But the composure which had already been slightly
shaken by the visit of the lady of the feathers, and by the words of
Wade, was destined to be curiously upset by the motionless vision of the
empty room.
Sitting thus in it alone the doctor examined it with more detail, and
with a more definite remembrance of Valentine's habit of mind than
before. And he found himself increasingly amazed and confounded. For not
only was the change great, but it was not governed and directed by good
taste, or even by any definite taste, either good or bad. A number of
people might have devised the arrangement and selection of the mass of
furniture and ornaments, and have thrown things down here and there in
sheer defiance of each other's predilections. Only in the setting, the
red setting of the picture, was there evidence of the presence of a
presiding genius. In that red setting the doctor supposed that he was to
read Valentine. He could read nobody in the rest of the room, or perhaps
everybody whose taste refused purity and calm as foolish Dead Sea
growths. Some of the silver ornaments might have assembled in the garish
boudoir of a Parisian _fille de joie_, as the carved woman might have
been the couch to which Thais tempted Paphnuce, and the Indian boys the
lifeless slaves of Aphrodite.
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