They passed in together, and Douglas was inclined to wonder more than ever whether this were not a dream, only that his imagination could never have revealed anything like this to him. Outside the hall-porter's office was a great silver bowl sprinkled all over with the afternoon's cards and notes. A footman with powdered hair admitted them, another moved respectfully before them, and threw open the door of the room to which Emily de Reuss led him. He had only a mixed impression of pale and beautiful statuary, drooping flowers with strange perfumes, and the distant rippling of water; then he found himself in a tiny octagonal chamber draped in yellow and white—a woman's den, cosy, dainty, cool. She made him sit in an easy-chair, which seemed to sink below him almost to the ground, and moved herself to a little writing-table.
"There is just one message I must send" she said, "to a stupid house where I am half expected to dine. It will not take me half a minute."
He sat still, listening mechanically to the sound of her pen scratching across the paper. A tiny dachshund jumped into his lap, and with a little snort of content curled itself up to sleep. He let his hand wander over its sleek satin coat—the touch of anything living seemed to inspire him with a more complete confidence as to the permanent and material nature of his surroundings. Meanwhile, Emily de Reuss wrote her excuses to a Duchess—a dinner-party of three weeks' standing—knowing all the while that she was guilty of an unpardonable social offence. She sealed her letter and touched a bell by her side. Then she came over to him.
"Now I am free" she announced, "for a whole evening. How delightful! What shall we do? I am ordering dinner at eight. Would you like to look at my books, or play billiards, or sit here and talk? The garden I am going to leave till afterwards. I want you to see it at its best."
"I should like to see your books," he replied.
She rose and moved towards the door.
"I am not certain," she said, "whether you will care for my library. You will think it perhaps too modern. But there will be books there that you will like, I am sure of that."
Douglas had never seen or dreamed of anything like it. The room was ecclesiastical in shape and architecture, fluted pillars supported an oak-beamed ceiling, and at its upper end was a small organ. But it was its colour scheme which was so wonderful. The great cases which came out in wings into the room were white. Everything was white—the rugs, the raised frescoes on the walls, the chairs and hangings.
She watched his face, and assuming an apologetic attitude, said, "it is unusual—and untraditional, I know, but I wanted something different, and mine is essentially a modern library. In this country there is so much to depress one, and one's surroundings, after all, count for much. That is my poetry recess. You seem to have found your way there by instinct."
"I think it is charming," he remarked. "Only at first it takes your breath away. But what beautiful editions."