Breathing a sweet attar-perfume, he followed the guide.
At the end of a darkened passage within, they stopped before a curtain half parted.

The man called out, "A stranger to see the master." A clear voice replied, "In God's name, let him enter." A Roman might have called the apartment into which the visitor was ushered his atrium.

The walls were paneled; each panel was comparted like a modern office-desk, and each compartment crowded with labelled folios all filemot with age and use.

Between the panels, and above and below them, were borders of wood once white, now tinted like cream, and carved with marvellous intricacy of design.

Above a cornice of gilded balls, the ceiling rose in pavilion style until it broke into a shallow dome set with hundreds of panes of violet mica, permitting a flood of light deliciously reposeful.