Scattered everywhere were tables and cabinets laden with celadon china, and carved jade, and ivories, and shimmering Persian and Rhodian vessels.
In all the room there was scarcely anything of metal and no touch of gilding or bright colour.

The light came from green alabaster censers, and the place swam in a cold green radiance like some cavern below the sea.

The air was warm and scented, and though it was very quiet there, a hum of voices and the strains of dance music drifted to it from the pillared corridor in which could be seen the glare of lights from the great ballroom beyond.
The young man had a thin face with lines of suffering round the mouth and eyes.

The warm room had given him a high colour, which increased his air of fragility.

He felt a little choked by the place, which seemed to him for both body and mind a hot-house, though he knew very well that the Nirski Palace on this gala evening was in no way typical of the land or its masters.