As he walked the gilded leather of his shoes was reflected in the polished marble pavement and he trod cautiously, for the clean surface was slippery as the face of a mirror.
At one end of the terrace a stairway led down to the lower story of the palace, and at the other end a high square door was masked by a heavy curtain of rich purple and gold stuff, that fell in thick folds to the glassy floor.

Each time his walk brought him to this end Zoroaster paused, as though expecting that some one should come out.

But as it generally happens when a man is waiting for something or some one that the object or person appears unexpectedly, so it occurred that as he turned back from the staircase towards the curtain, he saw that some one had already advanced half the length of the balcony to meet him--and it was not the person for whom he was looking.
At first, he was dazzled for a moment, but his memory served him instantly and he recognised the face and form of a woman he had known and often seen before.

She was not tall, but so perfectly proportioned that it was impossible to wish that she were taller.

Her close tunic of palest blue, bordered with a gold embroidery at the neck, betrayed the matchless symmetry of her figure, the unspeakable grace of development of a woman in the fullest bloom of beauty.