"Do you not recollect that I left you at the hotel for a short time, after our arrival? I accompanied my friend hither, and received from him the clue to these magic apartments. This is a bathing-room," said he, opening one, where a marble bath and ewer, and every luxurious appliance reminded one of Eastern luxury. Even the air had a soft languor in it, as if perfumed breaths had mingled there.
"I should like to see the former mistress of this palace," said I, gazing round with a bewildered smile; "she was probably some magnificent Eastern sultana who reclined under that royal canopy, and received sherbet from the hands of kneeling slaves. She little dreamed of the rustic successor who would tread her marble halls, and revel in the luxuries prepared for her."
"She was a very elegant and intellectual woman, I am told," replied Ernest, "who accompanied her husband in his travels, and assisted him in every enterprise, by the energy of her mind and the constancy of her heart, and whose exquisite taste directed the formation of this graceful structure. She painted the frescos on the ceiling of the boudoir, and that richly tinted picture of an Italian sunset is the work of her hand. This house and its decorations are not as costly as many others in this city, but it has such an air of Asiatic magnificence it produces an illusion on the eye. I wish, myself, it was not quite so showy, but it makes such a charming contrast to the simplicity and freshness of your character I cannot wish it otherwise."
"I fear I shall be spoiled. I shall imagine myself one of those dark-eyed houris, who dwell in the bowers of paradise and welcome the souls of the brave."
"That is no inappropriate comparison," said he; "but you must not believe me an Eastern satrap, Gabriella, who dares not enter his wife's apartment without seeing the signal of admittance at the door. Here is another room opening into this; and pressing a spring, a part of the dividing walls slid back, revealing an apartment of similar dimensions, and furnished with equal elegance.
"This," added he, "was arranged by the master of the mansion for his own accommodation. Here is his library, which seems a mass of burnished gold, from the splendid binding of the books. By certain secret springs the light can be so graduated in this room, that you can vary it from the softest twilight to the full blaze of day."
"The Arabian Nights dramatized!" I exclaimed. "I fear we are walking over trap-doors, whose secret mouths are ready to yawn on the unsuspecting victim."
"Beware then, Gabriella,—I may be one of the genii, whose terrible power no mortal can evade, who can read the thoughts of the heart as easily as the printed page. How would you like to be perused so closely?"
"Would that you could read every thought of my heart, Ernest, every emotion of my soul, then you would know, what words can never express,—the height and depth of my love and devotion—I will not say gratitude—since you reject and disown it,—but that I must ever feel. Can I ever forget the generosity, the magnanimity, which, overlooking the cloud upon my birth, has made me the sharer of your princely destiny, the mistress of a home like this?"
"You do not care for it, only as the expression of my affection; I am sure you do not," he repeated, and his dark gray eye seemed to read the inmost depths of thought.