III
THE PRIZE
Caroline sniffed her way luxuriously through the dusky panelled library.
"I think it smells awfully good here, don't you?" she inquired of her hostess.
The lady's wonderful velvet train dragged listlessly behind her. Her neck and arms were dressed in heavy yellowish lace, but all around her slim body waves of deep colored, soft velvet held the light in lustrous pools or darkened into almost black shadows. It was like stained glass in a church, thought Caroline, stroking it surreptitiously, and like stained glass, too, were the lovely books, bloody red, grassy green and brown, like Autumn woods, with edges of gold when the sunlight struck them. They made the walls like a great jewelled cabinet, lined from floor to ceiling: here and there a niche of polished wood held a white, clear-cut head. From the ceiling
