CHAPTER XV.
The Angry, Whispering Globe Our way led along a winding path between banked masses of softly radiant blooms, groups of feathery ferns whose plumes were starred with fragrant white and blue flowerets, slender creepers swinging from the branches of the strangely trunked trees, bearing along their threads orchid-like blossoms both delicately frail and gorgeously flamboyant.
The path we trod was an exquisite mosaic--pastel greens and pinks upon a soft grey base, garlands of nimbused forms like the flaming rose of the Rosicrucians held in the mouths of the flying serpents.

A smaller pavilion arose before us, single-storied, front wide open.
Upon its threshold Rador paused, bowed deeply, and motioned us within.
The chamber we entered was large, closed on two sides by screens of grey; at the back gay, concealing curtains.

The low table of blue stone, dressed with fine white cloths, stretched at one side flanked by the cushioned divans.
At the left was a high tripod bearing one of the rosy globes we had seen in the house of Yolara; at the head of the table a smaller globe similar to the whispering one.

Rador pressed upon its base, and two other screens slid into place across the entrance, shutting in the room.
He clapped his hands; the curtains parted, and two girls came through them.

Tall and willow lithe, their bluish-black hair falling in ringlets just below their white shoulders, their clear eyes of forget-me-not blue, and skins of extraordinary fineness and purity--they were singularly attractive.