"There is nothing else which interests me in the world," retorted Theodore, throwing open a door. "This is my study, Miss Carrol, and through that door is my bedroom, so you see I have this part of the house all to myself."
The room was large and broad, with a low ceiling, and a wide casement looking towards the east. The walls were plastered with some darkly-red material, smooth and glistening, and a frieze of vividly-coloured Egyptian hieroglyphics ran round them directly under the broad expanse of the ceiling, which was painted with zodiacal signs. The floor was of polished white wood, with a square of grimly red carpet in the centre. There was scarcely any furniture, so that the vast room looked almost empty. The casement was draped with purple hangings, and before it stood a large mahogany table, covered with papers and writing materials. There was also a sofa, two deep arm-chairs, besides the one placed before the table, and one wall half-way up was lined with books. A purple curtain also hung before the door which led into the bedroom. The apartment looked bare and somewhat bleak, and an atmosphere of incense pervaded it generally, so that when Patricia sat down in one of the arm-chairs, she involuntarily thought of a church. Yet there seemed to be something evil hanging about the place which was foreign to a place of worship.
Mara felt this even more than did her companion, for she walked to the casement and threw it wide open, so as to let in the salt breath of the sea. It was growing dusk, and the room was filled with shadows which added to its eerie appearance and accentuated the eerie feeling of Miss Carrol. Yet Theodore did not offer to light the lamp which stood on a tall brass pedestal near an alcove, masked with purple curtains, which was at the end of the room opposite the casement. Patricia noted that there was no fire-place.
"Don't you feel cold here at times?" she asked, more because she wished to break the silence than because she desired to know.
Theodore smiled. "I am never cold," he said smoothly; "cold and heat and pain and pleasure exist only in thought, and I can control my thoughts in every way. Why did you open the window, Mara?"
"I don't like your stuffy atmosphere," said the girl bluntly; then her nostrils dilated, and she sniffed the air like a wild animal. "Pah! What bad things you have in this room, Theodore!"
"What kind of things?" asked Patricia, looking round uneasily.
"Things that dwell in darkness and dare not face the light," chanted Mara in soft tones. "This room reeks with selfishness."
"So does the whole world," retorted her cousin with a sneer.
"Yes; but the effect is not so great as you make it."