It was a dim and deep
colour, such as a dust-filmed ruby might emit if illuminated by a soft
light. And Valentine had shrouded it so adroitly that though it pervaded
the entire room, it always seemed distant and remote, a background, vast
perhaps, but clouded and shadowed by nearer things. These nearer things
were many, for Valentine's original asceticism, which had displayed
itself essentially in the slight bareness of his principal sitting-room
had apparently been swept away by a tumultuous greed for ornaments. The
room was crowded with furniture, chairs, and sofas of the most peculiar
shapes, divans and tables, bookstands and settees. One couch was made of
wood, carved and painted into the semblance of a woman, between whose
outstretched arms was placed the pillow to receive the head of one
resting there. Another lay on the bent backs of two grinning Indian
boys, whose crouching limbs seemed twined into a knot. Upon the tables
and cabinets stood a thousand ornaments, many of them silver toys,
sweetmeat-boxes, tiny ivory figures and wriggling atrocities from the
East. But what struck the doctor most in the transformation of the room
was the panorama presented upon its walls. The pictures that he
remembered so well were all gone.
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