The chairs and sofas were orange; the walls and windows were draped in purple and gilt.

The mirrors, the pictures had great flamboyant frames; the ceiling was deeply vaulted and painted over with naked muses and cherubs.

For Osmond the place was ugly to distress; the false colours, the sham splendour were like vulgar, bragging, lying talk.

Isabel had taken in hand a volume of Ampere, presented, on their arrival in Rome, by Ralph; but though she held it in her lap with her finger vaguely kept in the place she was not impatient to pursue her study.

A lamp covered with a drooping veil of pink tissue-paper burned on the table beside her and diffused a strange pale rosiness over the scene.
"You say you'll come back; but who knows ?" Gilbert Osmond said.
"I think you're much more likely to start on your voyage round the world.