"Oh, she is giving the last touch to her eyelids, or she is arranging a chaplet for me; she will come presently, more beautiful of the delay!" He sat down then to admire a candelabrum--a bronze plinth on rollers, filigree on the sides and edges; the post at one end, and on the end opposite it an altar and a female celebrant; the lamp-rests swinging by delicate chains from the extremities of drooping palm-branches; altogether a wonder in its way.

But the silence would obtrude itself: he listened even as he looked at the pretty object--he listened, but there was not a sound; the palace was still as a tomb.
There might be a mistake.

No, the messenger had come from the Egyptian, and this was the palace of Idernee.

Then he remembered how mysteriously the door had opened so soundlessly, so of itself.
He would see! He went to the same door.

Though he walked ever so lightly the sound of his stepping was loud and harsh, and he shrank from it.
He was getting nervous.