This was so summary and to the point, that Lauriston’s questions, if not his interest, were checked, and he led the way up stairs without pursuing the subject. If the eccentricity of the hall were not to the Colonel’s taste, it was easy to predict that the drawing-rooms would have no charms for him. Here Nouna had let her own conceptions of comfort run riot. No modern spindle-legged furniture, no bric-a-brac. The floor of both rooms was covered with matting, strewn with the well-mounted skins of wild beasts. There the resemblance between the two apartments ended. For the walls of the first were painted black and lined from floor to ceiling with queer little shelves, and brackets, and cupboards, like a Japanese cabinet. The shelves and brackets were filled with vases of cut flowers, cups and saucers of egg-shell china, dainty baskets filled with fruit, brass candlesticks, bright blue plates, cut glass bottles of perfume, hand mirrors from the Palais Royal with frames of porcelain flowers, screens, fans, a hundred dainty and beautiful trifles, each one of which, however, had its use and was not “only for show.” The panels of some of the numerous and oddly-shaped cupboards were inlaid with Japanese work in ivory, pearl, and gold, while others were hung with bright-coloured curtains of Indian silk, fastened back with gold tassels. The ceiling was entirely covered with gold-coloured silk, drawn together in folds in the centre, where the ends were gathered into a huge rosette, tied round with a thick gold cord, finished by tassels which hung downwards a couple of feet. Under this was a large low ottoman, covered with tapestry squares that seemed to have been stitched on carelessly according to the fancy of the worker. From the middle of the seat rose a small pedestal supporting an Indian female figure in coloured bronze, who held high in her hands two tinted lamps, which gave the only light used in the room. The curtains to the windows and doors were gold-coloured silk, edged with gold fringe. Little Turkish tables inlaid with pearl, and immense cushions thrown about the floor in twos and threes, formed all the rest of the furniture. The second room was as full of flowers and plants as a conservatory. Between the groups of foliage and blossom were low black wicker seats, with crimson and gold cushions, and in one corner, hidden by azaleas and large ferns, was a grand piano, which, whenever Nouna was at home, a young girl, a professional pianist, was engaged to play. The walls of this room were bright with unframed sheets of looking-glass, divided only by long curtains of gold-coloured silk, which reflected both plants and flowers in never-ending vistas of foliage and bloom. The ceiling of this room was painted like a pale summer-sky with little clouds, and the only lighting was by tiny globes of electric light suspended from it.