CLEOPATRA VICTRIX.
"To my chariot wheels have I bound him,
To bear him in triumph away;
As master and king have I crowned him,
To reign but the length of a day.
I woo but to kiss and betray him,
We meet but a moment to part;
In the hour of his joy will I slay him,
wheels will go over his heart."
Mrs. Veilsturm's drawing-room was not by any means an artistic apartment, being full of violent contrasts in the way of decoration and furniture, yet not without a certain picturesqueness of its own. It was bizarre, gaudy, fantastic, strange, and a faithful reflection of the curious mind of its mistress. The European side of her nature inspired her with a certain amount of artistic taste, while the African blood in her veins made her delight in brilliant colouring and barbaric ornamentation. The eyes ached as they rested on the confused mass of tints, variegated as a flower-garden, and yet there was a certain design and harmony throughout, something like the tangled patterns of those Oriental carpets, those Indian shawls, which represent the cloudy splendours haunting an Eastern mind.