A seat like a throne, covered with furs of tropic beasts of prey, stood
in one corner of the room in the full glare of the light, waiting for
the monarch to come. Above were arranged with artistic _raffinement_
weird oriental draperies, resembling a crimson canopy in the total
effect. Chattering visitors were standing in groups, or had seated
themselves on the divans and curiously-fashioned chairs that were
scattered in seeming disorder throughout the salon. There were critics
and writers and men of the world. Everybody who was anybody and a little
bigger than somebody else was holding court in his own small circle of
enthusiastic admirers. The Bohemian element was subdued, but not
entirely lacking. The magic of Reginald Clarke's name made stately dames
blind to the presence of some individuals whom they would have passed on
the street without recognition.
Ernest surveyed this gorgeous assembly with the absent look of a
sleep-walker. Not that his sensuous soul was unsusceptible to the
atmosphere of culture and corruption that permeated the whole, nor to
the dazzling colour effects that tantalised while they delighted the
eye.
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