The space between the pillars and the walls of the room, about ten feet wide, was vacant except for an attendant here and there, and served as a sort of corridor to the different divans. It was dim in this corridor, for the torches were all on the sides of the pillars toward the center of the room, but I could see that the space between the pillars and the walls ran all the way around the room. And with one or two exceptions, which I did not at first notice, the people there were dressed entirely in the Roman costume. And a very beautiful costume it is.
The scene was perfect in every detail, even to the languorous music, serving as an undertone to conversation. I might have been gazing upon a banquet given to commemorate the appointment of Caligula’s pet horse as Prime Minister. In my morning coat and gray trousers I hesitated in the doorway, convinced, for a moment, that my appearance would bring down upon me the displeasure of Rome. Then the boy touched my arm.
“Please to follow the corridor, sar, and select the young lady with whom you will dine. It is velly simple, sar.” Then he turned away and the big doors closed behind me.
I was in for it and I walked, somewhat timidly, along the corridor to my right, glancing this way and that. Whenever I came to a girl alone, her eyes met mine frankly. But deep in the eyes of nearly all of them lay repulsion and fear rather than a welcome. All of them, without exception, were beautiful.
Fury at this abominable captivity, if such it was, surged up in me then. I stamped along, hardly knowing what I was doing, longing for the power to bring the organizers of such a place to book and set the pathetic captives free. And suddenly my eyes met those of a girl whose expression attracted my attention. Her face conveyed the impression of great personal dignity, but beneath this there struggled a desperate appeal, tragic in its intensity. She was reclining on one of the lounges, and she was alone.
I passed between two of the pillars and addressed her quietly. “May I dine here with you?”
She made room for me at once. “It will give me great pleasure,” she answered, with an obvious effort.
Instantly an attendant, dressed in a short toga, appeared beside us and began to heap the table with dishes and wines. Until he was gone I contented myself with glancing at the strange scene about me. And it was lucky that I did so, for in passing, my eye happened to fall on the pillar immediately back of my companion. And in the side of it, at about the height of a man’s head, I saw a tiny horizontal slit, perhaps three inches long and half an inch high. It disappeared at once, leaving the face of the pillar smooth, but in the instance before it disappeared, I was certain that I had caught the glint of human eyes fixed on me.
The girl leaned close to me suddenly, and in terror lest she should appeal for my help and get herself into trouble through the watcher, I began to compliment her upon her beauty, adding some drivel about its effect upon my own heart, which I thought the watcher might consider suitable for the occasion and the part I was supposed to be playing. The watcher was too close and the music too distant and too soft to attempt to warn her, then or later.
The glance, at once hopeless and disdainful, which the girl gave me was a bitter thing to swallow, but I swallowed it for the good of us both and the others. Besides, the attendant was forever hovering near us, and I did not dare hazard even a glance out of keeping with my part.