It had been night in the palace of darkened windows but in the garden it was yet day, although the rose and gold of sunset had faded to paling pinks and translucent ambers and in the east the stars were shining in the deepening blue. It was the same garden on which her windows opened; Arlee recognized the huge lebbek tree in the center, the row of acacias, and the palms against the farthest wall. It was a very old garden. Those trees must have seen many, many years, she thought, and felt again that sense of vague oppression and melancholy which the lonely rooms of the palace had given her; that row of acacias which cast such crooked shadows over the path had been planted by very long-ago hands.
So she thought fleetingly, then stared about, her concern for other things. Captain Kerissen lighted a cigarette; over his cupped hands his eyes followed hers searchingly.
"That is the hall of banquets?" she said, pointing to the raised colonnade.
"Ah, yes—you are quick to learn!" he complimented.
"And could we walk through that into the courtyard?"
"Undoubtedly."
"And this side is the haremlik," she murmured, glancing up at the windows upon the third floor which she felt were those of that rose and white room. Much of the rest of the wing, she saw, extending down to the high wall at right angles to it, was in a ruinous and dilapidated condition. "What is there?" she asked.
"The rooms the Khedive Ismail left unfinished. They are of no use."
"And on the other side?" she persisted, pointing towards the wall that was the continuation of the men's wing, which stopped at the colonnade.
"On the other side is the palace of another man, and on the other side of that, ending the road is a cimitère—what you say, cemetery."