The leopard stopped with a low growl before the door in which the rose window was cut.
I recognized it as the door through which the white Targa had led me the day after my arrival, when I had been set upon by King Hiram, when I had found myself in the presence of Antinea.
"We are much better friends to-day," I said, flattering him so that he would not give a dangerously loud growl.
I tried to open the door. The light, coming through the window, fell upon the floor, green and red.
A simple latch, which I turned. I shortened the leash to have better control of King Hiram who was getting nervous.
The great room where I had seen Antinea for the first time was completely dark. But the garden on which it gave
shone under a clouded moon, in a sky weighted down with the storm which did not break. Not a breath of air. The lake gleamed like a sheet of pewter.
I seated myself on a cushion, holding the leopard firmly between my knees. He was purring with impatience. I was thinking. Not about my goal. For a long time that had been fixed. But about the means.
Then, I seemed to hear a distant murmur, a faint sound of voices.
King Hiram growled louder, struggled. I gave him a little more leash. He began to rub along the dark walls on the sides whence the voices seemed to come. I followed him, stumbling as quietly as I could among the scattered cushions.