"What comes of this?"
And afterward, in an inquiring tone, he almost cried:
"An error?"
In the light of this thought that his life with its toils, its conflicts, and its triumphs could be an error, he saw, again, that Medusa-face, pale with terror.
Puffie, perhaps frightened by the cry which had been rent from his master, fell to barking. Darvid turned from the desk, and his glance met the black wall beyond the door.
"Was it an error?" he repeated.
The darkness was silent, and a face without eyes seemed to gaze at him persistently, with attention. He moved forward a few steps quickly, and pressed the bell-knob. To the incoming servant he indicated the door, and said:
"Light up the drawing-rooms!"
After a few moments the series of drawing-rooms emerged from the darkness, and stood in the light of blazing lamps and candles. Globe-lamps, burning at the walls, cast a hazy half-light, in which glittered, here and there, golden gleams, and appeared the features of painted faces and landscapes.
From shady corners emerged, partially, the forms of slender and swelling vases; portions of white garlands on the walls; the delicate mists of dim colors on Gobelin tapestry; the bright scarlet and blue of silk drapery. Farther on, in the small drawing-room, burned, in two chandeliers, a bundle of tapers, beneath which hung a crown of crystals, glittering like icicles, or immense congealed tears. Farther on still, in the dining-room, with its dark walls, gleamed a bright spot in the grand lamp of pendant bronze above the table. This point seemed very distant from Darvid's study; but on the whole expanse which divided him from it there was neither voice nor sound—there was nothing living. Notwithstanding the multitude of objects scattered, or collected, this was a desert on which silence had imposed itself.