But only a couple of white-robed servants were there.
The biggest of the inlaid tables was set for dinner; a dinner for one, set in a European way. And the meal that followed was the work of a skilled French chef.
But the sumptuous repast had no charm for a girl worried to death at the thought of her own fate and her father's. To please Alice she made some pretence of eating.
Leaving her maid to revel in the neglected dainties, Pansy went back to her vigil in the arches.
In course of time, the lamps burning low, Alice's prodigious yawns drove her to lie wakeful among the soft cushions of one of the ottomans.
From fitful slumbers Alice's voice roused her the next morning. Alice with the usual early morning tea, a tray of choice fruit, and a basket full of rare and beautiful flowers.
Distastefully Pansy looked at the choice blossoms. She felt they were from the Sultan to his unwilling visitor; a silent message of admiration; of homage, perhaps.
"Take them away, Alice," she said quickly. "And put them where I can't see them."
With a curious glance at her mistress, the girl obeyed.
Pansy drank her tea, all the time pondering on her future.