There were soft solar lights in the next room, which was rose-red, and decorated and furnished in the style of Louis Quatorze. Another negro stood in the doorway opposite; he, too, saluted and threw the curtain back.
The third room was enameled in blue. The blue lights gave it an unearthly aspect, which was increased by the baroque style of its ornamentation. The perfume was stronger.
The negro at the door of the fourth room was a giant. He wore the uniform of an eighteenth century grenadier. His scarlet coat and white pigtail formed vivid spots against the dull-gold curtain. The room within was dark. We waited on the threshold.
At first I could see nothing. Then, gradually, the outlines of the room came into sight. There were low divans and rugs, and mirrors on every wall multiplied them. I heard a rasping sound, and a blotch of crimson and green became a brilliant macaw that scraped its way with its sharp claws from end to end of a horizontal perch. Behind it I now saw the white gleam of Lembken’s robe; then the couch on which he lay; then the girl who crouched, fanning him, at his feet; then the rotund form of the old man, the sharp eyes and the heavy jowl with the pendulous cheeks.
“I have executed your orders, Boss,” said the Air-Admiral.
The old man rose upon his feet heavily and came puffing up to us. His heavy soft hands wandered about my robes, patting me here and there, while he puffed and snorted like some sea monster.
“You haven’t a knife or a Ray rod?” he inquired suspiciously. “You haven’t anything to harm me? I am an old, weak man. I am the people’s friend, and yet many want to kill me.”
He seemed to satisfy himself with the result of his inspection, and withdrew to his couch, picking up a Ray rod and resting it across his knee.
He dismissed Hancock and the girl. She rose to her feet briskly, with a mechanical smile. She was about twenty years old, it seemed to me, but there was a hardness and cruelty about her mouth that shocked me, and the soul behind the mask of youth seemed centuries old.
“Amaranth wanted to stay, to hear what I was going to say to you,” said Lembken, “but I make everybody mind his own business in the People’s House. Besides, she might have fallen in love with you. I like to have good-looking people about me.” He looked at me and at the Ray rod, and then at me again; then, with a petulant gesture, he sent the weapon flying across the room.