ILLUSION D’AMOUREUX
SHE lay, the gilded lily with geranium lips, in the midst of
the flower of night. Kindlier than the moon, her body glowed
with more than harvest gold. Fierier than the portent of a
double Venus, her green eyes shot forth utmost flames. From
the golden chalice of love arose a perfume terrible and beau-
tiful, a perfume strong and deadly to overcome the subtler
fragrance of her whole being with its dominant, unshamed
appeal.
She lay with arms outstretched, as if awaiting the visita-
tion of some god.
Some ghastly god, for sure? For where she lay, the
gilded lily with geranium lips, was, as it were, a flower of
night.
It was a small square room, black from edge to edge. A
dull dead black that gave back no light from the two solemn
candlesticks of silver, crowned with long guttering tapers,
which gave the only relief in all that world of night.
These stood at the head of her strange couch. It wasa
huge coffin, lidless, with hinged sides, whereon she lay. She
had loosened the girths and lowered the sides, to stretch her-
self at ease. Six black ropes of silk hung from the ceiling
with their hooks, which could be attached to rings on the
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