The man rolled them back; another vista lost itself in the darkness. “Lights,” commanded Master Freddie; and the butler pressed a button, and a flood of brilliant incandescence streamed from above, half blinding Jurgis. He stared; and little by little he made out the great apartment, with a domed ceiling from which the light poured, and walls that were one enormous painting⁠—nymphs and dryads dancing in a flower-strewn glade⁠—Diana with her hounds and horses, dashing headlong through a mountain streamlet⁠—a group of maidens bathing in a forest-pool⁠—all life-size, and so real that Jurgis thought that it was some work of enchantment, that he was in a dream-palace. Then his eye passed to the long table in the centre of the hall, a table black as ebony, and gleaming with wrought silver and gold. In the centre of it was a huge carven bowl, with the glistening gleam of ferns and the red and purple of rare orchids, glowing from a light hidden somewhere in their midst.

“This’s the dinin’-room,” observed Master Freddie. “How you like it, hey, ole sport?”