It was
lighted by three long perpendicular slits of windows, let into a
twelve-foot thickness of wall. Juliet had a glimpse of many pine trees
as she passed them.
The passage ended in heavy curtains of the same dark-brown material. She
stopped and looked at her companion.
"What is it?" he said, with a laugh. "Are you afraid of my inner
sanctuary?"
He parted the curtains, disclosing a tall oak door. She saw no latch upon
it, but his hand went up behind the curtain, and she heard the click of a
spring. In a moment the tall door opened before her.
"Go in!" he said easily.
She entered a strange room, oak-panelled, shaped like a cone, lighted
only by a glass dome in the roof. It was the most curious chamber she
had ever seen. She trod on a tiger-skin as she entered, and noted that
the floor was covered with them. There was no chair anywhere, only a
long, deep couch, also draped with tiger-skins. Tiger faces glared at
her from all directions. She heard the door click behind her and
turning realized that it had disappeared in the oak panelling against
which her host was standing.
He laughed at her quizzically, "I believe you are frightened.
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