inherent tendency
to exaggeration and Oriental magnificence behind the really delicate
artistic faculties possessed by Jasmine.

The drawing-room was charming. It was not quite perfect, however. It
was too manifestly and studiously arranged, and it had the finnicking
exactness of the favourite gallery of some connoisseur. For its
nobility of form, its deft and wise softness of colouring, its
half-smothered Italian joyousness of design in ceiling and cornice, the
arrangement of choice and exquisite furniture was too careful, too much
like the stage. He smiled at the sight of it, for he saw and knew that
Jasmine had had his playful criticism of her occasionally flamboyant
taste in mind, and that she had over-revised, as it were. She had, like
a literary artist, polished and refined and stippled the effect, till
something of personal touch had gone, and there remained classic
elegance without the sting of life and the idiosyncrasy of its
creator's imperfections. No, the drawing-room would not quite do,
though it was near the perfect thing. His judgment was not yet
complete, however. When he was shown into Jasmine's sitting-room his
breath came a little quicker, for here would be the real test; and
curiosity was stirring greatly in him.

Yes, here was the woman herself, wilful, original, delightful, with a
flower-like delicacy joined to a determined and gorgeous audacity.
Luxury was heaped on luxury, in soft lights from Indian lamps and
lanterns, in the great divan, the deep lounge, the piled-up cushions,
the piano littered with incongruous if artistic bijouterie; but
everywhere, everywhere, books in those appealing bindings and with that
paper so dear to every lover of literature. Instinctively he picked
them up one by one, and most of them were affectionately marked by
marginal notes of criticism, approval, or reference; and all showing
the eager, ardent mind of one who loved books. He noticed, however,
that most of the books he had seen before, and some of them he had read
with her in the days which were gone forever. Indeed, in one of them he
found some of his own pencilled marginal notes, beneath which she had
written her insistent opinions, sometimes with amazing point. There
were few new books, and they were mostly novels; and it was borne in on
him that not many of these annotated books belonged to the past three
years. The millions had come, the power and the place; but something
had gone with their coming.

He