Then a gentle voice spoke from amidst the verdure, apparently from no great distance.
"I am here," it said.
He moved forward amidst the ferns and the tall plants, until he found himself on the farther side of a thick network of creepers.

Then he paused, for he was in the presence of a woman, of her who dwelt among the flowers.

She was sitting before him, motionless and upright in a high, carved chair, and so placed that the pointed leaves of the palm which rose above her cast sharp, star-shaped shadows over the broad folds of her white dress.

One hand, as white, as cold, as heavily perfect as the sculpture of a Praxiteles or a Phidias, rested with drooping fingers on the arm of the chair.

The other pressed the pages of a great book which lay open on the lady's knee.