the
unaccustomed warmth of the outside air, did but temper the chill
atmosphere of the room and serve to draw a faint aroma from the carven
cedar wood.

It was here, to his library,--carried down-stairs by his men-servants
as a helpless baby-child might be,--that Richard Calma